That's unfortunate. I got my 8.25KW system + Powerwall installed through Tesla for ~$26K in 2021. Just got my 26% tax credit this year. Also added a Tesla Model 3 in 2021 to complete the Tesla Ecosystem. Truly a dream come true.
My loan payments are less than $140/mo and I plan to completely pay off the system in the next year or so. Living off the sun is great.
I know someone who did 5000W system for around 15,000 in 2018.
Battert/Powerwalls let the solar work when the power goes out. (the dc to ac converters use the 60hz out of the grid to sync. There is no shutoff to the grid so for safety reasons her system shuts down when the power is out).
Oh sure, and I wanted a battery of some kind to keep things running in an outage. I just mean I don’t know why they bid a Powerwall specifically instead of some other battery system.
Any sort of battery system that lets you keep running in an outage is going to be pretty expensive, unfortunately.
But at that point your question isn't "what would be the payback period if I got solar" but "how much is it worth to me to have power when the grid is down". And so not surprisingly many people get solar but don't install a battery.
(Systems that provide a small amount of best-effort when-the-sun-is-shining emergency power when the grid is down seem like they should be a sweet spot here, because they can be implemented very efficiently. Unfortunately a combination of consumers not wanting it, the NEC not prioritizing it, and the shift to microinverters means that instead of adding ~$200 like it did when I got solar several years ago it's now more like $7k)
I get that it’s not gonna pay for itself any time soon, and I’m on board with paying for the privilege of keeping things running when the grid is down. But 50 grand? Come on.
Another benefit is you can use stored energy in your battery during utility peak hours. 4-9pm in California costs [a lot] more than any other time of day.
No thanks.