Welcome to 1BOG University where you can learn about solar and more.
Our goal is to provide information you need to decide if solar is right for your home. We try to keep it simple so you’re not overwhelmed with too many technical details.
If there’s ever anything you want to know that’s not on our website, just email us and ask.
Top 5 Solar Myths
Myth 1. You need batteries to store the electricity.
Almost all solar systems are what is called “grid-tied,” which means that your system is connected to your electrical grid, so batteries are not included. You pull electricity from the grid when you are not producing (at night), and you feed your energy back to the grid for credit instead of storing it in batteries.
Myth 2. When the power goes out, my home is still powered.
When the power goes out, grid-tied systems go out too. That’s because it’s not safe to be pushing electricity back out onto the wires while workers may be trying to fix the problem, so your inverter (the big box near your meter that turns DC electricity created by the panels into usable AC current) recognizes that the grid is out and shuts your system off. The solution? Spend a couple hundred on a generator or don’t worry about it too much; the power doesn’t go off that often.
Myth 3. Solar is only for environmentalists.
Solar is a sound financial investment. If you live in an area with solid rebates and expensive electricity, it’s likely that solar will beat index funds as a long-term investment.
Myth 4. Solar doesn’t work in areas with fog.
This can be best explained by example. In San Francisco, if you were to take the absolute foggiest neighborhood and the absolute sunniest neighborhood, and place an identical system in each location, they would differ by less than 20% in annual electricity production. Another interesting fact is that conventional photovoltaics are actually more efficient in cooler climates.
Myth 5. New whiz-bang solar technology will make solar $1 a watt in only a few years.
Media loves to hype up new innovative technologies but the truth is we’ve been using the same solar technology since the 60’s, and those systems are still producing energy. We’re only about twice as efficient as we were back then, so solar’s not like the laptop you bought two years ago that’s now obsolete. The point is that solar makes economic sense today, and once installed it continues to work for decades. It produces a commodity at a set production rate, and that commodity is one of the few things that we can all be assured is going to increase in value (unless someone figures out a safe way to split the atom).
How much do you know about solar? Take the Solar Quiz and find out.
