Toying with the idea to be a bit more self sufficient.  From what I can tell Tennessee is not offering up incentives to go solar, so wondering if anyone here as done it and can share your experience...

Thanks

CS

I haven't done solar, but I did crunch the numbers around a decade ago, when there was a subsidy and the Nashville news media was selling the idea fairly hard.

First problem was that the news media was, either through ignorance or intentional deception, presenting the math incorrectly.  They were saying that it's light about half the time, so you generate power for 12 hours a day, then multiply that by the panel's power rating to see how much power you get each day.  But it doesn't work like that.  The industry has charts showing the expected daily average of usable sunlight for various cities in the US, since local climate (clouds) and latitude will have an impact.  Also, early and late in the day, the sun is low on the horizon, so power production would be low at those times.

If my memory isn't off, west TN averages 5 hours a day, middle TN averages 4.5 hours a day, and east TN averages 4 hours a day.  Those are the numbers you multiply by the panel's power rating, to see how much electricity the panel can be expected to generate (if properly sited and installed) per day.  Not hard to see why the reports from Nashville's news media seemed suspiciously optimistic.

Next number problem is the service life of the panels.  As they age, power generation drops.  A decade ago, manufacturers were offering guarantees that the panels would still be generating at least 80% of their rated power in 20 to 25 years, but recommended replacing them after that.  I don't know if they have improved the expected service life in the last decade, or not, but the websites of the various companies should say how long the currently produced panels are guaranteed for.

A decade or so ago, with the subsidy that was offered, a grid tied installation (no battery storage, just selling excess power to the electric company) in middle TN could be expected to pay for itself around the time the manufacturers were saying you should expect to consider replacing them (TN's relatively low cost of electricity from the grid, doesn't help much in selling solar).  Changes in current prices and expected service life of the panels, could easily change the results of that equation, if you do the math today.

Thanks for the comments and while I know panels have improved in the last few years, without significant subsidies the payoff is going to be hard to justify.

Battery technology seems to be where the biggest improvements have occurred in the last decade, but that only helps if you opt for the more expensive 'solar with battery' system, allowing the options of being completely off grid, or tied to the grid but having a backup system for when the grid is down.