Liberty

My house is 246 years old (built in 1768). I don't want a sci-fi roof. What's more 'heritage' and old-school than the sun? 8)

I guess it's a matter of taste, but I don't understand the whole "it has to be unnoticeable" thing. It's not like regular roof shingle are beautiful or anything. What's more boring than a plain roof? To me solar panels have that great sci-fi look that make any house immediately look 21st century and much cooler. But that's just me I guess 8)

In the recent SolarCity announcement about the acquisition of a cell maker, Elon Musk mentioned that he wanted to make "cool-looking" solar panels. Maybe he'll chance perception in that industry too :D

That's too bad. And it can't work on the main house?

There is no investment if you go with Solar City. Just a lower utility bill ;) Perhaps they are value shoppers and you are the one paying more? Eric, have you signed up for SolarCity? I remember you were looking at some alternatives a while ago, but I don't think you mentioned picking anything..

And buy some expensive abstract art for the lobby!

As the company develops, the name will develop, but the "Premier" name stays. Cheers! Premier Holdings Premier Corner Permierdyne Premier Hathaway ;) Nice ring to it.

Congrats again! I knew a few days ago, but kept it :-X

My largest and only TV is 32" too. I guess we're TV brothers :D Only on a value investing board would you find such people, every house I go in besides mine has a monster TV hanging on the wall in every living room. My kids were literately jumping for joy and high-fiving one another when we replaced one of our 2 tube TVs with that 32" HDTV two years ago. We still have the tube TV in the other living room though, I didn't want to get too crazy. That's my experience too. Even the poorest people I know have cable (which we don't have) and a TV larger than 45 inches. We actually bought our 32" as a floor demo with a small scratch on the non-screen part, so we got a discount. It was a good value...

My largest and only TV is 32" too. I guess we're TV brothers :D

Please elaborate on what you mean here. Because you know, they build solar PV farms in deserts, so it's not like it's a dealbreaker... Also, concentrating solar uses lenses to focus the sun tens if not hundreds of times on a small high-efficiency solar cells, generating temperatures that are way higher than anything on a rooftop would ever see. This one is a bit extreme, but it concentrates the sun 2000x: http://www.dailytech.com/IBM+Tries+Its+Hand+at+Concentrated+Solar+With+5000x+Collector/article30391.htm It's literally true that above certain temperatures you lose some conversion efficiency, but at these high temps you also tend to have much more sun, so it can be a tradeoff worth making. I don't think you read the article you linked in your own post, because it actually talks about cooling the chips that receive all the light: it's what the whole article is about! Of course concentrated solar has to be cooled. They use all kinds of passive and sometimes active methods. My point is that if you can concentrate the sun hundreds and even thousands of times on a solar panel, even with cooling, the relatively small temperature variations in un-concentrated solar PV aren't that hard to deal with comparatively. As I said, the IBM one is an extreme case, and so the magnification is extreme and so is the cooling. Bu there's a lot of concentrated solar tech that only has passive heatsinks.

These are not the only two choices, though. Maybe it's worth the investment on a purely cash ROI, or maybe they care enough about using clean power that it's worth the cost for them. People do a lot of things that don't have good cash returns just because they like those things (do people expect a good ROI on big screen TVs and nice cars?), so it wouldn't be that out of the ordinary. It doesn't have to be about showing off, it can be an entirely internal motivation.

It's all a matter or price. Solar will become popular first in places where there's the best ratio of current electrical costs to sun. But if in 10-20 years the cost per watt of solar panels is half/a quarter of what it is now, it might make total sense even in New Hampshire... It's a bit like Moore's Law. What made no sense to try to do on computers at a certain time is trivial now just because transistors are cheap.

Please elaborate on what you mean here. Because you know, they build solar PV farms in deserts, so it's not like it's a dealbreaker... Also, concentrating solar uses lenses to focus the sun tens if not hundreds of times on a small high-efficiency solar cells, generating temperatures that are way higher than anything on a rooftop would ever see. This one is a bit extreme, but it concentrates the sun 2000x: http://www.dailytech.com/IBM+Tries+Its+Hand+at+Concentrated+Solar+With+5000x+Collector/article30391.htm It's literally true that above certain temperatures you lose some conversion efficiency, but at these high temps you also tend to have much more sun, so it can be a tradeoff worth making.

What about the much bigger wealth transfers that make fossil fuels appear more economic than they actually are?

Complete bullshit. The cost is ZERO to install solar for the poor (as long as they own the home). Solar City comes out to the house and installs the solar for no money down. Zero Zilch Nada. The rate Solar City charges is less than what they are already paying the utility. So they are guaranteed to pay less than they currently do each month. After five years, they can ask Solar City to remove the panels if they aren't happy -- they will remove the panels at ZERO cost. I agree with Eric, and I'll add that there's a big double-standard with solar and wind subsidies. The people who dislike them rarely say anything about the tens of billions (if not trillions) of direct and indirect subsidies to the fossil fuel industry over time (how much has been spent on military deployments that primarily benefit oil interests?). We're also not talking about the costs of pollution (health, lost productivity, ecosystem damage, global warming, etc). What China is going through right now with its air quality the US went through a few decades ago (look up photos of Pittsburgh smog in the 1940s...).. I'm all for removing solar subsidies if we could somehow retroactively remove fossil fuel subsidies.... I think that would make solar even more attractive against the alternatives, but I don't think we can do that, so I'm fine with some help to kickstart things at first. We're about at the tipping point when subsidies stop being necessary anyway, so it'll be moot soon.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/energy-prices-crash-as-queensland-solar-takes-hold-21256 http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/stanwell-blames-solar-for-decline-in-fossil-fuel-baseload-54543 http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/07/solar-has-won-even-if-coal-were-free-to-burn-power-stations-couldnt-compete http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/solar-sends-energy-prices-below-zero-in-middle-of-day-63767

How is that the most profitable time of day? They have extra transmission lines that need to be built just for a few hours of the day of peak usage. There are plants that are idled most of the time... except during the peak load hours. They might be charging a ton during those hours, but they have to recover the costs of all that extra infrastructure that needs to be built to service those peak hours. In other words, if we all ran our air conditioners off of batteries, and charged the batteries evenly throughout the day, we could then get to a near-constant load on the system. That would mean an optimal configuration of transmission lines and power generation plants. Electricity costs would then be able to fall... because there would be less infrastructure expenses to service. Although, I suppose the state regulators allow them to price-gouge a bit during those peak hours in order to discourage usage -- so we can get by with less transmission lines... etc... I didn't mean for the peakers, I meant for baseload. If you own a coal plant, you make your money selling power during the day, not at night. It's the most profitable time for them. But if the daytime peak is shaved off by solar, like it is right now in Queensland in Australia (you can google it), the whole dynamic changes a lot.

Solar will start by shaving off the most profitable peak during the day. By the time that's done, storage will be a lot less of a problem. Most opponents of solar like to pretend we'll go from zero to 100 all at once, which would be incredibly hard. But like with electric cars, it'll be gradual and we'll have ample time to adapt.

Sounds good. It's certainly possible to find good deals in any market, as long as you do the work bottoms up and know what you're doing. I certainly wish you the best, SD! I don't know jack about the UK RE market, so I can't comment further. Because you have a Canadian flag next to your name, I thought you meant London Ontario.

On top of organic growth, they have a lot more insurance subs now than in 1967... The purchase of Gen Re in 1998 added tons of new float, for example.

You don't think that prices going up over 65% in 3 years from an already pretty elevated level is worrying? How much did incomes go up during that period? Housing has historically tracked inflation. How can this possibly continue? The trend lines of incomes and housing are diverging, with the area in between being filled by debt, and those two lines can't keep getting farther from each other forever... This reminds me of how people were talking about gold a few years ago. It's always worth more than the current price, and it'll keep going up for sure, because who wouldn't want to own gold? How do you value it? Well, it's a good deal now because it'll be worth more later, that's what you need to know. It's all about sentiment, and sentiment never stays the same forever. Maybe your neighbourhood will be fine and is a great spot, but on average, Canada's RE has disconnected from any fundamentals.

Why don't we have eletric cars yet? Well, these things take time to scale up, for prices to come down, for incremental improvements to make them good enough, for mindshare to be gained and trust to be built, to break down all the ways the old tech as encrusted into the world (ie. auto dealers trying to block Tesla from selling its EVs in many states, using old regulations and friends in high places). What's important are the long term trends... http://costofsolar.com/management/uploads/2013/06/price-of-solar-power-drop-graph.jpg

"The reason is simple: I want to eventually retire with a paid-off house, and I was running out of time. " That doesn't make any sense. Just put money aside while renting, then when you do buy a house, put that money on the house. Who's forcing you to spend it all in the meantime? As if buying a house is the only way to put money aside. And renting is so much cheaper than buying in Canada right now + you can invest the money in the meantime + you wait to buy when prices are cheaper = you'll likely have a fully paid house faster and for less money. Sounds like that guy capitulated near the top, like so many do, and is just rationalizing his decision after the fact.

Solar is definitely the future, because it hasn't stopped coming down in price (how will coal fare when solar is half the current price? a quarter?), along with traditional batteries and the upcoming large scale liquid metal batteries that will be able to store MWhs of power. See: Solar will shave off a good part of the profitable peak time during the day (it's already happening in Queensland in Australia), and others will end up with off-peak when selling electricity is a lot less profitable.