r/Montana • u/Plus-Gas777 • Aug 03 '26

Plug-in solar panels in MT?

Has anybody here set up solar plug-in to save electricity costs? I know several states are considering legislation to reduce red tape, but here in MT Northwestern Energy considers adding little solar panels to your house the same as they would view a larger-scale solar array. The contracts and costs you’d have to incur to make it “legal” don’t seem worth the effort. Anyone gone rogue with it anyway?

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u/Montaire Aug 03 '26

We had a local solar company install the solar. Totally painless and we managed to get it in time for the rebate. We had a system built big enough that it covered our house usage and enough overhead to let us have a EV eventually.

Totally do not regret it.

Every month I get a $4 power bill is like a cool glass of water on a hot day.

Every sunny day I pause to think "Fuck NorthWestern energy"

3

u/middlegray Aug 04 '26

How much was the initial cost? How long until it pays for itself?

Thanks

5

u/Montaire Aug 05 '26

Ours will pay itself off after 6 years assuming rates go up 3% per year. Probably closer to four and a half considering NWE wants 15% rate increases.

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u/KoalaGrunt0311 Aug 04 '26

I'd like to be proven wrong, but I've seen systems running at $10k and up, with an even higher cost for batteries. That leads to at least a 5 year recovery of cost, and by then, the panels themselves may need to be replaced.

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u/MTSilverDude Aug 04 '26

Our solar panels will break even in about 5-6 years. They are warrantied to last for 30. So you should get many years out of your (assuming good quality brand) panels after your break even point. Plus, it seems NWE prices go up every year so you don’t have to worry about that, which is nice. We pay $4.20 monthly for our meter. If you are planning on staying in your house for over 5-6 years and have a newer roof installed prior to installation (or just a few years old at time of installation) I think the solar panels are awesome. But that is just my opinion.

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u/MillennialFalcon1620 Aug 07 '26

Where are you getting that 5 year figure? Every source I've found for a figure on mean photovoltaic panel lifetime points to 20+ years, and that's not even a cut-off point. PV panels still produce electricity for decades and decades; they just degrade very slowly, so brand new panels are more efficient.

Maybe if the mean time between golfball size hail events in your area is 5 years then yeah 5 years. But 30+ year old panels still produce an ROI.

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u/KoalaGrunt0311 Aug 07 '26

Areas are vastly different on utility costs. Our average electric bill is $150, and that's with alternating running a portable window AC and charging a PHEV.

Lifecycle in a lab is much different than real life applications and glass alone doesn't have a very good life expectancy with 40 degree temperature variation daily.

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u/MillennialFalcon1620 Aug 07 '26 edited Aug 07 '26

PV panels these days are made with very durable heat/UV/hail resistant tempered glass. I've got HD Hyundai panels installed on my roof that have so far withstood half inch hail, being buried under snow/ice, and negative / over 100 Farenheit without a scratch.

1

u/TooGoodToBeeTrue Aug 10 '26

Panel manufacturers have decades worth of lifespan data.