About three years back, my wife had someone come over to do an estimate for a solar system on our house to supplement our regular power. As part of the estimate, they did an analysis of how long it would take us to break even on the investment. It was 20 years—I kid you not. And I’m sure they were being as optimistic as possible.
No thanks.
And may I presume that was WITH heavy federal subsidies and tax breaks, in other words, other taxpayers helping to shift the break-even from 40 years to 20?
“About three years back, my wife had someone come over to do an estimate for a solar system on our house to supplement our regular power. As part of the estimate, they did an analysis of how long it would take us to break even on the investment. It was 20 years—I kid you not. And I’m sure they were being as optimistic as possible.
No thanks.”
Panels have come down a lot in the past few years, so maybe run the numbers again. I’m not saying you’re wrong, as I don’t know your design or climate details, but I am saying what was 20 years payback three years ago is likely 13 years now. Also consider a few things:
1) There’s a good chance that the rates for power will go up...especially if they go to tiered pricing, as they already have in California, where they give you the lowest rate for what they call Baseline Usage (very low), which is about 450 kWh per month - but then they ream you if you go over, on the order of 20 to 30 cents per kWh. So if you generate your own power, it’s worth around 25 cents per kWh to your electric bill, which is at least 2 times what is typically paid on a flat rate plan.
2) There’s a good chance they will go to dynamic pricing, which is the whole point of the “smart meters”. Similar to tiered pricing, they make you pay higher rates if you don’t “behave” per their requirements. In dynamic pricing, they jack up the rates late in the day and more in the summer, as people get home from work and run their AC units.
3) We still don’t know where things are going in this country overall with regard to power. We’re DEFINITELY not building power plants fast enough, and we may well be forced into one of the above two options, just to keep power flowing.
4) If you get a system that can work with both grid-tie (as you considered) and off-grid, then you simply add batteries and you won’t even need the utility (but the batteries aren’t cheap, so I wouldn’t recommend them until they’re needed), but if the system is not designed for batteries as an option, it would require major modification to use batteries.
5) If your payback is 13 years, you’re looking at close to a 5.5% ROI, which isn’t bad for a fixed income investment. If the payback gets cut in half (say, due to higher grid rates, for example), then your ROI goes up to 11%.
Needless to say, I would do it, as above, by my friggen neighbor has a HUGE TREE blocking my only good roof exposure. So I sit here and calculate, and dream about my next house.
And I'm pretty sure that didn't include maintenance. Those payback calculations rarely do.
Yes it is.
Some of the most cost effective solar's are:
* The electric attic fans, dramtically reduce you A/C load.
* Solar H20, if you make them from scratch and or kit and you are plumber and electrican enough to pull it off.
* Proper house orientation, if building from new, 20% of your heating for free if you do it right.
* The old Trombe Wall Passive Heating. Can be done as a retrofit, but maybe better new, and I don't know if anyone has revisited it today with maybe some techno-upgrades. in the lates 70's claims of 50% of you heating could be had from this wall.
Many if not all of these can be done without the Fedzilla benny bucks which is fine with me.
I had an Idea this a.m. a variant of the Trombe Wall that I need to run by my hvac / anything home guru that just might work.....