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About 15 years ago my cost per KWH was a little over $.04. At the time I had incandescent lighting a couple laser printers that loved electricity 3 old refrigerators and a big old freezer. I just didn’t really care how much electricity I used, it was pretty cheap and I could afford it easily enough. Even though I have a pretty large home the electricity was not a major concern.

Then the local utility got purchased by a larger company and our cost nearly doubled. That is when I decided to look at solar. The company has since been purchased by an off shore international company. I installed solar with a large battery backup. While I generally averaged 50 to 60 KWH per day 15 years ago I now generally keep it under 40. TV’s use way less power than they used to, but now all the computers in the house offset that pretty much. The LED lighting had cut over 10 KW out of my electricity budget. I installed a couple mini split heat pumps that suffice most of the year. They are really cheap to run. I try to get by with a heat pump when the two mini splits won’t do it and if it gets really cold I have a natural gas heater (boiler) with radiant heat that is 95% efficient.

Now in the spring and fall I never use more energy than I send into the grid. In the winter and hot summer I use some but my electric bill is not normally more than $100.00 and for 6 months it is usually the minimum of $27.

My wife thought I was crazy when I installed the system but since the government paid for a third of it I just couldn’t resist. I also like reducing monthly outlays in my old age and for my wife to have few expenditures each month after I croak.

I’m pretty pleased with it now. I’m not a tree hugger, I don’t believe in globul warming or at least that it comes from what people do.

I like knowing when the power is out I never even know about it. I like knowing that nobody can turn me off.

I suppose I could disconnect from the grid but now having that huge battery (the grid) is a real blessing so that I don’t have to use up my batteries.

Oh yeah last year our average rate was over $.17 per KWH, thats before a lot of stupid taxes and other charges, oh and my base of $27.00.

So, my cost is a couple hundred dollars most of the year except in air conditioning season when it can easily go to 70KWH which brings me to around $400 or so after taxes etc.

I guess it is easy to say “well, a few thousand dollars out of the budget isn’t a big deal”. Well, you’d be right I guess except that I don’t worry about not having electricity and all the stuff in my friges and freezers going bad. It is a really good feeling to know I can have electricity no matter what.

I didn’t really do solar for the savings of electricity payments, I did it for security. It was a huge expense, to me anyway. After rebates I have about $30k into it. Takes a long time to pay back, although I think I figured I did a couple years ago so that now I’m a few thousand ahead each year.

Solar isn’t for everyone I guess, my house was pointed the right direction, I was able to do nearly all the labor of installation myself and had the cash to buy the stuff.

I have 36 panels which gives me 12KW on the roof and on sunny days I get that for about 5 hours but there are losses in wiring and equipment, oh and yes batteries are only about 90% or so efficient. If I pull 50KW down a day I’m happy.