We were interested and researched last year. Scheduled an in-home consultation. $44K to get it set up. I actually thought the guy was joking when he quoted me.
I did some back-of-the-envelope math on this a few yrs ago and just couldn’t make it work. Even with whatever tax incentives were available at the time, it was so high that it would’ve taken way too long to get my money back. Think it was like 15-20 years but don’t quote me.
Don't forget about the time value of money. That $25k could be invested and you could draw your payment out over time.
Hell I'd have to spend 10K cutting trees to get full sun to the southside of my roof.**
I recommend spending $9 on "Solar Consumer Guidebook" from Gateway Press. This book helps the consumer discern whether solar makes sense in their investment portfolio. No offense but someone that says "it cost too much" is a person that doesn't have a clue. Solar is an investment, not an expense. There is a Return-on-Investment tied to the solar decision.
very few people are in their "forever house". unless someone falls into that category, no, solar is absolutely not an investment. they'll never see a return. I know a couple that got a solar system installed on their house, and they told me that it about covers the cost of running their pool pump year round, and that's it. That doesn't even take into consideration opportunity cost and time value of money.
B.S. You just prepaid 8-9 years of power bills. Congratulations?
And about 4 years later, it’ll be time to replace the solar roof and start over. Not to mention, there will still be power bills for connecting to the grid & access to a backup source of electricity.
We're gonna build our forever house on a 120 acres. This is what I'm gonna do. Put in 30 panels away from the house. Just to diversify a little to hedge future power bills. I can afford to pay it all up front, so not worrying about financing costs or anything. My lawyer is finalizing a 31 year lease to lease another 160 acres I own to a company out of NC that is partnering with MS Power to build a 1000 acre (give or take a few) solar farm in east central MS. Very similar to the one in Drew, MS. They're giving me $750 / acre for 31 years with an option for 10 more years. With an acceleration clause after 5 years, and they're picking up the taxes. That's a better return than I can get with timber. I have two years to get the timber cut and I keep that revenue.
Same. The tesla solar roof tiles are super nice, but the cost there really pushes it into the luxury category.
Good for you. That's a dámn fine deal to get $750 acre without having to mess with the timber.
Gas is most inefficient in what way? You think wind and solar are efficient? How many acres of land would you have to use to build a solar farm big enough to produce the same amount of power as a 1200 MW gas plant? Or how about wind farms, which just start dropping blades or burning up nacelles after about 8 years? Not to mention solar doesn't work at night and the wind doesn't always blow for the wind turbines, so even if producing the same amount of power, they aren't as reliable as a gas plant. Battery technology has to come a LONG way for those sources to be reliable, and that's very dependent upon China who aren't the most forthcoming with their testing and standards.
This is the answer for most people. You get a much bigger bang for your buck doing this, and once you do this, it's harder for solar to make sense b/c your utility bills will be lower.
Same. It’s all about the payback period which will vary based what’s installed, local cost of energy, etc, but I came up with 17 years(no joke) which just didn’t make sense for us.
Speaking of nuclear, I wish someone would build some Thorium reactors. They’re safer and the fuel is super-plentiful here in the US but nobody will build one because the fuel is so cheap that there’s not much profit once different companies begin competing with them. That doesn’t sound like it makes sense but apparently it does. Or maybe I just don’t understand what I’ve heard about them.
Not sure. I would have to pull out the paperwork but so far this week, we have produced 65 KW today. I can see that on my computer.
