It's Electrifying.....

This morning on my way into work I heard a commercial for professionally installed Solar panels. They stated, "...it is actually possible watch the power company's meter run backwards". Little background, I've been interested in solar power stuff for a while now. It's continuous energy, all you have to do is collect it. Now living in AZ, the sun shines what seems like 360 days a year. You'd think this would be a easy fit down here. Well, solar is just not there yet. Back to the commercial. So I went to their website. The cheapest system they have they claim produces something like 295 Kilowat hours per month. Sounds like a lot. Well checked my Electric bill and the smallest amount of electricity demand I used in one month was 1100 Kilowat hours. Yeah I could cut some corners here and there, and bring that down, but that's besides the point. The numbers speak for themselves...

Now the amount of electricity coming from the panels would be generated during peak usage times, so my house would be eating up all that juice while it's being generated. I could get bigger systems but again lets stay with these numbers for now. Let's say the electric company would give me full value for this electricity generated. I look at my bill and I pay (because of the plan I'm one) $0.04765/kWh, that means with this system I'd make $14/mo. using this system. Let's say I drop the plan I'm on and start using the most expensive on peak kWh plan. The plan that has the highest cost/kWh is $0.18200/kWh that's the summer rates so this is the most I'd ever be able to make using a solar system. That equates to $53.69/mo. Now we're talking. That can do some damage to my bill. Then we look at the cost of installing the system. To install it costs a little over $12,ooo. This system has a "10 year SMA inverter warranty and 25 year solar panel warranty". OK lets say that everything lasts for 25 years, and by some miracle the electric company gives me that high rate/kWh year round. Also that this system will consistently produce the stated 295kWh/mo. for the entire 25 years. That means every month this system pays me $53.69/mo. How long would it take for me to make back that $12,000? Now the site does state that the state government would give me a rebate of $3,000 and that the Fed would give me a 30% rebate. So if I get all that it would bring the cost of install down to $5,400 for the install. At $53.69/mo that makes $644.25/yr. That all means that it would take a little over 8 years for the system to pay for itself, and for me to actually start making money while using it. In reality though, I wouldn't be getting that high rate year round. It actually drops to $0.10918/kWh during the winter, so that's only $32.21/mo during the winter (Summer=May-October, Winter=November-April). After all the calculations, that means $515.40/year or it would take a little less then 10.5 years for the system to pay off. By then I'm sure there will be much more efficient panels, this also assumes that I'll be living in this house for that long. It also assumes best case scenario for everything. It just doesn't add up yet. One of these days, this will all work.

By the way, a system that would meet my lowest month electrical use would cost $46,400 before rebates. It would take 52 panels with each panel measuring 5x 2.5 ft that's 130 square feet. I think that may be a hard sell to my HOA. I really wish that solar was a little more efficient and not so costly to implement. It seems like such a great way to get electricity. I think that the cost still has to drop in half for it to really start taking off. These are much better numbers then it was when I first started looking into it. About 5 years ago, it think I calculated that it would take between 15 - 20 years for it to start paying off. So maybe in 5 more it will finally get there. I've heard some good rumblings about newer panel types that have much higher efficiencies, being made cheaper productions methods using a die. So maybe just maybe...