I want to go solar. I’ve been thinking about it for a few years, but it hasn’t seemed economically feasible until recently. Now it seems like people are really installing solar power, not just in commercial buildings, but for residences too.

Cost of Solar Power

Cost of Solar Power

The first question of course, is how much will it cost. I want to reduce my negative impact on the environment, but the more that costs, the harder it is. With solar power, you can save on your electric bill.  So the question becomes how long will it take to recover the cost of installing the solar panels.

The first step is to find out how much it would cost to install solar power for my specific house. I’m not ready to call contractors out for bids yet. I’d feel bad wasting their time when I’m not really ready to commit. So I found an online calculator.  This is the website of a California company that installs solar systems.

I went through my old electric bills and found out that my average bill is about $150. Then I went to REC Solar’s online calculator. Using the tool, I look up my house using an online map. Then I draw an outline of the roof area where I’d like to put solar panels. South facing is best, but East or West could work too. You tell it what your roof pitch is, what direction it slopes down and how much shade it gets. It calculates how much sunlight the panels can collect. I enter my average electric bill and who my power company is, and it calculates the cost and the anticipated savings. It tells me that the system will cost $48,000 and that there are incentives which bring the net price down to $25,654. If the price of electricity stays the same, I would break even in about 14 years. After that, I’d just have free power. Cool.

But this calculator assumes that my average electric bill is the same every month. Actually, it’s significantly higher in the summer when the air conditioner is running. My power company is SCE, and they don’t buy back excess electricity. This means that on those winter days when I don’t use much, any excess electricity will be wasted. And on those hot summer days, I’ll need to buy electricity from SCE. I’ve seen some information about batteries that can store the power. I’ll have to check out their cost and capacity.  I seriously doubt if they can save enough power from the winter to use in the summer.

I probably need a smaller system.  One that will provide less than 90% of my average monthly electricity.  I notice that the calculator has a field for Solar System Size and that it’s set to Premium. The other choices are Value and Starter. I selected Value, which offsets about 75% of my electric bill and costs $19,240 after incentives. Starter provides 54% of my average electricity and costs $13,702 after incentives.  Hmmm. I think electricity bills are graduated, meaning that my first kilowatt costs less than my last. This should mean that I’ll get more bang for the buck with a smaller system. On the other hand, I’m sure there are costs of installing the system that remain the same no matter how many panels you install. I’ll have to think more about this, but for now I’m going to concentrate on the Starter plan. It still comes out to about 14 years to recover the cost, but now I think it’s more accurate because I know I can use all of the power it generates. If my power company purchased kilowatts I didn’t need, I might make a different decision. If I had an electric car, which I hope to one day, I’d probably go bigger. I’ll want to make sure that I can start small now and add panels later.

There are still some other factors to investigate before it’s time to get bids. I need to find out whether the tool accurately estimated the amount of solar power I’ll get from that many square feet, whether I’ll really be able to get those incentives, how I’ll finance the cost, whether my homeowner’s association allows solar panels, what kind of expenses are required to maintain the system, and whether I should do it myself or hire someone. But those are questions for another day.

I think I’m going to have a hard time resisting the next time I see solar panels for sale.

Other articles you might like;