I can’t really tell you about your situation, but my wife and I did the math for our ROI on a set of roof mounted panels by assuming that the power company would continue raising rates. We averaged the delivery increases and generation cost increases over the number of years we had been in our home, then ran that annual increase over the lifespan of the panels. Rather than being a twelve year break even point it worked out to about seven. In our case, Maine has okay laws about net metering so check what your state and municipality’s regulations about it are. Look at your overall financial picture. If you can’t do it without a loan, shop for your own loan rather than just taking the installer’s.
To answer your question anecdotally, this past summer we were very happy to only pay our grid connection fee of $18 monthly while our neighbors complained about $300 (or higher) each month. You might not hit your full generation needs, but you might make enough of a dent to make it worth your investment
People seem to be missing out on the ROI accelerating. Grid energy gets keeping getting more expensive per unit, and base fees, at least here, are absurd – it was about $42 to get my first kWh. Between that and them cutting power for a week when temps were in the single digits, I did the late-night infomercial thing of saying “There’s got to be another way.”
Also, agreed: Never get your loan from an installer.
I can’t really tell you about your situation, but my wife and I did the math for our ROI on a set of roof mounted panels by assuming that the power company would continue raising rates. We averaged the delivery increases and generation cost increases over the number of years we had been in our home, then ran that annual increase over the lifespan of the panels. Rather than being a twelve year break even point it worked out to about seven. In our case, Maine has okay laws about net metering so check what your state and municipality’s regulations about it are. Look at your overall financial picture. If you can’t do it without a loan, shop for your own loan rather than just taking the installer’s.
To answer your question anecdotally, this past summer we were very happy to only pay our grid connection fee of $18 monthly while our neighbors complained about $300 (or higher) each month. You might not hit your full generation needs, but you might make enough of a dent to make it worth your investment
People seem to be missing out on the ROI accelerating. Grid energy gets keeping getting more expensive per unit, and base fees, at least here, are absurd – it was about $42 to get my first kWh. Between that and them cutting power for a week when temps were in the single digits, I did the late-night infomercial thing of saying “There’s got to be another way.”
Also, agreed: Never get your loan from an installer.
I ran the numbers on mine and it’d be 25 years ROI, which is also likely past the life of the panels.
I live northern US, with a hydro dam nearby and a non-profit co-op utility. $0.06/kWh. $25/mo hookup fee. And natural gas for heat.
Doesn’t quite make sense yet.