No one can deny the fact that solar power is clean and green. But lets keep those considerations aside for a few moments and look at the purely practical issues of installing home solar power systems. Is a home solar power system a good investment?
The first thing you will need to do is look at what kind of home solar power system meets your requirements. Its always best to make a list of two or three alternatives. Once you have this done, examine all the Federal and state tax credits that you will be eligible for. Use these to work out he capital cost of the equipment. It is important to remember that with tax credit you can reduce your tax by the full amount of the credit, unlike a tax rebate where the tax reduction is only for a percentage of the amount. The capital cost is your starting point.
The incentives will include:
• Solar Energy Tax credits
• Solar Power rebates
• Net Metering (selling back excess solar power to the utility and getting credit on your electricity bill)
• Solar Energy Grants
But there is much more you need to take into account. These include things like:
• Ancillary materials
• Specialized installation costs
• Labor
• Permits
• Insurance
• Maintenance
• Consumables (batteries)
Take all these into account when calculating the installed cost of home solar power systems. Do this for all your three options – its till to early to make your final decision.
You now need to look at the energy efficiency of your home. The more efficient it is, the less power you will need and the smaller the home solar energy system you will need. Increasing the energy efficiency of a home is not always cheap – things like improving the insulation to reduce heat loss can be expensive. But things like using energy efficient light bulbs are not.
You will have to balance the capital cost of making your home more energy efficient with the saving you can achieve by reducing the size of your home solar power system. Once you have worked this out and found the one that is the best for you financially, that is your solar power solution.
But now you have finalized on the system, you have to examine the viability of the investment. Keeping your projected savings on your utility bills in mind, how long will it take you to recover the cost of the home solar power system? Obviously the sooner you recover your cost, the faster you are in a saving situation.
While the time taken to recover your expenditure on the home solar power system will vary depending on how much power you continue to draw from the grid and the cost of that power, if you can recover your cost in 5 years of so you are comfortable. The average life of the solar panels is between 15 to 20 years so for the next 10 to 15 years your only expenditure will be on maintenance and replacing the batteries, which will not be too much. The overall saving you will be making will more than cover the cost of a new solar energy system once the existing one needs replacement. In other words, from year 5 onwards, you can enjoy free power.