Living Green and Saving Energy: My Experience With Solar PanelsPosted by Moos Tucker on April 24th, 2021 Saving energy is really a cornerstone of living a greener lifestyle. There are a number of simple steps it's possible to take which need little or no investment, and they're going to all settle. But after ensuring that residential solar systems brisbane was well insulated, that windows were caulked and drafts were blocked, and getting my children to target how the thermostat was set, I was prepared to consider using a bigger, and consequently more expensive, experiment. I decided to setup solar panels on my own home. Was it worth it? Well, listed below are the outcomes. My house is fairly large, somewhat over 4000 square feet (you will find there's big family, that has to have quite a bit of space), hence the photovoltaic screen array that individuals installed was commensurately large. Where I live, our electricity usage is charged in three tiers. The lowest tier covers what exactly is considered a little baseline usage, the first 250 kilowatt hours inside a given month. The second tier comprises the next 500 kilowatt hours, and also the third and priciest tier is everything over tiers one and two. like it was sized to a target and largely take away the third tier during the warm months months once the air conditioning will be running essentially the most. In months where the solar panel systems generated more electricity than we used, we've got a credit for that power we sent back towards the grid, effectively selling that power back to the utility. I admit, I really enjoyed those days when I might go out and see my electric meter spinning backwards. I underwent a year of actual bills and separated out the charges for electricity, and compiled the comparisons in the costs, both BSP (before solar power systems) and ASP (after solar panel systems). In the 12 months BSP, our utility bill was 63. In the yr post setting up solar power systems, the utility bill dropped to 76. That was an overall savings of 87. That's not chump change. The huge benefit came in the warmest months, when I might have used a lot of tier three-priced power due to running the AC. I could readily see from looking at per year's importance of electric power bills that air-con is an incredible energy hog, having far and away the greatest impact on my own bill. (It is regularly 100 degrees Fahrenheit and more through the summer where I live.) I also note that during the four month of February through May, my power company bill would have been a grand total of . Just ! That in comparison to 94 within the prior year over the same months. So, were the solar power systems worth it? Here is the calculation. After the rebate provided by my city along with the tax credits, my cost to the photovoltaic solar panel array was ,299. Savings of 87 provides a payback of about decade. But an easy method to look at the cost-benefit is calculating the return. In this case, it's 9.8%, which can be a lot better than I can get most anywhere else today. And as electricity rates rise, as they inevitably will, that return will grow. Bottom line: I think my investment in solar panels was very worth it. And have a peek here get the non-financial pleasure of watching my electric meter spin backwards at peak times with the year.Like it? Share it! More by this author |