HOWTO: Solar Power
9:47 pm July 21st, 2008 by Sal Cangeloso
Over at ExtremeTech Loyd Case has posted two great articles (The Install and One Month Later) on his experience with adding solar power to his house. I don’t own a house or have the $40K+ that is costs to do a job like that, but the articles are still fascinating and he does a great job of explaining the decisions he made and the technology involved. Definitely a must-read for anyone curious about solar technology or home-gadgetry.
The only disappointment I had with the article is that it does not get into how long it will take for the solar panels for buy themselves back. Obviously the job is about helping the environment and it improves the value of the house so Case won’t have to live there for years and years in order to get his money’s worth, but it would have been great to see this math. Maybe a third articles is on the way?
We do know that in March the Case household spent $350 (rounded) on electricity and in their first 19 days they spend $11 (the articles says to expect $16 on the month). The $16 month was June, a peak month for solar power in Northern California.
Just to so some quick math…
Yearly, no solar= $4200 (350×12)
Yearly, solar= $192 (16×12)
At this rate the panels would take about 10 years to buy themselves back given a price tag of $40,000.
Let’s guess-timate a few factors including- a panel or two breaks, the panels become less effective over time, you get less intense sun in the winter months as well as shorter days, you get a a number of rainy, dark days every month, and so on. So according to my math maybe the panels take 12-15 years to pay for itself, depending on how conservative you want to be. In a state were power costs less or you could sell power back to the energy company this could be very different.
Overall, the initial investment is more that I thought it would be but given the long-term prospect I’m more impressed with solar power than before reading the articles. Once these panels start to cross the 25% mark (give it a few years, from want I understand) it is going to be something we see a lot more of…
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