I was talking to a place that installs solar panels. I definitely wouldn't do it for savings, because I couldn't save enough money to pay the thing off within the life of the solar panel.
My electric bills, even before I instituted some savings, were only about 45 bucks a month, $540 a year. I was consuming about 250 KWH a month, 3000 KWH a year. The solar panel could generate about 1100 KWH a year in this area. and, with tax rebates, would still cost about $5000. So, say this thing saves me a third of my electric bill, that is only about $180 a year. Let's say electric goes up some and over the next number of years, we say that it saves me 250 dollars a year averaged over the next 20 years. That is a savings of $5000, which is the cost of the panel. However, the total life expectancy of the panel is 20 years, but it's efficiency dies off over the life of the panel. So, the long shot is that I would go solar only for the sake of going solar, and not for saving any money. Now, a wind turbine might be nice, but since I live on about a thirtieth of an acre, that might be difficult to pull off. -- Blue skies. Dan Rossi Carnegie Mellon University. E-Mail: [email protected] Tel: (412) 268-9081
