It’s not about having the money laying around. It’s about seeing if the cost over 25 years of electric bills is higher or lower than financing $20-30k.
If it’s more expensive to pay for 25 years of electric bills, buy the solar. If it’s more expensive to finance solar and maintain, keep paying your electric bill.
In some places and buildings, it’s cheaper to use solar. In some it’s not.
Also if you happen to be on undeveloped land with no power, the electric company often charges $1200 or more per pole to get to you, so it very quickly becomes worth it to just do off grid solar.
There was one guy I saw who was 400ft from power but thepower company wanted so much that for a tiny fraction of that he was able to put in a really nice off-grid solar setup. Plus then you don’t need to deal with connecting to the grid or any sort of permitting depending on where you are or how little you care about permits.
you still need the spare income to buy new land while continuing to pay mortgage/rent at your current home, and the spare time to do all the actual development
Yeah I get that. The problem is (at least around where I live) is they don’t give you 25 years to pay it off. I need to take out a loan to pay it back pretty quickly and I’m paying with interest so it changes things a little. I also can’t find any one that can do it for under like 50k which sucks. At least not yet.
I’m hoping that prices drop and the subsidies get a little more helpful or something. But right now I just can’t figure out a way to afford it. It’s just too expensive. Do you have them by any chance?
Even in that case, you are overpaying in the early years and getting free electricity for the rest of the life of the system. If you can only get a 7 year loan, you may have a higher bill for 7 years, but no bill for 18 years while electricity prices continue rising is a pretty awesome benefit.
You still weigh the balance to figure out what is economically the best option.
I don’t have them on my home because my HOA disallows them. I did, however, initiate and helped manage installation of systems on 3 separate family members’ homes and since I had already done the research and the financial benefit worked out for each of them. One was 6 years ago, one was 3 years ago, and one was 2 years ago and none of them have any complaints.
The 6 yr old system is almost paid off and has already reached its pay-off value since electricity prices keep rising… meaning, they haven’t paid off the system, but would have spent more in electricity in the 6 years they have had it if they would not have installed it.
I am currently in the process of moving out of a neighborhood with an HOA and plan on installing a system as soon as I get into my new home.
Thanks for the info! this makes me feel a bit better about swallowing the fat price point if the numbers work out. I’m hoping maaaaybe i can DIY some of it too as I’ve done decent amount of electrical work but i think hooking solar up to my home and having a standby battery and all that stuff may be out of my ability.
Also, hearing about your HOA makes me so angry. We only recently got our HOA to overturn the same dumb rule in my neighborhood. So annoying…
Yeah, for us the solar installation (5kw of panels) was around US$14k. Since electricity is quite expensive and we live in a sunny country the installation paid for itself in 4 years.
It’s not about having the money laying around. It’s about seeing if the cost over 25 years of electric bills is higher or lower than financing $20-30k.
If it’s more expensive to pay for 25 years of electric bills, buy the solar. If it’s more expensive to finance solar and maintain, keep paying your electric bill.
In some places and buildings, it’s cheaper to use solar. In some it’s not.
Also if you happen to be on undeveloped land with no power, the electric company often charges $1200 or more per pole to get to you, so it very quickly becomes worth it to just do off grid solar.
There was one guy I saw who was 400ft from power but thepower company wanted so much that for a tiny fraction of that he was able to put in a really nice off-grid solar setup. Plus then you don’t need to deal with connecting to the grid or any sort of permitting depending on where you are or how little you care about permits.
If you’re building a house from scratch on undeveloped land then money is probably less of a concern for you to begin with.
Undeveloped land is generally the cheapest
but you need to be able to afford to buy that land and develop it while also paying for your current housing.
DIY everything…
you still need the spare income to buy new land while continuing to pay mortgage/rent at your current home, and the spare time to do all the actual development
Yeah I get that. The problem is (at least around where I live) is they don’t give you 25 years to pay it off. I need to take out a loan to pay it back pretty quickly and I’m paying with interest so it changes things a little. I also can’t find any one that can do it for under like 50k which sucks. At least not yet.
I’m hoping that prices drop and the subsidies get a little more helpful or something. But right now I just can’t figure out a way to afford it. It’s just too expensive. Do you have them by any chance?
Even in that case, you are overpaying in the early years and getting free electricity for the rest of the life of the system. If you can only get a 7 year loan, you may have a higher bill for 7 years, but no bill for 18 years while electricity prices continue rising is a pretty awesome benefit.
You still weigh the balance to figure out what is economically the best option.
…And I missed the last question.
I don’t have them on my home because my HOA disallows them. I did, however, initiate and helped manage installation of systems on 3 separate family members’ homes and since I had already done the research and the financial benefit worked out for each of them. One was 6 years ago, one was 3 years ago, and one was 2 years ago and none of them have any complaints.
The 6 yr old system is almost paid off and has already reached its pay-off value since electricity prices keep rising… meaning, they haven’t paid off the system, but would have spent more in electricity in the 6 years they have had it if they would not have installed it.
I am currently in the process of moving out of a neighborhood with an HOA and plan on installing a system as soon as I get into my new home.
Thanks for the info! this makes me feel a bit better about swallowing the fat price point if the numbers work out. I’m hoping maaaaybe i can DIY some of it too as I’ve done decent amount of electrical work but i think hooking solar up to my home and having a standby battery and all that stuff may be out of my ability. Also, hearing about your HOA makes me so angry. We only recently got our HOA to overturn the same dumb rule in my neighborhood. So annoying…
Yeah, for us the solar installation (5kw of panels) was around US$14k. Since electricity is quite expensive and we live in a sunny country the installation paid for itself in 4 years.