Another step – today the engineer came out and did the site drawings for the 3.1Kw solar system we’re leasing for $76/month from Solar City.
He spent about an hour measuring and photographing (I should have taken pictures of him), and I signed off and approved the placement, and we’ll have drawings for the permit in about two weeks.
Counting down…
Huh? You are paying them a lease for the system?
Please publish the publishable numbers on why you have been convinced this a good idea. I am really, really curious.
If you pay them $76/month does that absolve you of your electricity costs for that month?
Will you pump more back into the system than you use?
What is the expected net future cost for electricity where you are 5 years from now?
While there are many noble reasons to go solar besides cost/benefit analysis, if cost/benefit analysis is the primary concern, getting into a lease of a technology that is rapidly dropping in price is unwise economics.
The most cost-effective thing a California home owner can do to slash at least 10% of his electricity bill is very low tech :
Simply get a three-inch-wide skylight drilled into the roof above the living room and bedrooms on the upper floor of your home – get a multi-faced glass hemisphere put on the inside to diffuse the light into all directions, and voila : you have slashed your lighting costs during the daytime.
Diver more light by having a few cheap mirrors positioned to relect more light into the skylight aperture.
Fast version – our current electric bill is about $140/month, with about 20% of that coming b/c we’re just barely into the top of three tiers of consumption in our zone. The anticipated savings from the system – today – is about $70/month, meaning I’ll have a $10/mo +/- ‘feel good’ cost.
The lease escalates about 3%/year – but I’m making a bet that over the life of the lease, my local electric prices will go up more than that – way more than that, and that within a year, we’ll erase our ‘feel good’ cost and be net positive.
Yes, the economically rational thing to do is to wait 2 years or so until the next big drop in prices. But my guess is also that the tax breaks that make this so attractive will also be diminished (fiscal crisis, wider acceptance), which means it will have to drop about 40% in cost just to be equivalent in cost to what were paying net now.
So I’d have to wait four years or so for the next big drop in prices – and meanwhile, I’m betting utility rates will go way up.
My risk?
1) that it won’t save the stated amount – my lease states that it will generate a guaranteed amount of electricity or I get a rebate – so my risk there is small – figure $20 – 30/month.
2) that electricity prices stay stable or drop. (holding my sides and laughing on that one)
3) that there’s a breakthrough in the next two years and I could buy an equivalent system for 25% of the prince of this one. That’s the biggest risk we’re taking, and that’s a risk that makes sense to me.
A.L.
The tax incentive changes the whole calculation.
“Solatube is a great innovation for slashing daytime electricity costs”:http://www.solatube.com/homeowner/Introduction.php