How Solar Power Saves You Money

How Solar Power Saves You Money

It's been a great summer weekend here in Pittsburgh.. hot, but not unbearable and this weekend we learned about a local winery that has not only tastings but a nice restaurant so after church, we enjoyed a short "outing" (just 10 miles outside the city) But while visiting there, I had a chance to talk with one of the other winery visitors about solar. It was such an easy conversation. It started with "wondering what the prices will be this year" and moving over to inflation. I asked my new friend how they were coping with it, and then in turn, they asked me the same thing.

My answer was "Well, I can't do much about food and gas, but I've sure found a way to beat those darn electric costs, particularly with all the AC we've needed to run this week"

As you might expect, they asked me "How do you to that?" and I simply explained. I switched my house to solar. That lead to some general questions and it became clear.. this typical family had no idea . Because of that, I wrote this article. . It's not ALL the answers and I have some locally on my FB page which I invite you to check out after you read this article which I hopes you ..

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But now let's get into the thing that brought you here: HOW SOLAR CAN HELP PEOPLE SAVE MONEY. In fact.. BIG MONEY.. which is something we all need to do with inflation running 10% or more.

I won't go into tech detail.. who cares any way. You want the results. All you need to know is that sun and UV hits on the panels and this via equipment at your house (on the roof or in the yard) turns into electrical power.

OK.. a little technical part: We have to put our brain a little into gear and think of two related things: The power you generate and the power you consume. With your utility or power company you only need to think of "how much do I consume".

That's simple .. you consume so many kilowatt hours (it's how the utility bills you) and you pay, and you pay, and you pay. Actually there's at least 3 groups all getting their hands onto your money.. First the company that generates the electricity, and it may, or may not, be your utility that bills you. Next, there's the utility that has the lines and wires that brings the power to you.. which starts with some power losses of around 5% loss from the generating source Then there's our beloved government taking tax money out at all levels.. fed, state, who knows what else.

AND EACH CAN RAISE THEIR AMOUNT at virtually any time where you have no control.! Are you tired of this yet?

OK so back to panels and your system. You have the equipment and all you know is it generates power during essentially daylight hours. In some hours, it generates more, in other hours less. The brighter the sun and more intense the visible and invisible rays, the more power is generated.


But you have variables in your life, sometimes on an hour to hour basis. Are your lights on? How about the air conditioner or furnace or maybe radiant heat? Running a couple TVs? Is your dishwasher running? How about that washing machine or clothes dryer?


So there's an ever ongoing balance between what you use and what you create.

When you create more than what you use, the “extra” is fed back to your utility.. generally for a credit to your power bill for times you use more from them. You could also store some of it in a battery if you had one, as many systems do.

Then when you use more than you generate, your power company provides the power (or again, maybe your battery).

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Very simple technically. Now the key part:

SOLAR POWER MATH

As noted above, your utility fixes a rate and you pay it. Period, end of story. Except the trend for many years is that the rate always increases. It probably always will and for so many reasons. We can discuss those at another time. You should be aware of what your DELIVERED cost per KWH is now.

HERE'S WHERE THE DIFFERENCE COMES IN...

You buy your system complete. It could range from $10,000 to over $40,000 depending on the size and the amount of power your want.

These generally are so reliable that finance companies are willing to finance for 20 years or more. Because it's so stable and long term, you're generally able to get rates comparable to low mortgage rates, for example, 2.5%.

So take a mid range, $30,000, and spread it out over 25 years.

When you do so, you find that your monthly payment is very often 10-15% less than what you are paying your utility. That's this year.

How about next year? Your utility rates go up somewhere in tune with the national cost of living.. in 2023 we suspect those rate increases will be well above 10%

BUT HERES THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The sun and your equipment doesn't have a rate increase! Your financing is set up on a fixed rate for those 20+ years. Year after year your monthly cost for power remains the same. OK.. for you tech nerdies.. yes, there is a very slight segregation of panel output, very very very low over the years. Virtually immeasurable but to retain credibility we feel it needs to be acknowledged.

In wrapping the article up, let me invite you to my Pittsburgh area facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/pittsburghsolar and if you'd want more specific information on a quote, etc, please visit me at https://solar.joeleech.us

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