LET THE SUN SHINE
I think I’ve found my next energy saving project. It’s a big one. My roof faces east-west, so it’s not particularly well suited. But I have a big open field in the back that could easily accommodate a bunch of cells. I averaged 60 kWh/day in 2008. Assuming we get an average of 8 hours of direct sunshine/day, I’d need a 7.5 kW system to go completely solar. For a typical roof installation, that might run $75,000. A ground-based installation should be a little cheaper. Call it $70,000. Still pretty damn pricey. Except NC has a refundable 35% tax credit and the feds just passed a 30% tax credit. So that $70,000 system is suddenly “only” $17,500 $24,500. The system would pay for itself in about 7 10 years. And since the cells should last 20, that seems to me a pretty good deal.
3 Responses to “LET THE SUN SHINE”
 Comment by Alasandra October 11th, 2008 at 9:24 pm |
I would love to take advantage of solar power. Hubby and I have talked about investing in some cells instead of a generator. On a very small scale. I have a solar panel to run the fountain in the butterfly garden. It works fairly well. It doesn’t have a way to store energy so whenever someone/something walks in front of it, a cloud passes over the sun ect. the water flow is interrupted. |
 Comment by Nance Confer October 12th, 2008 at 9:36 am |
$24,500? Still much better than $70000. Nance |
 Comment by Daryl Cobranchi October 12th, 2008 at 10:08 am |
Yeah. I punched in 75% off instead of 65%. |