I originally wrote this article intending to write more reasons in an attempt to make a balanced pair between Seven Reasons to Avoid Buying a Solar Array and this one, however after a long time spent thinking about this subject and even doing some research into other articles and sites who have posted something similar, I’ve ultimately concluded that for all of the various arguments and talking points to get a solar array installed on your property, there are really only three distinct core reasons to get one.
1. It’s Good for the Environment
Also stated as “Reduces global warming,” “Reducing the need for Carbon,” “Helping the Earth,” or some other form of complaining about fossil fuels. This has got to be the most commonly used argument when talking about anything solar-related, and it’s more a mindset of the green movement than a self-standing practical idea. Simply stated:
Is installing solar power going to reduce your demand on the electric grid? Yes, slightly.
Will that stop the power companies polluting our air, manufacturing companies from polluting our water, mineral companies from destroying our land and the governments of countries around the world bending over and allowing this all to happen? Nope.
What most people don’t actively realize is the thought that they are such a high-demand on their local utility grid that their switching to solar power will make even a noticeable dent in the output of the power company is laughably arrogant. Ever stop and look at the power lines running through your city? No, I’m not talking about those tiny wooden poles with only a few cables on them.
This is what I’m talking about.
Those huge towers are primary lines, and they typically go straight from the power plant to what are called “primary customers.” These are places like industrial smelters, harbors, machining facilities, factories, or large office complexes. These are facilities that measure their usage not in Watts, but in Mega-Watts or Giga-Watts. They are the real reason that the power plant was even built, and as a residential customer, the fact that you even have electricity serviced out to you is merely because it was convenient for the power company and along the way to the real customer.
If you’d like to see an example of just how much the power company will care about or even notice your choice to go solar, go stand on your bathroom scale. Mark down whatever it reads, and then spit in the toilet. Weigh yourself again. Did the scale notice a difference? No? Ok then neither will the power meters at the electric company. For a concrete example, let’s say you’re the average residential customer that uses about 10kW on average. A typical (small) power plant can output around 10 Giga-Watts (GW) of power. Ten kilowatts (kW) amounts to only 0.0001% of the overall output of the plant. As a comparison, even on a good day, the average power plant loses 10-15% of its output power due to transmission losses alone. That’s power just lost due to the resistance in the transmission lines in the grid, which ends up as heat and can never be replaced. It also shows up on your electric bill as a “transmission” fee.
If you’re starting to get the feeling that you’re somewhat insignificant and no matter what you do, you keep getting charged, billed, and generally treated unfairly by the utility company or others, then you wouldn’t be the first to start really considering the next reason to consider going solar…
2. It Will Reduce Your Dependency on “The System”
I’m a major proponent of self-sustainability, and still intend to eventually install my own solar array for my home, which is why it pains me to say that for the average solar customer, this “reason” is completely bogus. Ever since the idea of net-metering came into fruition, almost 90% of the solar market has been with grid-tied systems.
Net metering is a concept in which a special type of power meter is installed on your property along with your solar array. This special type of meter is often called a bi-directional meter and is designed to read power in both directions, either coming from or going to the grid. It’s designed to work in tandem with the solar array, allowing power to be transferred from the solar to the gird during the day, accumulating energy credits to be spent later that evening. The process even goes so far as to design in enough over-production in the summer months to have enough energy credits stored up each year for the winter. The primary benefits of this system to the customer are that you can get away with a smaller array overall, and you eliminate the need for an expensive and bulky battery rack.
However, with these money-saving benefits comes the downside that you require the grid. In fact, with the bi-directional meter, you are more dependent on the grid, as you require it not only for power but also to keep your solar power online and productive. You see, modern solar-inverters are designed to shut off in the event that the grid goes down, either from a downed power line or from another reason. This is a safety mechanism designed to protect utility linemen and maintenance personnel from being electrocuted by power lines they thought were disconnected but were actually being powered by your array. Rather than allow a situation like that to happen, inverter manufacturers design their products to require a stable grid for at least five minutes before even coming online.
The only way this “reason” holds any weight whatsoever is if you intend to cut your home or property from the grid entirely and install a battery rack. If that’s the case, then get ready to shell out some heavy cash, because you’re easily looking at doubling the cost of your system.
3. It Will Save You Money in the Long Run
This, actually, is completely true. I’m not just talking “yes, technically” kind of true…this reason is so valid that the other previous reasons don’t even matter when compared to this one. When people talk about getting “free energy” from the sun, they’re only technically correct. See, while the energy itself might be abundant and free to gather, the technology necessary to gather it may not necessarily also be free. In reality, even when talking about residential solar, the collection array and equipment still costs money.
Some installation companies allow the solar customer to pay for their array all at once, however most offer various forms of payment plans, which are designed to evenly split up the cost of the array over the course of several years. For most consumers, the intervals are 5, 10, 15, or 20 years. While the warranties for most residential arrays also last about the same time as the payment plans, what many people forget to realize is that the solar array itself can last many years longer if treated well and properly maintained.
The important thing to keep in mind is that with a solar array, longevity and uptime is the name of the game. The real way in which that “free energy” mechanic works is that once the array is paid off, all power being generated from that array is actually free. However, if you took 20 years to pay off your system and it only lasted five years after that before breaking down, then you wouldn’t get as much of that free energy as someone who kept their system running 20 years after they paid it off.
Just for fun, I’ll work through a concrete example of just how much someone can save. In another article that I wrote, called A Newcomer’s Guide to Buying a Solar Array, I went through a series of steps with my power bill to determine just how large of a solar array I needed to fulfill my annual energy needs. My power bills average about $500 each month and I’ve noticed that despite my continual efforts to reduce the amount of electricity I use, my rates keep going up. In my example mentioned, I determined that for my needs, a 19kW array would be sufficient for my needs. Let’s say, just for argument’s sake that I got really shafted with my quote for the installation, and I’m being charged $6.50 per Watt, which is a lot for the current market. For a twenty-year lease on this array, my annual payments would be the following:
(19 kW) * (1000 W/kW) *(6.50 $/W) / (12 mo/yrs) / (20 yrs) = $6266/year
This works out well, as my starting annual electric bill was about $6000/year. This means that even getting shafted in terms of a contractor installation cost, if I installed a solar array I would still be making payments annually about the same as what I am currently paying. However, getting back to the fact that my rates have been increasing each year, as a comparison basis, if I were to extrapolate the annual costs from electricity for the same time that I bought solar, how much money would I save or lose?
The graph above shows the comparison of electric bills each year for two options. One is for someone with my electric bill who chose not to get solar. The other is for a customer who chose to install a 19kW array like my example for the annual payment specified above. I chose to show the difference over forty years, since I feel that asking a PV-array to run for forty years if well maintained is not impossible.
Pay special attention to the fact that after 20 years, the solar customer’s electric cost vanishes, while the other customer continues to pay ever-increasing fees for power. This is where the savings really add up quickly. It is actually possible to calculate the exact amount of money saved in this example in a forty year time-span. Subtracting the two lines in the graph above yields the overall dollar difference that the two customers had to pay. Believe it or not, despite the solar array costing about $125,000, over the 40 year time span the solar customer saved over $173,000 dollars. Put quite simply, even in the most harshly stacked conditions against the solar customer, a well maintained array is capable of more than doubling its value to the customer within a 40 year time.
This is what solar professionals are talking about when they say that installing an array will save you money. They’re not talking about some small, indefinable amount of pseudo-money. It’s not a fiscal trick, it’s easily and clearly definable as well as explainable, and it’s by no means a small amount.
Short, simple, and to the point…these three reasons are pretty much the generalized form of most of the other reasons you’ll see out there on the web. Coming from a solar-professional’s perspective, however, the raw amount of possible money that you can save negates and washes away the impact of just about every other reason to go solar. It will save you roughly $100,000 over the course of 20 years, after its been paid off. Seems worth it to me.
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