Posted Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Saving with Solar – An Example

Maybe one day while mowing the lawn, you looked over at your neighbor’s house and you noticed that there were some contractors on the roof, and they were installing solar panels. Perhaps it was then that the question entered your mind, “I wonder how much money they’re saving with those panels?”.

The next inevitable question would be, “Could I save on my power bill with solar?”, followed by, “How much, exactly?”. In this week’s blog post, we’re going to go through a quick math exercise to show you how much savings are realistic when considering an average-sized, residential solar power system installation in an area where sunlight is frequent and plentiful.

To get a good baseline for this exercise, let’s pick an easy, round number as our starting cost for a monthly electricity (excluding other consumable utilities like gas) bill. $200 sounds right, so we’ll work with that. Even though energy usage may vary throughout the year, the amount of power being generated by the installed solar system should remain roughly constant in a state that sees year-round, clear sunshine like Florida does.

To get an idea of the initial install cost first, we can assume a $3/watt cost for the solar power system. A 2 kilowatt system would cost around $6,000 (this is a rough estimate – contact Urban Solar for a more accurate figure). Because the state of Florida is so rife with ample sunshine, the average power savings for residential solar customers is a whopping $33,000 when calculated over 20 years.

$33,000 in savings minus a $6,000 install cost nets us $27,000 in total savings over 20 years. That’s no small sum! This example doesn’t take into consideration your exact home and roof scenario, and the cost of solar power hardware does change every day. This is why it’s important to contact Urban Solar as soon as possible to get the work started on your no-cost, no-obligation energy assessment.