Do solar panels save you money and if they do how much off your monthly electric bill?

Question

Do solar panels save you money and if they do how much off your monthly electric bill?

Answer 1

For most people the payback period on solar panels is in terms of decades or never, but that all depends upon the rate of increase of electric power prices. The price per watt of installed solar panels is slowly coming down. I think that current prices are in the neighborhood of $6-10 per watt. To be truely competitive at todays electricity prices it still has a ways to go before it can directly compete in todays market. However......

There are several factors. Note that once you buy the solar panels, your costs are basically fixed. That means that the cost of the energy you are receiving from those panels is frozen because you have already paid for the energy by purchasing the solar panels. For everyone else that is still buying from the electric company, their prices will continue to rise. At some point you will end up paying less than they for the same amount of energy. How long it takes before you are paying less depends on how much your panels cost and how much you would have been paying if you continued to purchase energy from the electric company.

There are promising technologies that may provide lower cost solar cells. These may push the price per watt in a direction to make solar cells more competitive at todays electric prices. That hasn't happened yet. There is also some companies that are making plans to rent solar panels to home owners and the price you pay as rent is to simply pay for the electricity provided by the solar panel at the price your electric company would charge - and the price is then frozen at that price for the length of the lease. The freeze of the price under those conditions is the real benefit for solar panel rental. However, to my knowledge none of these companies are actually delivering to the mass market as yet.

Timothy D.

West Melbourne, FL

Answer 2

Solar panels save tons off your monthly electric bill. But they are VERY EXPENSIVE to buy!!

Answer 3

The point has already been made that current solar tech is just not cost-effective and would require replacement before it had paid for itself. But new techniques are on the way, Ovonics is supposedly working on something new and maybe big, and Ausra Inc is already building a new type plant in Nevada. It uses mirrors to focus heat on a central pipe, the boiling water  turns into steam which turns a turbine to produce juice. Supposedly they plan to be selling a system that will cost only 10cents per kilowatt hour. If they decide to market a home system I'll be very interested.

Answer 4

I see PV differently from most.  Some say that it would take acres of them to work, or the cost is way too much.  I see the with the proper equipment a $10k system can work.

Now with a zero bill, how would that be ?

Answer 5

Like all of the comments above it basically comes down to the cost. Its just not affordable to the average joes like ourselves. Its only affordable to people who don't care about the environment or care about saving a little money. Have any of you had a chance to check out this company. There offering to rent solar panels to the average American homeowner at a flat monthly rental rate. This rate is than locked in for up to 25 years unlike  our current power companies who have to continue to raise there rates year after year.  Theres no installation cost, no maintenance fees, no permit hassles, and no rate increases for up to 25 years.

Check it out and see what you think. http://www.jointhesolution.com/therising...

Answer 6

Solar systems are normally not cost effective unless you have no power company grid available. Panels may average $400-500 for a 50 Watt Panel. Remember, now that is peak power and even on a bright sunny day, you only get enough power to run one light bulb for about 8 hours a day. That is 8x50=400 watt-hours a day from one panel. Lets assume the sun shines 365 days, then my one panel produced 400x365=146,000 watt-hours, or 146 KW hours. The average cost of power is about 10 cents per kw-hr. That power cost $14.60 from the power company. At say 5% interest on my money, it costs me .05x$500=$25 in interest per year. As you can see, it will never pay itself back, unless energy cost raise a lot before I have to replace the panel. Also the panel is about 3ftx4ft and all you get is 50 watts. Calculate how many it takes to provide a house with 5-10 KW. Better  have a big yard for all the panels.

Of course the cost is much higher, because you must also buy a controller / rectifier in order to use the panel and make AC power for your house.

If you do have the money extra, then go for it. It is a good thing. It reduces energy use from oil, gas, and coal which does pollute.

Answer 7

Solar Power is free in the end. You are buying 30 plus years of power up front. Or you can rent and have nothing.

What would you pay the electric co over the next 30 years to power your home at 100 dollars a month electric bill? Be real and add in the 3.5 % cost of living increases and the fuel price increase of 6.5% yearly. Then add in your state and local taxes and franchise fees and in the end by renting electric from the public utilitie or other you end up with nothing but bills payment stubs. Shame you just rented near $100,000 when you could have spent $36,000..

I have never heard any say "OH BOY!!!! I can't wait to get out on my own so I can rent a home and have nothing in 30 years from now. Everyone wants to own their home because they want to know they own something. Same for a solar power sytem. Why rent if you can own it.

Answer 8

the solar panel is a lot but it saves u a lot too. so i dont know how much it saves u but i would guess,1/2-3/4 of ur bill.But u also need a backup, just in case.

Answer 9

You can buy a solar system as big or as small as you need.

The problem (in the US anyway) is that photovoltaic systems are so expensive that they take many years to pay for themselves.

In the US, there are many rebates and tax incentives that you can take advantage of that will lower your cost of installing this kind of system, but they often still have a very long payback.

For information on rebates that are available, check out the first website below.  It lists incentives for each US state.  

I would call a solar installer near you and ask them for prices and paybacks.  I've listed two good resources for finding solar installers.  One is a certifying organization that certifies installers to show that they actually know what they are doing.  The other is a referral service that lists feedback from other purchasers to let you know what they thought of the installer.

Great question.