This is a fair assessment: Why I stopped buying solar panels – and why you should think twice (and practically the same article Why I Quit Solar Panels—And Why You May Rethink Yours – Climate Cosmos – possibly AI generated.)
Solar PV makes sense for our home. We live in a high desert environment (4-seasons) with a good amount of sunlight.
Installed in late 2019, we have a grid intertied system (required by local code). We pay a grid intertie fee (started at $10/month in 2019 but has risen to $17/month) – and we receive a direct credit for each 1 KWH of power we produce. When we produce 1 KWH of extra power, it goes to the grid and is credited to our account but then later we can draw 1 KWH “for free”. Since 2019, we have paid for electricity in only one month – something like $20. The normal utility bill in our area is $200 and up (much higher in winter) per month. In general, we pay nothing for electricity. We use a wood pellet stove for heating, and drive an EV, charged from our solar PV system.
During the spring/summer season, we tend to produce 30-33 KW per day (would be higher if we cut down 2 trees but we don’t plan to do that). During the winter, we produce 5-10 KWH/per day and draw back from our utility “credits”. Our average consumption from the grid, over the course of the year, is probably in the 10 KWH to 15 KWH/month range, depending on what we are doing and how much power we draw directly from the solar panels “in season”.
Compare our price – about $17/month – to the typical costs in eastern Oregon
Using the estimate of about $250/month over the year, that is $3000 per year. Our solar PV installation cost, after prior credits, about $13,000+. It’s payback comes in less than 5 years – which means it has paid for itself.
But again we do things differently – we are efficient with electricity usage at our home, we use a pellet stove for heating, we are very well insulated, and we live in a high desert, relatively sunny climate. We do, however, charge an EV from our system. In terms of overall efficiency, our solar PV array is roughly half to one third the size of arrays on neighbors’ homes, indicating we use less electricity than them – or they significantly over built their systems.
