{"id":232639,"date":"2025-05-09T11:52:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-09T11:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/business\/finance\/happy-earth-day-10-year-solar-update\/"},"modified":"2025-05-09T11:52:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-09T11:52:23","slug":"happy-earth-day-10-year-solar-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=232639","title":{"rendered":"Happy Earth Day (10 Year Solar Update!)"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"Earth<\/p>\n

Wow, this Earth Day snuck up on me. You\u2019d think that after writing about it for 16 years now, I wouldn\u2019t be caught writing an article at the last minute.<\/p>\n

Is it okay to write about Earth Day nowadays? I feel like half the country would label an article like this as \u201cwoke\u201d and say that I\u2019m pushing some kind of Green New Deal.<\/p>\n

You\u2019d think that after the rise of natural disasters (remember Hurricane Helene), people would listen to the science and take action. Somewhere around 20% of homes in Florida are not insured<\/a>. In many cases, insurance companies won\u2019t take the risk. In other cases, it\u2019s so expensive to insure a home that people opt out of it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s getting worse every year. I\u2019m concerned with the lives lost and cities destroyed. However, some people only care about the money. Climate.gov has some great charts to see how the costs of billion-dollar weather disasters have grown through 2024<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Ten years ago, we got solar power<\/a>. Let\u2019s look at how it has worked out.<\/p>\n

Solar Power Update: Ten Years Later<\/h2>\n

When I was looking into solar power ten years ago, I didn\u2019t expect it to go anywhere. I was simply looking for ways to reduce my monthly expenses. Rhode Island isn\u2019t known for its sunlight.<\/p>\n

As I looked into it the stars started to align. We had to have a house facing the right direction. We did! It had to be cost effective to meet the goal of reducing our monthly expenses. It turns out that Rhode Island has some of the most expensive electricity in the country. Any energy generated saves a lot of money. Finally, we took advantage of significant government subsidies. Some guy named Musk was doing the same thing for SolarCity and Tesla on a much bigger scale.<\/p>\n

We paid $16,000 for our solar panels. Without the tax breaks, they would have cost $32,000.<\/p>\n

In ten years, we\u2019ve had a couple of inverters fail. The local solar company we worked with fixed it all free of charge. Everything is still under warranty for another 15 years.<\/p>\n

In ten years, our panels have generated 90.5 MWh of electricity. That\u2019s 90,500 kWh of power. The cost of electricity in RI is currently around $0.30 per kWh. It was around 19 cents when we got solar power in 2015. I could estimate that the average cost of energy was about 24.5 cents over the last ten years. That means we\u2019ve gotten around $22,172.5 of electricity for our $16,000 (The $22,172.5 comes from 90,500kWh multiplied by $0.245). In fairness, if we invested the $16,000, we\u2019d probably have at least $32,000 with the stock market growth. You can never expect the stock market to grow like it has been, though.<\/p>\n

Overall, we\u2019ve paid about 17.6 cents per kWh. That\u2019s $16,000 divided by 90,500 kWh. Our cost per kWh keeps going down because each year we generate more electricity from the same $16,000 investment.<\/p>\n

Looking at the last year, we generated 8400 kWh. At the current $0.30 rate, we saved around $2,500. Our solar panels are less efficient, but we\u2019re still saving more as the cost of electricity goes up. When we bought our solar panels, the salesman said that they were guaranteed to be 95% effective for 25 years. Looking at the numbers, they don\u2019t seem to be living quite up to that billing. However, we have a tree that has grown and is likely blocking them some part of the day. Ironically, nature is limiting us from saving nature. Fortunately (or unfortunately?), the tree needs to be cut down because it\u2019s diseased.<\/p>\n

I have one final note on the numbers and savings. Our Enphase dashboard has a dollar calculator, but it seems to be using some kind of national average. Here\u2019s what it looks like:<\/p>\n

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Clicking on the information icon wasn\u2019t very helpful in figuring out how they came across the calculation.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s enough for this year\u2019s Earth Day update. If that wasn\u2019t too woke for you, here\u2019s a look back at my Earth Day articles:<\/p>\n

Previous Earth Day Articles<\/h2>\n