Nowadays you cannot live without electricity; From the heat to video games, essentials disappear. For most of us, the only way to power our home was to pay our utility bills, which average about $137 a month. It might not be the biggest bill you pay every month, but it still makes up a significant portion of your paycheck, especially since everything else seems to be constantly getting more expensive.
If you're looking to save on your energy bills, you've probably thought about going solar. But harnessing sunlight to power your home is a big and expensive project. How big depends on a number of factors, including your energy needs, the type of solar panels you're installing, and the tax credits you're eligible for.
total cost
The average cost of installing solar panels on your home is around $25,000, but the actual cost will vary widely, and you should consider the potential savings you'll get by generating your own energy (and possibly selling excess energy). afford it. . profit received). Most solar installations pay for themselves in 6 to 12 years, making them a good investment—as long as you plan to stay home to use them.
When estimating the cost of installing solar panels, there are several factors to consider:
Usage. The size of the solar panel depends on the amount of electricity needed. The average American household uses about 900 kilowatt-hours of electricity per month, or about 11,000 kilowatt-hours per year. You can determine your own consumption by looking at your current utility bill, which will tell you how many kilowatt-hours your home uses each month. Solar installations are priced per watt, and the average cost is about $3 per watt. So if you install a 6 kWh system (which will produce about 8400 kWh per year), that would be 3 x 6000 watts, or about $18,000.
One thing to remember is that you don't have to cover all your energy costs: installing a 4 kWh system that produces about 5,600 kWh per year will still reduce your overall energy costs.
She writes. Panels can be made from different materials that provide different levels of efficiency, which is a measure of how efficiently sunlight is converted into electricity. As with most things, you can get a cheaper, less effective option, or pay more for a premium one. There are four main categories of solar panels:
Monocrystalline. These are the most expensive types of solar panels, but they are the most efficient. Wholesale costs (including labor costs and other costs that the contractor may not pay you) are typically $0.75 to $1.50 per panel, but they provide an efficiency rating of 15-20% and sometimes higher.
Polycrystalline. These products are slightly cheaper, typically retailing for less than $1 per panel, but they also have a lower efficiency rating (meaning you get less energy out of them), around 16%.
thin Considered a "budget" option, it typically costs between $0.30 and $0.60 per panel, but typically provides less than 15% efficiency.
Zoster solar panels are designed to look like traditional roofing panels, without the unsightly and intrusive grid of panels installed on your roof. They are very effective (14% to 18%) but also much more expensive, averaging about $55,000 per installation. If beauty is more important to you than money, this is a great choice.
Another consideration is whether to use a battery storage system, which "stores" energy you generate but don't need immediately. The battery can keep the lights on during power outages. But they are expensive, as whole-house batteries can add $10,000 to $20,000 to the cost of a project.
incentives
Another factor that will affect the overall cost of a solar installation is the incentives you may be eligible for. The federal solar tax credit can give you up to 30% of the installation cost back as a tax credit, although you'll have to wait until you file your taxes to see the benefit. However, this is a big breakthrough: if you pay $18,000 up front to install solar panels, you can get $6,000 of that back next year as a tax break.
There are also government tax credit programs and other incentives, such as utility rebates, that can cover the cost of subsequent installations. This will depend on where you live, so you'll need to do some research locally to see what you might be eligible for. If you contact a solar panel contractor, they will likely be happy to provide you with all of this information as part of their quote.
This is how much energy the tiny house of fate consumes
