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Originally Posted by sd4chiefs
I had solar panels installed last month. It will pay for itself in about 6 years. So far it is producing more than we are using which is amazing since my Wife has turned our house into a meat locker with the A/C.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by aturnis
I think the average residential install has a payoff of around 6 years. Many businesses much sooner.
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I'd need to see the numbers on that, particularly how much is coming from incentives. Just 2 years ago our EE senior class tasked everyone with coming up with an estimate for insolation. Payback hovered in the area of 15-17 years. My team came up with a plan that paid back with then current incentives in 12 years and we were interrogated six ways to Sunday vetting our methods and calculations.
Also important to remember, there's payback and then there's payback. A big portion of your upfront is your inverter and most inverters have a 15-year operating life, which means that every 15 years expect a sizeable portion of your upfront costs to recur.
MoF, a big key in our shorter payback window was that is we went with small inverters with a shorter life span but much lower cost on each panel instead of one big expensive inverter for the entire installation.