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Admittedly naive ask. I hear this argument that residential solar panels are not very cost-effective. A former colleague once told me that after Government subs

Admittedly naive ask. I hear this argument that residential solar panels are not very cost-effective. A former colleague once told me that after Government subsidies, his break-even point for solar investment was 12 years. I didnt ask him at that time. I'm assuming he was referring to energy buyback from his utility provider for his math. Isn't that against their business incentive to support residential solar? If one has a house, and covers the roof with self-purchased solar panels, and hooks them up to a large enough battery-box, wouldn't it just be "I saved the cost I would have paid as my utility provider's bill"? That way the return on investment is more manageable and is without being held at the mercy of the power companies?

gm-conspiracy 8y ago
Also, these calculations seem to assume electricity costs will remain constant, and not increase.
- francisofascii 8y ago
  Also assumes the cost won't go down. I fear utilities will start jacking up monthly customer charges and keep rates low to avoid paying solar customers for generation.
- EADGBE 8y ago
  It looks to be plateauing. https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-electricity-consumption-since-1975/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-electricity-co...
pjc50 8y ago
>Isn't that against their business incentive to support residential solar? Yes, but that may not matter. I have a set of solar panels. They cost about £5k. They produce up to 25kWh/day: https://flatline.org.uk/daystats.html https://flatline.org.uk/daystats.html I'm paid £0.138 for every kWh that is generated, regardless of whether I use it or not, and I don't have net metering. This results in a cheque every few months for about £500 a year, plus the saving of a difficult-to-meter amount of electricity used locally during the day. This gives me a ten year payback (or sooner). Entertainingly because of the way feed-in tariffs work in the UK, they could be paid by a totally different provider to the one billing me for grid electricity.

gm-conspiracy 8y ago

Also, these calculations seem to assume electricity costs will remain constant, and not increase.

francisofascii 8y ago
Also assumes the cost won't go down. I fear utilities will start jacking up monthly customer charges and keep rates low to avoid paying solar customers for generation.
EADGBE 8y ago
It looks to be plateauing. https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-electricity-consumption-since-1975/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/201794/us-electricity-co...

pjc50 8y ago

>Isn't that against their business incentive to support residential solar? Yes, but that may not matter. I have a set of solar panels. They cost about £5k. They produce up to 25kWh/day: https://flatline.org.uk/daystats.html https://flatline.org.uk/daystats.html I'm paid £0.138 for every kWh that is generated, regardless of whether I use it or not, and I don't have net metering. This results in a cheque every few months for about £500 a year, plus the saving of a difficult-to-meter amount of electricity used locally during the day. This gives me a ten year payback (or sooner). Entertainingly because of the way feed-in tariffs work in the UK, they could be paid by a totally different provider to the one billing me for grid electricity.