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What I mean is that your initial outlay either needed capital or a loan. This is money that could have been invested, with electricity bills taken out of that k

by MRD85 8y ago

What I mean is that your initial outlay either needed capital or a loan. This is money that could have been invested, with electricity bills taken out of that kitty. What's confusing me here is that you've said you've been saving $2600 per year in electricity costs but it took 11 years to save $20000 off your bills. Either you've averaged about $1800 per year in savings or you've spent more than $20k on the system + maintenance, or I'm missing something. Was there some sort of tax offset here to make it more cost effective? The point I was trying to make is that a dollar spent 11 years ago isn't the same as a dollar spent today.

ChuckMcM 8y ago
Thanks for that clarification, we did in fact finance the initial capital, we were re-doing the roof and as part of that we chose to refinance the house to take advantage of the lower interest rates. And yes, there were government rebates in force at the time, the actual system cost was closer to $40,000 but our part of that bill was half or $20,000. FWIW the refinance which only added the cost of the roof and panels to the balance and reduced the interest rate left us with a smaller monthly payment with a similar pay off date (replaced a 30 yr fixed with a 15 year fixed) As for costs, maintenance included replacing a failed inverter, that was $3500, and a panel, that was $450. The way in which electricity has also changed, when we started it was just kilowatts in vs kilowatts out annual true-up, they dumped that and switched to time of day, but changed their mind when the economics didn't work out for them, and now they are on the tiered system. They also blew up the town of San Bruno and convinced the PUC that they should be allowed to raise rates to cover their costs, so the price of electricity has gone up. Net result is that we didn't save as much per month when we started, incurred maintenance costs above the original $20K, and PG&E has changed the rules several times on how the accounting works. Fortunately all of that complexity can be factored out just by computing the bills vs what we paid.

by MRD85 8y ago

ChuckMcM 8y ago

Thanks for that clarification, we did in fact finance the initial capital, we were re-doing the roof and as part of that we chose to refinance the house to take advantage of the lower interest rates. And yes, there were government rebates in force at the time, the actual system cost was closer to $40,000 but our part of that bill was half or $20,000. FWIW the refinance which only added the cost of the roof and panels to the balance and reduced the interest rate left us with a smaller monthly payment with a similar pay off date (replaced a 30 yr fixed with a 15 year fixed) As for costs, maintenance included replacing a failed inverter, that was $3500, and a panel, that was $450. The way in which electricity has also changed, when we started it was just kilowatts in vs kilowatts out annual true-up, they dumped that and switched to time of day, but changed their mind when the economics didn't work out for them, and now they are on the tiered system. They also blew up the town of San Bruno and convinced the PUC that they should be allowed to raise rates to cover their costs, so the price of electricity has gone up. Net result is that we didn't save as much per month when we started, incurred maintenance costs above the original $20K, and PG&E has changed the rules several times on how the accounting works. Fortunately all of that complexity can be factored out just by computing the bills vs what we paid.