Is Solar an Answer if you’re trying to Figure out how to Save Money on Electric Bill Demands?
If you caught the opening scenes on The Social Network, you probably know that people can get rich studying how cold or warm the weather will get the following year and then speculating on energy. Well, the weather last winter certainly was unseasonably cold; and summer this year has been unseasonably warm. You can bet that speculators are going crazy all over with those energy stocks. As for you, you are probably happy just figuring out how to save money on electric bill demands now that the winters are colder and the summers warmer. Well, you could, like some people are doing, consider installing solar panels on your roof. You get a federal tax credit worth a couple of thousand dollars and your state gives you very accommodating rebates too. So should you switch to solar and save big? Well, the short answer to that would be, no, you shouldn’t.
Solar panels may be a good idea if you want to contribute your drop to the energy pool that this country works out of and perhaps save the planet a little bit. Whatever it is, just like it is with buying a Prius, you shouldn’t do it to save money. It isn’t really hard do the math either. FindSolar.com, by the Department of Energy shows you that if your primary concern is figuring out how to save money on electric bill demands, solar isn’t your answer. Let’s say for instance, that you live in the state of New York where it really gets cold in the winter and quite warm in the summer, and you get an expensive $100-a-month power bill. If you wanted to buy a solar system for your roof, you would end up paying about $30,000 for the whole set-up after all the rebates and tax credits.
If you didn’t buy that solar panel and sat on your $30,000, you could actually manage your bills for at least quarter century – that would be enough to see you through into your old age. When you put the money in reasonably-profitable stocks, you could make it last until the end of your days. Most people in general see returns coming in after 20 years. Why on earth would you spend tens of thousands of dollars for such long-shot savings? In a state like California or Nevada where the air-conditioning costs can be in excess of $200 a month, solar panels can work a lot more efficiently and be a lot more useful. But even here, you’re looking at a breakeven of about 10 years.
Everyone’s worried about how to save money on electric bill payments; they say that outfitting a home with that kind of system can raise the value of your home by about $10,000; not even the best kitchen renovation could do that for your home. If you could be sure that any it could do that in your area, perhaps such an investment might make sense.