My problem is whenever I've seen these numbers, they were completely baked.<p>"The total price tag for the entire home project was roughly $75,000, after rebates. But Tuttelman says it will pay for itself in about six years through energy cost savings."<p>The costs seem right. I've priced this. The savings are nonsense. I don't spend $75k in utility bills in six years.<p>"Other benefits include the stress savings of not having to guess when a furnace, which typically lasts about 15 years, is on its last legs."<p>My boiler is going strong after forty years, and the technician who looked at it last said this was typical and there's no reason to think it won't last another forty. I periodically need to replace a control board, which I should learn to do myself. In contrast, the system described -- with heat pumps, solar, and whatnot, has a lot more parts and things to go wrong.<p>I'm equally sceptical of the current direct environmental benefit. If I e.g. tossed out my gas-powered car and bought a Tesla, I'd have the environmental cost of manufacturing a Tesla. That would need to be lower than the environmental cost of the gas I'll use for the rest of the life of my car. I don't think it is.<p>There are reasons to buy this stuff (e.g. to support the green industry). That doesn't excuse the propaganda and the fake numbers.
75,000 in savings over 6 years is $12,500 a year, which means this person's utility bills were over $1000 a month!? I know that my house is wildly inefficient and $300-$400 a month is the worst it gets with extreme weather.<p>Talking with friends and family my bills are higher than normal, most are around $200 and less in the milder months. A quick search shows $469 being average us Utility bills and that includes water, trash and internet.<p>I would also like to know, what size the panels and battery are as well.
A lot of these [expensive] incentives are already being wound down, and the ones under control of utilities (e.g. net metering) can radically impact the ROI of things like solar installations. It'll be interesting to see how things stabilize in California over the next few years now that new residential solar doesn't make sense for almost anyone [unless they also have batteries and drive EVs, since electricity is now more expensive than running most gas-powered cars].<p>Additionally, why would most homeowners spend this kind of money when the vast majority of people only stay in a give house for ~7 years total? The incentives are great, but I don't see substantial changes happening unless it becomes a true no-brainer to replace fossil fuel systems and inefficient infrastructure (windows, roofs, insulation) with updated materiel. Blowing in more insulation is cheap and easy, but most Americans don't have a rainy day fund that would make replacing a furnace with heat pumps something they casually decide makes sense... or gas appliances with electric, or a new roof, etc.
Solar and batteries pays off pretty quickly and can bring you to a net zero position on electrical needs fairly easily (excess sold in summer, importing in the winter). On an annual basis I now power half of another home in addition to my own. If I take the total expected output over 25 years my electricity cost is 1/4 of what it would be from the grid per KW/h. I went 6 months last year importing almost nothing from the grid.<p>In the UK at least batteries and an inverter are actually quicker to pay off using an economy 7 electricity tariff since power overnight is less than half the price of during the day and is typically from Wind power and imported Nuclear from France. That can pay off in less than 4 years and will last 10-15 with li-po.<p>If you don't have a roof to put solar on then there are some cooperative schemes where you can own part of a solar/wind installation and still save on your bill. A national one is <a href="https://rippleenergy.com/" rel="nofollow">https://rippleenergy.com/</a> but there may be more local schemes that you could help fund and get the payback from, residents are banding together to build solar farms all over the country.<p>The big energy companies have messed up this transition to green energy terribly and its considerably cheaper to make your own power than buy from them, which lets be honest it shouldn't be.
One man’s experience in DC (where the SRECs are crazy valuable):<p>Installed 10Mwh system in 2021 for ~$40k.<p>After federal tax credits, SREC earnings, reductions in electric bills, and payments from electric co for over production, we have $7k left to recoup in only 3 years. And that ignores savings from the gas we’re not spending on charging the PHEV.<p>I know it’s a luxury to have, but there’s also some pride value (clearly!). Fortunate circumstance if you’re in the right place and have the cash. I wish the investment was more broadly accessible.
I've done these calculations, particularly after putting an 11.6Kw solar array on our last house, which was in St. Petersburg, FL, one of the sunniest places in the US.<p>We sold the house after having the system for ~6.5 years, but we were tracking for a 9 year ROI. My cost was ~$23K out of pocket at the time, with power bills of $500-$800/mo., depending on time of year. I think our average daily consumption was 69Kwh, and the system produced the majority of that most days.<p>Assuming an average power bill of $600/mo., $23K would cover roughly 3 years of power bills. However, if the money was invested in a decent-ish portfolio, it would be earning some interest along the way, which could stretch what it covers to 5+ years. Anyway, when I did all the math, the solar panels never really <i>made</i> money, but what they did was smooth out our monthly expenses and gave some hedge against rate increases.<p>The new house is the same general area, and our use is about the same, but going to wait to see if solar takes a bigger decrease in cost before doing another array. It's mostly maintenance-free, but I did not output decline when the panels got dirty, and one panel died about 1 year after installation (and by then the installer company had gone out of business).
To me, the obvious reason why solar would be a gamble is that I have no guarantee I’ll be living here in the same home five years - let alone twenty - from now and I can’t take it with me when/if I move.
I recently replaced an electric instahot (on-demand) water heater with a tank hybrid heater. In addition to dehumidifying and cooling the basement, it uses about a quarter of the electricity (from 10%, monthly, to 3% kWH).<p>During the winter, I keep the tub water plugged up for the heat pump to re-absorb... REDUCE, re-use, recycle, generate.