Home Solar Power

I wrote in an earlier post about the economics of home home solar power and described how it wasn’t an option, in pure economic terms, for most home owners.

If you are lucky enough to live in certain areas of the USA, there’s one factor that will completely reverse this assumption. Many states, or energy companies themselves, will rebate a large part of the cost of a professional home home solar power installation. I checked on one area at random, Austin, Texas. The local energy company there will give you 80% of the cost of the installation as a direct rebate then, additionally, buy surplus electricity from you at wholesale rates. To quote from their site:

For a typical residence, the cost of installing a one kilowatt (1,000 watts) solar photovoltaic system—the smallest considered practical—is between $6,000 and $10,000. Austin Energy will rebate $4,500 ($4.50 x 1,000 watts) of that.

Their figures are a little out-of-date according to my research as the cost of PV cells has been falling and you should be able to get a 2.5KWhp system installed for around $10,000. Their maximum rebate in this case would be capped at 80% of your installation cost, or $8,000. You would therefore only pay $2,000 for a 2.5KW solar energy system. Factor in the money you will make from selling back surplus electricity and you will be in pocket after a relatively short time.

Here’s another example for sunny Florida. They are offering rebates of $4 per Watt for installed PV systems. If you get a 2.5KW system installed for $10,000 then they will rebate you the entire $10,000 unless I’m missing something in the fine print. If you can feed surplus electricity back to the utility company (most allow this) it’s a free perpetual income stream.

You can find details of the rebates in your area at DSIRE - The database of state incentives for renewables and efficiency.

Electricity Electricity, Rebates