I just got a DIY kit quote for solar and it’s ~$18,000. That would mean a contractor installing is at least $25,000 if not more. That’s a big chunk of change upfront.
Did you just learn that some people have more money than you?
Did you know, some people pay cash for cars, or even homes?
I knew a guy that had a boat, that crazy mfer
Make sure to do the math if solar is even worth it for you. Electricity is relatively cheap in my area. When I did the math, it would take me at least 20 years to break even (that’s if I paid cash, even longer if I finance). Considering 25 years is an average panels lifespan, it would not save me any money.
Being independent of the grid is the only selling point, but I haven’t done enough research if that’s even true with solar. If it’s still connected to the grid, will I even be able to utilize my panels if there’s an outage in the grid?
Piggybacking to also recommend realistically assessing if you might move prior to that breakeven point. I don’t know if solar panels have good ROI for house selling or not.
Outright purchase, finance, or lease are the 3 options for getting solar. Many people prioritize this on their wish list, save up, and eventually can afford to do so. There may also be subsidies, rebates, and tax credits (federal and/or state) that may apply. New York, for example, is eligible for a max federal credit of -$5700 and a state credit of 25% of your system value to your income taxes. So that would shave off a lot.
Does that mean you receive that much as a refund on your taxes, or is that much a write-off? Write-offs are worthless if you don’t itemize and have enough write-offs to surpass the standard deduction.
Home equity loans are used by a lot of people for this sort of stuff.
You’d have to consider also long-term maintenance and repair costs to that …
Typically if you can afford a $25k upfront cost, the long term costs are pretty negligible.
If you’re paying cash, then your monthly expenses are only going down due to your reduced electricity bill, so your savings potential is going up further.
Additionally the panels are warrantied for at least a decade, with a performance guarantee for 20+ years. If they’re installed on your roof, many also include a guarantee on the roof work.
Proactive solar maintenance is really just keeping things clean, which costs very little.
These small costs do add up if you’re barely making ends meet and on a lease plan that costs roughly the same as your old utility bill, but for the group paying upfront, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
You should get another quote, we have a decent sized 8kw array with a fronius inverter and smart meter that we had installed for $8000AUD.
Unless you’re getting an insanely large array, I don’t see this price being worth it. You’re likely not gonna save $25K over the lifespan of the array. Unless you live in a country with extraordinarily expensive power
And no plans are in place for the disposal of panels, batteries, etc after their 25 year useful life…
Idk if you own property 10-20k $ should really not be an issue to come up with, most houses cost at least one order of magnitude more than that, maybe even two.
It also really doesn’t matter because with a property as collateral and the bank seeing investment in home solar you should probably be able to get a loan.
The important thing in this calculation is usually more along the lines of, how long does it take to get a return on that investment, and how long can I expect my panels to last afterwards, what kind of ROI can I expect lifetime. Lifetime ROI for solar should be 2-5 while being low ish risk. If your lifetime ROI isn’t at least 2, either your government does Energy subsides pretty last century, or your quote is inflated or misconfigured, or it might just not make sense otherwise where you are, this last point only makes sense if installation or grid connection are very expensive compared to normal because of the shape or location of the specific house.
Federal, state, and local rebates.
