The rising cost of electricity has been a HOT TOPIC lately! Costs where we live apparently doubled in January (technically by 48%) so a lot of locals are switching to a 3rd party supplier as a way to save some of that money. (If you want to know who they're switching to, it's Constellation.)
It's been a while since I wrote about our solar panel installation, or about our GREEN life, for that matter! I've know I've spent a lot of time talking about our travel life lately - has this turned into a travel blog?!
| Took this photo on my evening walk yesterday to show my associate (who doesn't like solar panels because they're ugly) that you can't even see my panels unless you're looking for them. |
For those of you who are new to the blog, we were among one of the first homes in our town to go solar, back in 2010. The town inspector had told us at the time there were only 6-8 of us with applications. Call us early adopters. Our home was later featured on the Solar Homes Tour of town, and I hope that it helped some other environmentally-minded homeowners with their decisions to go solar!
If you want to read about our experience, here are some links, or you can use the search bar and type in solar to get all of my posts:
While I Wait for the GREEN Light on My Solar Panels
In short, we have a 7kW system of 40 panels on our Southern-facing roof that generate 95% or more of the electricity we need to run our house. That translates to our electric bill running about $9 for delivery, plus our solar lease monthly payment is $131 - much less than what our electric bill would be for a 3,000sqft home with 5 Bedrooms, 6 people (at the moment) 2 kitchens (we have an in-law apartment) and a 3-car carriage house garage plus a hot tub! There are some Winter months were we do get an electric bill because we're not generating as much energy, but overall it has made perfect sense for us.
When the system was installed we were told to expect the inverter to last about 7 years. I'm happy to report we are at 12 years with no problems yet.
With the CT Solar Lease Program, which is no longer offered, we received a grant for half of the cost of the system, and paid the difference via monthly lease payments of $131. Part of the program is that we were not allowed to store any excess electricity via battery, but instead it is fed back to the grid to power our neighborhood, and we are paid annually for an excess power generated that we did not use.
Now with the detached 3-car carriage house garage which will eventually have the upstairs finished into a small living space/apartment, plus our new plug-in hybrid car and the new hot tub behind the carriage house, I'm wondering it it might make sense to install a small separate array on that roof to help with electric costs for that building, or if our current system will be enough to carry the use of that additional space. We'll see how it goes!
In the 12 years since we went solar, the costs of solar arrays have come down significantly, and the programs have changed. With our program, the monthly cost of the lease was fixed for 15 years at the $131 and then for the next 5 years if we choose to continue, our lease is $39/month. We go into that with the understanding that it's possible that the panels may not be working at full capacity at that point.
When we first met with Sunlight Solar, they told us how rates would eventually go up and what a difference it would make to us when they did. Now I see my community Facebook page full of comments about the crazy high bills they're seeing and I'm so grateful that we made the change to solar back then. I think about how much we have saved over the years, and how much we're saving going forward. Thanks to these beautiful sunny days like today, we haven't had an electric bill other than our $9 delivery fee in maybe a year, and we went 5 months with no bill at all because we generated so much electricity we were banking credits.
I love saving money AND helping the environment! It's like my parents taught me...all of these little things add up.
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