Usually around $4 a watt for rooftop grid tied installed.
Historical electricity prices
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Please see https://sunroof.withgoogle.com/ for an initial feasibility study.
If that looks encouraging, please see https://energysage.com/ for a no obligation set of quotations. You should expect to receive six quotes within 48 hours.
Someone suggested a price of $4 per watt installed. My system came in at $2.99 per watt in January 2024. The 30% Federal Tax Credit expires at the end of this year. I imagine that the market is very competitve right now as installers scramble for every project before that tax credit expires.
Not the case in my area. Since the November elections, rail traffic of coal cars seems to have tripled.
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I looked and it recommended a 28-36kw system. Looks like that is around $100k. I’m just not sure it makes sense for me. I earn over $4k a year on the $100k cash I have sitting in an online account which happens to be pretty close to my annual electric bill. Of course the tax credit could reduce that $100k some.
Glad to see that you did your homework; not everyone does that. Your potential ROI looks a lot different than mine.
@OVERKILL is spot on; in fact he has reviewed my installation and bills. He understands it better than I do!
In a nutshell, I get 38 cents per kWh that I send to the grid, and pay the going rate for what I use, depending on time of day.
It is a bit more complicated than that, but that the jist of it. I pay a grid use fee, but that is often credited back at my annual true op.
I charge the Tesla over night during the lowest rate. These summer months, in Los Gatos (south Silicon Valley) offer a lot of sunshine, so I am "banking" generation. In the winter, days are shorter and cloudier, so I will use more than I send back.
NEM2 expired; the current NEM3 plan pays wholesale for generation. This killed solar in CA, to a large extent.
Let's just say sometimes you get lucky. I contemplated a solar project for perhaps 3 years; when the deal became compelling I pulled the trigger. I live in an area of filthy expensive energy costs and pay less than most anywhere. My plan was to get this house ready for the long term, so wifey would be set if I croaked or whatever. Even though she has more than me...
The only thing I would have done differently back in early 2018 would be to have purchased a bit larger system. But I am a cheapskate tightwad so there's that. I love my solar.
Ok. That is acceptable. Thanks for the clarification. Lol
13.674 cents per kWh as of June 2018 vs. 20.055 today. That amounts to a 46.7% increase in eight years.
Now you know why I pulled the trigger on the expensive solar project. It didn't take a genius to figure rates would only go up.
The project was a hedge against future price increases; I wanted to get my ducks in a row before retirement.
Living dirt cheap in retirement offers piece of mind.
That was my rationale also. It's been a good investment. I went with the Panasonic EverVolt panels that have a warranty for 92% of faceplate capacity at 25 years. My production may fall by 0.25% per year on average but I think it safe to assume that retail electricity prices will rise faster than that.
Like you I wish that I had put another two or three panels on the roof. We've managed to offset 92.5% of our consumption since 1 February 2024 BUT we've both retired since then and consumption is declining.
Since the Ohio PUCO regulates this, yours is probably the same, but is your "delivery" charge almost 1:1 to your usage ?
See above ^^. The utilities in Ohio have to "ask" for increases in charges but over time, from corruption, kick-backs, etc, no doubt, they charge a delivery fee pretty much equal to what we use.
That said, at least in Ohio we can choose our supplier. The going rate is around 10.5 cents per KWH but I'm currently paying 6.5 cents with an alternate supplier. Our contract is expiring in weeks and the best rate is now 7.5 cents though. Also, many cities (or groups of smaller cities) make deals with suppliers to sell to every residence for better rates. They generally get very good rates this way too.
Does that 10.5 cents/kWh include transmission and distribution? You may wish to clarify that before half the population of California and New England decide to move to Ohio - LOL!
No, that's strictly the part that we have some control over. Realistically, the effective rate is 2x that since we typically pay 100% for transmission/distribution (called "delivery" by the utilities here).
Is the transmission fee an amount per kwh, or is it a flat connection fee?
No one knows ! Seriously, our bills have no explanation, formula, etc. In the past, it seemed to be a fixed rate (or maybe there was a minimum no matter how much you used). Actually, Google tells me this:
Clear as mud, huh ?
