Last week, I got a flier in the mail advertising a “Solar Solution Promotion!!!” According to Solar Solution, LLC, the nation’s capital is currently approving grants for homeowners to install solar, in addition to the 30 percent federal tax credit.
Coincidentally, news quietly broke last week that the White House was putting in solar panels, as well.
“The White House has begun installing American-made solar panels on the first family’s residence as part of an energy retrofit that will improve the overall energy efficiency of the building,” the Christian Science Monitor reported a White House official said Thursday. Details of the installation, including how many panels, at what cost, and at what production level, have been scant.
The White House last had solar panels dating from 1976, when President Jimmy Carter had them installed at the height of the energy crisis. President Ronald Reagan had them removed eight years later.
According to ThinkProgress.org, solar is steadily getting cheaper for Americans. Photovoltaic (PV) panel cost has steadily fallen over the past several years. The rate advertised last week in D.C. ranged from an out-of-pocket cost of $1,746 for a 1.8Kw system to $6,502 for a 8.4Kw system, after federal tax credits, local grants, and an SREC (Solar Renewable Energy Certificate) credit.
To the average homeowner, that might not mean much. Electricity is billed in kilowatt hours, or one kilowatt of power expended for one hour of time.
There are lots of ways to figure out your electricity needs. On affordable-solar.com, you can enter your average usage, average cost, and desired percentage you want to cover with solar, along with the average sun exposure for your region, and their calculator will spit out the size of the panels you need.
For example, my house used 766Kwh from mid-June to mid-July. (I know, I know, but it was really hot and I work from home). If this were our average usage, we would need a system producing 8.08 DC kW — the largest one advertised.
Our average over the year, though, is a mere 443Kwh, and the site tells me we would need a system producing 4.62 DC kW — a mid-range home solar system.
Luckily, DC, as well as many cities and states, has a feed-in tariff. Friends of mine say they actually make money over the course of the year. Next step: Find out how big these solar systems are. Stay tuned…
