As a start, there are three main ways to buy a solar system, which affect how much you will save with it.
- Purchase a solar system on your cash and pay it outright.
- Use some financial service and install it according to payment plans.
- Payment plans or subscriptions
Each of these methods has its pros and cons. For example, using your own money to buy a solar system is much simpler, and there are no such loans or any stuff you need to worry about later on. But on the other hand, you can use that money for additional opportunities that might make or save your money.
Getting a solar system through finance or just putting it on your mortgage isn’t too hard in the first run, But you have to pay interest on that loan.
When it comes to payment plans and subscriptions, these are the most expensive of the above three. This includes lots of hidden charges and unnecessary costs associated with it.
Another critical thing you have to remember when you calculate how much you will save from your solar system is the maintenance cost. Solar does not require any ongoing maintenance.
However, day to day, your panel can get dusty or dirty but usually kept sufficient cleaned by rusted unless you live near the sea or other places that can ensure excessive buildup of salt or dust,
However, one thing you will have to maintain is your solar inverter.
Even excellent quality inverter generally only lasts about ten years. Thus, you will need to replace it at your own cost. As in case most of the warranty will likely have to expire by then.
So these are the things you need to worry about when you invest in solar inverters because it’s not cheap.
So now you have learned about how to buy a solar system and several other factors, including your cost when you purchase it. Now we will check on how to do the main calculations. These calculations required various kinds of parameters which make it a little bit technical. I will explain it by using this example.
Example: You will have system parameters as below.
Size of the Solary System = 5kW
Day time power use = 10kWh
Feed in Tarrif (FiT) = $ 0.12
Power Cost = $0.4 cents per kWh
Many online calculators do this for you, including the panel’s orientation, shading, and so many other factors. So for this example, think that your average daily solar power generation is 20kWh. Remember, this is the average for a whole year.
As explained in our example, 10kWh is our daytime power use. This means that the solar system will save us from purchasing from 10kWh of the full-price power from the power provider.
Saving from purchasing 10kWh of Peak power is = 10kWhx$0.40 = $4.00/dday-saving
Remaining 10kWh solar power exported x$0.12=1.20 /day Income
Total savings ; $4.00+$1.20 = $ 5.20/Day Total svings for whole year = $1.898/Year
So, according to this example, you are pretty much saving almost two grand per year as long as your power consumption habits remain the same.
I hope now you will understand why so many people are jumping it this technology very fast. This is a big idea that I wish everyone from your solar could earn thousands of dollars every year.
However, you need to be careful when purchasing an existing solar system, or otherwise, many things can go wrong.