Is solar worth the money?

Thinking about purchasing solar panels for your residence? Have a thousand questions? How big should the system be? Where should you buy it? What will it cost, and what will it save you? As someone who has been where you are, I can help you. You should find out what solar is worth TO YOU, and how long it will be before your up-front investment will pay for itself.

I have now had solar for three years. The financial benefits can be easily seen by looking at the daily data I have collected. This site will tell you what nobody else can. There is no site like it. We will not collect your name or give it to anyone. We just want to help you get a fair deal, and to understand how long it will be before your investment pays off.

In the Fall of 2020, I purchased solar (without a battery) for my home in Phoenix, AZ. I knew very little at the time. I had been told that a price of $2.25 per watt per hour was fair. That is exactly what I paid (after incentives). Then I began to notice that the hardware cost was only about 25% of the total project, and that the solar company had made a lot of money off of me (engineering, and one day of installation for half a dozen crew costs far less than $28,000).

I knew that there were other costs, but there was also still a lot of profit for the solar company. That launched me into a project to see how long it would take for my solar purchase to pay for itself. I should have done that first. Join me in my quest if you think you might want to purchase solar for your home. I can help you determine if buying solar is a good idea.

After owning solar for just over three years, I can tell you exactly how much money the system is saving or making for me each year (about $1,900). Knowing what I paid for the system, what it cost me after all the incentives and rebates (about $27,000) I can easily calculate that it will take me about 14 years to break even (unless I sell my house and the solar panels increase the value of my house, which they probably would). In short, buying solar was basically a decision to pre-pay my elecric bill for the next 14 years. After that, I will be saving money. Still, I have no monthly electricity bill, have never had any trouble or failures of the solar panel system, and am glad I have solar.

This site has information that you will find nowhere else. It includes actual data from my 12,075 Watt solar panels. You can see graphs, how much I have earned, and can review particular months if you like. In Phoenix, much of our electricity usage goes towards cooling our home. On September 14, 2023 I installed an 8,000 BTU window unit in our bedroom. Now, at night, we only cool the bedroom, and the cost savings are substantial (as can be seen).

There are many excellent web sites that will help you size your solar system, learn how well suited your house is for solar, and what size system you might need. This site is not one of those. This site has one simple goal. We want you to know whether or not you can justify spending the cost of solar, and how long that will take to break even. If you buy solar, what you pay the utility provider will go down, but you will pay a lot up front instead. When will you be ahead financially, if ever? Please note that this site is not intended to help you cost justify a leased system or a commercial one.

The purpose of this site is for those considering a residential system that they will purchase in the U.S. Leasing a system is probably not your best alternative.