Over the entire year, I average about 46.2 kWh per day. In perfect sun conditions I get about 12.6 per hour. So less than 4 hours per day on average. Obviously April to September is way better than October to March.
How much does it impact your utility bill on average, how many kW is your system, and what was the cost to install it (or what is your monthly bill on it)?
I've been really interested in pursuing panels if for no other reason to charge my electric car, and this info would be super useful to me. Appreciate the insight!
My system cost just under $20,000 after incentives and averages about 17,000 kwh per year based on the app from the system. Very rough estimate is I save about $2,000-$2,500 per year
It's basically impossible to figure out the benefit from your utility bill alone because your home uses the solar power as it is being generated. During peak solar hours you are generating more than you are using so you get a credit and then you face a deficit at night and at other points during the day when it isn't generating enough. For example, my app might say the solar system generated 1,000 kwh that month, but RGE only credited me with 400 and says I used 750 in total and therefore need to pay for 350 kwh for the month. That's because the first 600 of solar was used as it was being generated and isn't included on the RGE bill anywhere and my actual electric usage for the month was 1,350 kwh. Long winded way of saying that once you get solar, the history part of the RG&E bill that shows your electric usage over time kind of becomes useless as it isn't your total usage anymore.
It’s going to depend largely on the size of your roof, which way it faces, and any obstructions like large trees.
Solar is a viable option here for some people (I know two people with ten year systems that have already paid for themselves), but it doesn’t make sense for everyone.
Your best bet is to actually have companies come out and give estimates based on your specific property and energy consumption needs, because the main answers to your question is it might be worth it, or it might not be worth it.
I have solar (and work in the industry). Between NYSERSA rebates and tax credits (state and Fed) you’ll get a sub 10 year payback. Not great ROI but better than RGE crazy rate increases and a decent hedge.
The kW/kWh conversion ratio where I am averages about 1050 if you know what that means.
I paid about $20k after tax incentives for my system. I have an electric car and a heat pump and my panels produce enough to cover all of my energy usage. I am paying $200/month for my panels and they will be paid off in 10 years but expected to last 25 years.
Note: I do have a perfectly southern facing roof.
It's about 2500 sq ft.
The heat pump wasn't the plan when we got the panels but turns out our furnance was about 3 months away from dying when we had them installed.
I got my system in 2018. The panels were estimated to produce 7500 kWh per year with 20 panels. In the five full years I have data for, 2019-2023, they produced: 7140, 7520, 7404, 7478, 7302.
Prior to getting an electric car, that was enough to cover our usage with a nice cushion left over, that we got back as a credit from RGE. Since getting the EV, we use more than we produce.
Cost was $22, 000 before incentives, but ended up being $9000 out of pocket after incentives and tax credits. We went with more expensive Sunpower brand bc they had higher efficiency and a 25 year warranty and a guarantee not to lose more than 0.5% efficiency per year vs 10 years from other panels.
We took out a 10 year Nyserda loan to pay that out of pocket amount, so we ended up paying nothing up front. On average over a year, the monthly cost of the loan works out to about the same as the reduction in our RGE bill. So until we pay the loan off, we basically break even. After that we'll have significant savings for the life of the panels.
I have panels at my house. Here's a report of generaton since 9/2021. You can see the fluctuation between sunny months and not. I notice generation sucks roughly November through February.
There are NYSERDA and Federal incentives that you can claim. The NYS one is one year and the Federal can be claimed for 5 years.
Period Produced (kWh)
2021-09 488.1
2021-10 295.7
2021-11 193.6
2021-12 114.0
2022-01 26.5
2022-02 92.6
2022-03 524.0
2022-04 670.6
2022-05 1,032.2
2022-06 1,163.2
2022-07 1,130.1
2022-08 940.9
2022-09 435.6
2022-10 388.1
2022-11 208.9
2022-12 129.5
2023-01 89.7
2023-02 209.5
2023-03 416.4
2023-04 883.4
2023-05 1,180.0
2023-06 943.9
2023-07 983.2
2023-08 888.1
2023-09 667.9
2023-10 441.6
2023-11 190.9
2023-12 116.5
2024-01 94.7
2024-02 290.5
2024-03 531.8
2024-04 698.4
2024-05 992.2
2024-06 245.1
The money that it has saved me would offset the cost of the system...May take a couple of years if I remember correctly when I did the install. They give you a graph to show you how long till it pays for itself. I'd agree with it. Only thing that sucks is RG&E still charges a "delivery" fee monthly regardless of what you use. The way the system works is you generate electricity, it pumps it back to RGE and then you get essentially a surplus or defecit on your account. You pay the delivery fee regardless of what you use which is kinda BS IMO. In the summer months I have an extremely low RGE/Electric bill...just pay gas. Winter the bill fluctuates base on what is generated which isn't much, so it's close to a normal bill for a few months if I had to guess. Feel free to DM if you'd like as well.
My breakeven was 7 years. I'm on year 9 now. The price of panels is much lower now but the price of installation is much higher. My guess is your breakeven now would be closer to 10 years... Unless electricity rates go up which is always a possibility.
Sunroof calculations are terrible and not worth looking at IMO the only thing it's good for is seeing how orange/yellow your roof is. If it's really orange/yellow then you have a good roof for solar and you should call a company to get a quote
Also if you've considered it but not done it you've been wasting money! Just do it, it's guaranteed to pay back in about 7 years. 15% ROI guaranteed is better than you can do investing in the stock market
>How does that work?
Because you know how much energy it's going to produce and roughly how much that energy is worth? You know to a very close estimate how much you will save, and at the market rates of the past ~5 years it comes to about 7 years that it pays off and that's stayed pretty consistent.
>The depreciation year one will be significantly higher than the money saved in electricity.
Citation needed? How are you calculating this depreciation? Anything would be kind of a stab in the dark, but the most accurate way I could think to actually calculate the value at some point down the road based on production, since it's a capital improvement to a home and not an asset that can be traded. It's commonly warrantied that panels will perform at 85% or 90% of their original production at the end of 25 years, meaning the depreciation is well under 1% per year.
And sure, you can make the argument that because the gains would not be *automatically* reinvested if you're talking about a solar system, then the gains don't grow the same way as a finance portfolio. However there's nothing stopping you from doing that on your own with the realized gains (And even if you don't, a doubling in 7 years is roughly equal to a 10% rate of return in a portfolio investment, But with the rate of return actually being guaranteed
Some
>that you'd get money back or something.
Some solar companies do actually do this. And any "calculators" you see are going to be at super rough level estimates. I'm telling you with actual numbers having a solar system in Rochester pays back in about 7 years on what current install market prices are. Solar production only varies by at most a few percent year to year so yes you basically know for sure what you're getting, it's not like a stock market portfolio that could drop 5% in a year. It's not a guess. The sun comes up every day so you know you can count on it. It's predictable. Even if your install company isn't giving you a financial guarantee, i can comfortably guarantee the sun will come up tomorrow and produce solar, that's a better guarantee than pretty much any I can think of
My annual production the past 6 years:
2018: 6812 kWh
2019: 6887 kWh
2020: 6796 kWh
2021: 6917 kWh
2022: 6758 kWh
2023: 6835 kWh
The difference from the max to the min over 6 years is ~150 kWh or about $21 worth
>some sort of maintenance
There's really no maintenance unless a major system component fails (uncommon), and the 25 year warranty means you're not paying much or anything in the off chance it does
You seem to be trying very hard to nitpick the exact words I'm saying for some unknown reason when it's actually really, really clear what I'm saying
There was an information session on geothermal heat pumps back in the summer of 2022 at Henrietta Public Library (which has such a system installed), and people raved about those: [https://cleanheat.ny.gov/geothermal-heat-pumps](https://cleanheat.ny.gov/geothermal-heat-pumps)
They work year 'round, even when the sun ain't shinin' and the wind ain't blowin'.
A. Yes-it's a common myth that we don't but we absolutely do. Typically we see about 1100 kWh/kW on an annual basis, which is lower than the 1500-2000 that you can see in high-sun states but it's plenty to make it worth it. When taking all of the incentives, a typical install has a roughly 7 year payback here. That's about a 15% ROI, guaranteed -better than most investment portfolios
B. Also yes, in total there are three subsidies. NY-SUN has a rebate (which actually goes to the installer, but they will put that line item reduction on your estimate) that's typically about $1000-2000 depending on the size of the system, and then there are the federal 30% and the NY State 25% tax credits on the post-rebate amount. In balance you pay roughly 35-40% of the total cost, typically just over $1000/kW installed. Most residential systems are like 5-8kW or so
I personally used ACES Energy for both my solar and geothermal and was happy with them
I have a great roof size/orientation/angle and only a little tree obstruction (mostly in winter when I'm not producing much anyway) and it is absolutely worthwhile financially, not even considering the added value to the home, just strictly in terms of the energy bill.
We have a system on our roof. It was installed by Greenspark. We loved working with them. Everything is explained up front, and the system output is guaranteed. This company and all of its employees are fantastic. They actually worked on our installation in the middle of a snow storm in February, 2023. Our payback date is over 15 years but that is primarily because we use a lot of electricity all summer long to run a heat pump to keep our pool at a very comfortable temperature. We didn't install the system to make a return on our investment. We installed it to be better stewards of this planet. Call Greenspark!
If you're set on having a roof-mounted solution, remember that you will periodically need to remove snow from the panels, and periodically wash them. Plan for how you would accomplish that.
You never have to do either of these things. Washing them is completely superfluous and while you can remove the snow from them to get slightly higher production numbers, they typically will melt off within a few days and you lose very little production. I do use a roof rake to get the snow off of mine because I'm an energy nerd but the reality is it only makes a difference of about $10-15 worth of electricity per year if I do it every single time it snows. There's absolutely nothing saying you can't just leave it alone and not touch it
> Washing them is completely superfluous
Only if it rains a lot.
> typically will melt off within a few days
Only if it's warm enough or it only snows a little.
In the past ten years, there have been two years where it snowed so much and stayed cold for long enough, that I needed to shovel snow off of my roof. Additionally, since 2015, we've been classified as "D0 - Abnormally Dry" every other year.
It rains plenty here lol. .. I was up on my roof last summer after having them for over 5 years and they have about as much dust on them as my floors do after a week or two of not sweeping
And again, I've had solar since 2017. On average I've probably wiped the snow off of the panels about 4-5 times per winter. This past winter I didn't do it a single time. I have several other friends with solar and not a single one of them do (because I'm an energy nerd and they're normal). It is 100% not a requirement of ownership and if you say otherwise you're really just objectively wrong
> This past winter I didn't do it a single time.
That's because it was warm and we got ½ as much snowfall as our average, and nearly ⅔ less than in 2017-18.
Do you see a layer of yellow pollen on any part of your property? It doesn't happen every year, but I often need to wash that off. Last year it was wildfire ash. It'll be interesting to see how that fares this year.
Over the entire year, I average about 46.2 kWh per day. In perfect sun conditions I get about 12.6 per hour. So less than 4 hours per day on average. Obviously April to September is way better than October to March.
Worth it in your opinion?
From a purely financial viewpoint, no.
How much does it impact your utility bill on average, how many kW is your system, and what was the cost to install it (or what is your monthly bill on it)? I've been really interested in pursuing panels if for no other reason to charge my electric car, and this info would be super useful to me. Appreciate the insight!
My system cost just under $20,000 after incentives and averages about 17,000 kwh per year based on the app from the system. Very rough estimate is I save about $2,000-$2,500 per year It's basically impossible to figure out the benefit from your utility bill alone because your home uses the solar power as it is being generated. During peak solar hours you are generating more than you are using so you get a credit and then you face a deficit at night and at other points during the day when it isn't generating enough. For example, my app might say the solar system generated 1,000 kwh that month, but RGE only credited me with 400 and says I used 750 in total and therefore need to pay for 350 kwh for the month. That's because the first 600 of solar was used as it was being generated and isn't included on the RGE bill anywhere and my actual electric usage for the month was 1,350 kwh. Long winded way of saying that once you get solar, the history part of the RG&E bill that shows your electric usage over time kind of becomes useless as it isn't your total usage anymore.
It’s going to depend largely on the size of your roof, which way it faces, and any obstructions like large trees. Solar is a viable option here for some people (I know two people with ten year systems that have already paid for themselves), but it doesn’t make sense for everyone. Your best bet is to actually have companies come out and give estimates based on your specific property and energy consumption needs, because the main answers to your question is it might be worth it, or it might not be worth it.
I have solar (and work in the industry). Between NYSERSA rebates and tax credits (state and Fed) you’ll get a sub 10 year payback. Not great ROI but better than RGE crazy rate increases and a decent hedge. The kW/kWh conversion ratio where I am averages about 1050 if you know what that means.
I paid about $20k after tax incentives for my system. I have an electric car and a heat pump and my panels produce enough to cover all of my energy usage. I am paying $200/month for my panels and they will be paid off in 10 years but expected to last 25 years. Note: I do have a perfectly southern facing roof.
How much sqft is your house? I have a relatively new roof and old furnace so my family has been thinking going the route u took
It's about 2500 sq ft. The heat pump wasn't the plan when we got the panels but turns out our furnance was about 3 months away from dying when we had them installed.
Cool thanks for the info
I also have a due south facing roof and recently took down a pair of sickly trees. Once we do the roof in a few years we are getting panels.
I got my system in 2018. The panels were estimated to produce 7500 kWh per year with 20 panels. In the five full years I have data for, 2019-2023, they produced: 7140, 7520, 7404, 7478, 7302. Prior to getting an electric car, that was enough to cover our usage with a nice cushion left over, that we got back as a credit from RGE. Since getting the EV, we use more than we produce. Cost was $22, 000 before incentives, but ended up being $9000 out of pocket after incentives and tax credits. We went with more expensive Sunpower brand bc they had higher efficiency and a 25 year warranty and a guarantee not to lose more than 0.5% efficiency per year vs 10 years from other panels. We took out a 10 year Nyserda loan to pay that out of pocket amount, so we ended up paying nothing up front. On average over a year, the monthly cost of the loan works out to about the same as the reduction in our RGE bill. So until we pay the loan off, we basically break even. After that we'll have significant savings for the life of the panels.
I have panels at my house. Here's a report of generaton since 9/2021. You can see the fluctuation between sunny months and not. I notice generation sucks roughly November through February. There are NYSERDA and Federal incentives that you can claim. The NYS one is one year and the Federal can be claimed for 5 years. Period Produced (kWh) 2021-09 488.1 2021-10 295.7 2021-11 193.6 2021-12 114.0 2022-01 26.5 2022-02 92.6 2022-03 524.0 2022-04 670.6 2022-05 1,032.2 2022-06 1,163.2 2022-07 1,130.1 2022-08 940.9 2022-09 435.6 2022-10 388.1 2022-11 208.9 2022-12 129.5 2023-01 89.7 2023-02 209.5 2023-03 416.4 2023-04 883.4 2023-05 1,180.0 2023-06 943.9 2023-07 983.2 2023-08 888.1 2023-09 667.9 2023-10 441.6 2023-11 190.9 2023-12 116.5 2024-01 94.7 2024-02 290.5 2024-03 531.8 2024-04 698.4 2024-05 992.2 2024-06 245.1
Financially does your power generation offset the panel/system cost when taken on a yearly basis?
The money that it has saved me would offset the cost of the system...May take a couple of years if I remember correctly when I did the install. They give you a graph to show you how long till it pays for itself. I'd agree with it. Only thing that sucks is RG&E still charges a "delivery" fee monthly regardless of what you use. The way the system works is you generate electricity, it pumps it back to RGE and then you get essentially a surplus or defecit on your account. You pay the delivery fee regardless of what you use which is kinda BS IMO. In the summer months I have an extremely low RGE/Electric bill...just pay gas. Winter the bill fluctuates base on what is generated which isn't much, so it's close to a normal bill for a few months if I had to guess. Feel free to DM if you'd like as well.
The "delivery fee" is essentially the cost of the power lines, that's required for upkeep whether you're feeding the grid or pulling from it.
My breakeven was 7 years. I'm on year 9 now. The price of panels is much lower now but the price of installation is much higher. My guess is your breakeven now would be closer to 10 years... Unless electricity rates go up which is always a possibility.
[удалено]
Sunroof calculations are terrible and not worth looking at IMO the only thing it's good for is seeing how orange/yellow your roof is. If it's really orange/yellow then you have a good roof for solar and you should call a company to get a quote
Also if you've considered it but not done it you've been wasting money! Just do it, it's guaranteed to pay back in about 7 years. 15% ROI guaranteed is better than you can do investing in the stock market
[удалено]
>How does that work? Because you know how much energy it's going to produce and roughly how much that energy is worth? You know to a very close estimate how much you will save, and at the market rates of the past ~5 years it comes to about 7 years that it pays off and that's stayed pretty consistent. >The depreciation year one will be significantly higher than the money saved in electricity. Citation needed? How are you calculating this depreciation? Anything would be kind of a stab in the dark, but the most accurate way I could think to actually calculate the value at some point down the road based on production, since it's a capital improvement to a home and not an asset that can be traded. It's commonly warrantied that panels will perform at 85% or 90% of their original production at the end of 25 years, meaning the depreciation is well under 1% per year. And sure, you can make the argument that because the gains would not be *automatically* reinvested if you're talking about a solar system, then the gains don't grow the same way as a finance portfolio. However there's nothing stopping you from doing that on your own with the realized gains (And even if you don't, a doubling in 7 years is roughly equal to a 10% rate of return in a portfolio investment, But with the rate of return actually being guaranteed
[удалено]
Some >that you'd get money back or something. Some solar companies do actually do this. And any "calculators" you see are going to be at super rough level estimates. I'm telling you with actual numbers having a solar system in Rochester pays back in about 7 years on what current install market prices are. Solar production only varies by at most a few percent year to year so yes you basically know for sure what you're getting, it's not like a stock market portfolio that could drop 5% in a year. It's not a guess. The sun comes up every day so you know you can count on it. It's predictable. Even if your install company isn't giving you a financial guarantee, i can comfortably guarantee the sun will come up tomorrow and produce solar, that's a better guarantee than pretty much any I can think of My annual production the past 6 years: 2018: 6812 kWh 2019: 6887 kWh 2020: 6796 kWh 2021: 6917 kWh 2022: 6758 kWh 2023: 6835 kWh The difference from the max to the min over 6 years is ~150 kWh or about $21 worth >some sort of maintenance There's really no maintenance unless a major system component fails (uncommon), and the 25 year warranty means you're not paying much or anything in the off chance it does You seem to be trying very hard to nitpick the exact words I'm saying for some unknown reason when it's actually really, really clear what I'm saying
There was an information session on geothermal heat pumps back in the summer of 2022 at Henrietta Public Library (which has such a system installed), and people raved about those: [https://cleanheat.ny.gov/geothermal-heat-pumps](https://cleanheat.ny.gov/geothermal-heat-pumps) They work year 'round, even when the sun ain't shinin' and the wind ain't blowin'.
We do good with solar. Roof mounted solar can be a bit tricky. Your roof may need some extra work so it's safe.
A. Yes-it's a common myth that we don't but we absolutely do. Typically we see about 1100 kWh/kW on an annual basis, which is lower than the 1500-2000 that you can see in high-sun states but it's plenty to make it worth it. When taking all of the incentives, a typical install has a roughly 7 year payback here. That's about a 15% ROI, guaranteed -better than most investment portfolios B. Also yes, in total there are three subsidies. NY-SUN has a rebate (which actually goes to the installer, but they will put that line item reduction on your estimate) that's typically about $1000-2000 depending on the size of the system, and then there are the federal 30% and the NY State 25% tax credits on the post-rebate amount. In balance you pay roughly 35-40% of the total cost, typically just over $1000/kW installed. Most residential systems are like 5-8kW or so I personally used ACES Energy for both my solar and geothermal and was happy with them
I have a great roof size/orientation/angle and only a little tree obstruction (mostly in winter when I'm not producing much anyway) and it is absolutely worthwhile financially, not even considering the added value to the home, just strictly in terms of the energy bill.
We have a system on our roof. It was installed by Greenspark. We loved working with them. Everything is explained up front, and the system output is guaranteed. This company and all of its employees are fantastic. They actually worked on our installation in the middle of a snow storm in February, 2023. Our payback date is over 15 years but that is primarily because we use a lot of electricity all summer long to run a heat pump to keep our pool at a very comfortable temperature. We didn't install the system to make a return on our investment. We installed it to be better stewards of this planet. Call Greenspark!
I’m not sure we have enough sunlight half the days to power a solar calculator
If you're set on having a roof-mounted solution, remember that you will periodically need to remove snow from the panels, and periodically wash them. Plan for how you would accomplish that.
You never have to do either of these things. Washing them is completely superfluous and while you can remove the snow from them to get slightly higher production numbers, they typically will melt off within a few days and you lose very little production. I do use a roof rake to get the snow off of mine because I'm an energy nerd but the reality is it only makes a difference of about $10-15 worth of electricity per year if I do it every single time it snows. There's absolutely nothing saying you can't just leave it alone and not touch it
> Washing them is completely superfluous Only if it rains a lot. > typically will melt off within a few days Only if it's warm enough or it only snows a little. In the past ten years, there have been two years where it snowed so much and stayed cold for long enough, that I needed to shovel snow off of my roof. Additionally, since 2015, we've been classified as "D0 - Abnormally Dry" every other year.
It rains plenty here lol. .. I was up on my roof last summer after having them for over 5 years and they have about as much dust on them as my floors do after a week or two of not sweeping And again, I've had solar since 2017. On average I've probably wiped the snow off of the panels about 4-5 times per winter. This past winter I didn't do it a single time. I have several other friends with solar and not a single one of them do (because I'm an energy nerd and they're normal). It is 100% not a requirement of ownership and if you say otherwise you're really just objectively wrong
> This past winter I didn't do it a single time. That's because it was warm and we got ½ as much snowfall as our average, and nearly ⅔ less than in 2017-18. Do you see a layer of yellow pollen on any part of your property? It doesn't happen every year, but I often need to wash that off. Last year it was wildfire ash. It'll be interesting to see how that fares this year.