- [Sean Hollister] Solar
panels used to be something
you only saw in fancy neighborhoods
or that one nice house down the street.
But in the last 10 years,
the cost of solar
has fallen by more than half.
In 2019, installing solar
is starting to look like a
really smart investment
for millions of homeowners.
But that might be about to change.
As of a couple weeks ago,
I'm one of the couple million homeowners
who invested in solar.
When I dug into the research,
there were some clear benefits.
Not only would it be
better for the planet,
it turns out to be a
good investment overall.
Installing solar was more
affordable than I thought.
It would instantly increase
the value of my home,
and after crunching the numbers,
I realized I'd recoup the
cost pretty quick, too.
But we'll save that math for later.
The real motivation behind my
decision to do it now, though,
was knowing that the federal
tax credit was expiring.
If you install solar
before the end of the year,
the US government will repay
you 30 percent of your total cost.
Next year it'll be a little less,
and in 2022 this credit will be gone.
And that's not including state,
city, and county-level incentives,
which in 43 states
let you deduct your sales tax,
reduce your property tax,
or even give you a tax credit
after you've produced
a certain amount of clean electricity.
That's on top of the federal credit.
So what's the actual cost of
installing residential solar?
With the federal credit, your
average 6 kilowatt setup
can set you back about $16,000,
which, yeah, is the cost of a cheap car.
And how long it takes to recoup that cost
really depends on the
individual homeowner.
For me, I average around $100
in electricity per month,
plus gas to heat in winter.
But I just got AC and
switched to electric heating,
both of which can be huge energy hogs.
So let's double the number
to account for all that.
When you do the basic math,
it looks like I'll make my money back
in a little over five years.
For me, that's a 5
kilowatt system at $18,200
minus $5,460 in tax credit.
That's $12,740 divided by $200 estimated
monthly electric bill for 12 months,
gives you 5.31 years.
But that's assuming
electricity prices don't go up.
And an idea called
time-of-use net metering
might help me recoup costs even faster.
So here's the thing with solar,
you're not always generating power
and using power at the same time.
Your panels pump out
energy during the day when
you might be off at work,
but you've got to buy electricity
from the grid at night.
With net metering,
your utility gives you credit
for the energy you contribute
to the grid.
You spend those credits
on the energy you need
and it mostly balances out.
But many utilities also charge
you more for electricity
during peak hours when
there's more demand for power —
usually in the afternoon or evening
when people get home from work.
But because my solar panels
are still producing electricity
in the afternoon,
I don't need to buy as
much pricey peak power
as I would without solar.
Now you might ask,
why don't I just buy batteries to store
all that extra energy my
panels produce during the day?
I wondered that, too.
Tesla has a very Tesla-looking battery
that costs $7,800 and there
are other options as well.
But several installers I
spoke to say the storage tech
isn't worth the cost
unless you live in a blackout-prone area.
That's partly because the
batteries are expensive,
partly because they're
expected to become much better
and far cheaper in the next five years,
and partly because even with batteries
you can't easily ditch the grid.
Right now batteries are an upsell
that help your local
utility more than anything.
When Google surveyed 60
million US buildings in 2017,
they found out that 79 percent of our rooftops
have enough sun hitting
them to generate power.
It depends on the size of the roof,
how steep it is,
which direction it's facing,
but Google found that even less
stereotypically sunny
states like Minnesota
have 60 percent of rooftops viable.
For me, solar made a lot of sense.
It's sustainable,
readily available,
it took them a day to install on my roof,
and I'm contributing to the grid,
which puts more money in my pocket.
Should you get solar for your home?
Well, that's a loaded question.
For me, the math worked out.
As for you, break out the calculator.
And if it's something you want to do,
maybe think quick,
because some of the perks of
installing residential solar
are starting to sunset.
So my question is,
how is climate change going
to affect all of this?
Also, Verge Science is back,
they've got a whole slate of new videos
you're going to want to check out.
