Happy 11th Solarversary

As of June 28th, it was 4018 days since we fired up our 5.04 kW solar array. In that time we've produced 98,782 kWh (should hit 100,000 kWh, or 0.1 GWh 🙂, in August), with an average of 24.6 kWh per day.

Has it been worth it? At $0.12/kWh, the system has saved me about $11,800 in energy bills. It cost me $5,466 to install, so that is a profit of $6334 or a 116% ROI. Over 11 years, the annual return is 10.5%. While the production goes down slightly each year, the annual return will continue to increase (because of math). In 20 years it will be around 15%.

Additionally I own two plug-in hybrid vehicles (a Chevy Volt and a Chrysler Pacifica), and have probably saved around $5k in gas. Factoring that into the ROI is a bit complex: I could have still bought them and saved on gas without solar, but I probably would not have.



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