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What is Your Best Solar
Investment?
Let's cut to the chase. How can you get the most return for your money? We believe that is the most practical way to position solar energy vs. other investment opportunities. Think of solar water heating this way. If a bank sold a CD that paid 30% the first year, doubled its money within 3-6 years, and continued to pay increasing rates of interest for the rest of a 30-year term, do you think they would have any trouble selling it? The line out front would be very long! In order of cost effectiveness your best residential active solar applications are: 1) Solar Pool Heating You can double your Gulf Coast swim season by adding rooftop solar collectors to a pool's circulation system. This is a huge energy savings compared to trying to heat the pool with purchased gas or electric. Payoffs can be less than 2 years compared to fossil fuel heating. Not eligible for tax credits. Typical installed system cost is $2500 to $5000 depending on size of pool and complexity of installation. The thermostatically controlled system can also cool the pool by running at night in the hot summer months . 2) Solar Domestic Water Heating You can slash or eliminate your water heating energy bill while at the same time increasing on-hand hot water storage. You may never have to take a cold shower again! Filling the spa or oversize tub won't mean that someone else gets a cold shoulder. Systems conservatively rated for 50 to 140 gallons per day cost from $3,650 to $7,000 installed. Larger systems are available. This can translate to making hot water for under ~$0.045 / KWH over 30 years without any price increases. Compare that to current electric and natural gas costs of around $0.11 / KWH with many future increases assured. Typical paybacks with EPAct2005 tax credits factored in are around 3-6 years with a 30 year expected system life. Florida adds $300-$500 rebates on top of that. Alabama electricity rates have already gone up ~15% in the last year. Natural gas prices won't be far behind. These increases will only accelerate paybacks. 3) Solar-Assisted Radiant Floor Heating and Forced Air Heating If you are building any new slab-on-grade construction or are exposing the underside of any first or second story floors it would be a great opportunity to install piping for a radiant floor heating system. This type of heating circulates temperature-controlled warm water through in-slab or sub-floor coils to keep the floor and house at a comfortable cozy temperature. Solar heat is collected and stored during the day and fed into the coils as needed to replace or augment electric or natural gas energy input. Very efficient since the mass of the slab and the core of the house is kept at a constant temperature. Very effective here for the coldest 3-4 months of the year. This is a primary European and California method of residential heating. Installed cost for new construction is $2 to $2.50 per square foot. With this method you can eliminate the cost of a furnace or heat pump and only install an air conditioning unit. Works in conjunction with a larger solar water heating system. Another method of supplementing home heat with solar is to use a heating coil in the house's air handler unit. 130 to 160 deg F water is circulated through the coil from the house's solar/conventional hot water system. With a properly sized system you can get through most cool Gulf Coast days on solar heat alone and avoid paying for fossil fuel energy till the coldest months. This method also avoids the cost of a furnace. These systems are custom designed to meet the house's individual needs. Can be used in conjunction with a high-efficiency water heater or 'instant' gas water heater. 4) Photovoltaic (PV) Electricity This is the most expensive and problematic of the solar technologies. The 12-, 24-, or 36 volt PV panels themselves are going to last for 50-100 years, but they aren't the main cost or trouble. Essentially you decide on how far off the grid you want to live based on principle or situation, not economics. The PV Electricity page gives more details on the various options. Even with the federal EPAct2005 tax credits, in Alabama and Mississippi you will be making electricity for ~25+ cents/KWH vs. buying it currently at ~11 cents/KWH. Paybacks are in the 25 to 30 year range. Paybacks are different in a state like California where they have a ~$2,800 / KW rebate for installed PV systems and a 7.5% state income tax credit to go along with a much higher electricity cost. Florida also currently has substantial rebates for installed PV systems. Alabama and Mississippi don't currently have state incentives for PV. TVA does have a program for subsidizing PV if your local distributor is enrolled in it. |