our solar journey
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A spring picture with our dogwood in the foreground and solar panels visible. We’re lucky to have little tree canopy.
With the rising cost of utilities, I know a lot more people are considering upgrades to their homes including solar. I thought it would be helpful to discuss our solar journey and what a positive experience it has been.
When we moved into our 3 bed, 2 bath ranch, it needed a sh** ton of home improvements, It was used as a rental for decades and let’s just say the work that was done was subpar. Even the newer work to bring it up to a basic level of living was awful. You could see the lowest grades of cabinetry, appliances, and all other upgrades were just to get it done, but not done well. Read more about some weird sh** we found while renovating.
We knew when we had the house inspected that we needed a new roof. In the words of our inspector, it was one of the worst roofs he’d seen. Even the roofing contractor we used laughed at how bad the chimney flashing was done and that in places the shingles didn’t even overlap. Ack!
Why solar?
For years I worked in public service and with city sustainability experts. I listened to them as they postulated how to get cities to net zero and lower both business and residential carbon footprints. Sustainability and reducing our carbon footprint is extremely important to my husband and me. When we had a child, it became even more important to ensure he and other children have a livable world. (Not to say we were total assholes before we had a kid, it just became that much more sacrosanct.)
When we bought the current house, we knew we had to replace the roof. To me, that was the perfect opportunity to add solar. (Note: never add solar to an old roof. You do not want a long-lived asset installed on a short-lived asset). I wanted to ensure we could get an array big enough to cover our electric bills 100%, without buying one so big we’d never pay it off. I also researched payoff return on investment (ROI) for home renovations. Knowing we could pay off the solar and just be banking free electric bills after a certain point meant this was a better ROI than a wheelchair accessible master bath, etc.
Research
I did a lot of research before pulling the trigger. The first was to understand what incentives my state and the federal government had to offer. Because of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) was extended until 2032 raising it to 30%. That is a dollar for dollar credit off your income taxes owed! You can look up your state tax code, or use EnergySage to help guide you on this and all other solar research. We live in a south-east facing property with little tree canopy, making it ideal for solar, but we also live in the Northeast meaning we have a lot of snowfall and cloud cover in the winter. So you want to ensure that your solar provider researches your solar output based on the weather patterns and cloud cover in your area. For example, one provider used Boston as a basis, which wouldn’t be accurate for our area because we are in the Merrimack Valley of Massachusetts, which gets more cloud cover and snow than Boston. By having an accurate solar output estimate, you can get an array that will generally provide you with enough solar in the summer, plus credits to your bill, to bring you through the darker winter months. This is called net metering. Net metering allows customers to offset their energy use and transfer energy back to their electric companies in exchange for a credit on their bill. We use that credit in the winter to cover the bill because we can’t produce enough solar during that time of year.
Potential incentives to look for:
Federal ITC - Talk to your tax preparer about the federal credit.
State incentives - Check your zip code for incentives
Net Metering with your utility - Net metering allows customers to offset their energy use and transfer energy back to their electric companies in exchange for a credit on their bill.
SRECs - An SREC is a financial instrument issued at the state level which allows you to earn money for the electricity generated by your solar panels.
Other incentives - Check your state for other incentives like zero-interest loans.
A representation of the quote we received from different vendors.
Calculate your breakeven
You need to think about how much solar you’re trying to produce. For us, we just wanted enough to cover the existing bills, maybe a bit more. We weren’t interested in a massive array that would take us a decade to pay off. I used the following spreadsheet to calculate what our payoff period was going to be based on our current usage. One other thing to consider is whether you will one day need more electricity. For example, will any of the following be future additions that you’ll want your array to cover:
Sample spreadsheet for breakeven analysis
Upgraded electrical panel - for an upgraded kitchen, new lighting, etc.
Electric car
Hot tub - this is a real electricity drain
Home addition
Outside lighting
Switch from gas to geothermal
Switch to forced hot air
All these things (and others I’ve not thought of) will increase your electrical load. Do you want your solar to cover those future uses? Or are you comfortable with it covering what you're using in the present?
A favorite image off my solar tracking app is how much CO2 emission we’ve saved and the equivalent trees planted.
I’ve included a sample spreadsheet I used to calculate cost per watt and payback period on our array. All the contractors were coming to us with the EXACT SAME equipment being the same LG panels and the same solar inverter. So at the end of the day, our decision was based on two things: 1) Cost per watt and 2) Customer service/company reputation.. There were no other differentiation.
So doing a rough calculation - because remember the tax credit is a credit off your taxes owed, not an instant rebate off the cost of the array - we were able to breakeven on the array in 4.5 years. Now we’re just banking any electricity savings and SRECs we get. We also used the MassSaves zero interest loan program, so we basically used free money to pay for the array over a maximum of 7 years.
Please feel free to ask me questions in the comment section or send emails to [email protected]. I love answering questions about the solar and how much we love having it.
