What is Seattle known for? Rain. And what is covered up when
rain falls? The sun. But I’ll defending my decision of installing solar panels
by mentioning that Germany has the highest adoption rate for solar-harnessing
technology use per capita of any nation. And it just so happens, that despite
all of our rain here in the great Northwest, we get more sun than Germany. Why
did we invest in solar technology? Well, beyond the environmental
responsibility aspect, it also makes sense financially.
We first considered our purchase when we heard about a non-profit
called Solarize Seattle. Their aim is to gather lots of homeowners in Seattle
neighborhoods to educate them on the benefits and cost breakdown of residential
solar energy installations. Solarize Seattle then works with solar contractors,
who agree to extend a discount to all the homeowners who have completed the educational
seminar. These homeowners become a pre-lubricated business opportunity, which
allows the contractors to convert them to customers much easier than cold
calling, or canvassing a region with marketing efforts.
In addition to the group-buying discount, there are a number
of state and federal credits and incentives to take advantage of. First is the
federal tax credit of 30% of the installed system cost. So, if you pay 30,000
for a solar photovoltaic system, you will get a $9,000.00 tax credit come April
15th (I bet you wouldn’t procrastinate that filing season). The
State of Washington has also agreed to not collect state sales tax from solar
installations. Once your system is generating its own electricity, those kWhs
are recorded in a production meter before the electricity feeds into the panel
of your house. Depending on where your photovoltaic panels and inverters
(convert DC from the panels to AC for your home) were manufactured, there are
three different tiers of what the state pays you for each kWh your system
produces (not to exceed $5,000 per year)
$0.54 per kWh for Washington panels & Washington
inverter
$0.36 per kWh for Washington panels & out-of-state
inverter
$0.18 per kWh for out-of-state panels & Washington
inverter
$0.15 per kWh for out-of-state panels & out of state
panels
The state pays out these production incentives on an annual
basis. It’s really the production incentive that is paramount in paying the
homeowner back for the up-front costs of the system. But, here in Washington, the
incentive payments are scheduled to end in 2020, so don’t delay.
With solar, when you produce more electricity than you use
during the day, your meter (that your utility uses to measure your consumption)
moves in the other direction, pushing your electricity backward into the grid.
At night, you use up those “banked” kWhs when the meter moves forward again.
But don’t install a system that produces more electricity than you use from the
city, because if you “bank” more than you consume, this bank doesn’t pay you
back.
By far, the biggest money savings we’ve seen is through
conserving the electricity we use. Once we saw how much electricity we produced
and consumed on two separate meters, we were shocked at how much electricity we
used…even when we weren’t home. So we took measures like unscrewing some light
bulbs on our 6-light vanity fixture, and installing a timer to power our hot
water circulating pump on demand, instead of having it run during all daylight
hours. Next up is to retire the beer fridge in the man-cave, but I’m really
dragging my feet on that one. I’ve also figured out how to take a 90-second
shower (more about that here).
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