Common Sense Observations

Solar Incentives Don’t Shine

Federal and state incentives to start using solar power – as well as wind and hydro power – are pitifully small bits of useless pocket change, when considering the cost of the project and the national rewards. If you’d like to see exactly how minute the incentives/rewards in your state are, here’s a great, easy to navigate site that will fill you in: http://www.dsireusa.org/ .

 

Using a renewable energy source such as solar power, wind power or hydropower, to power your home, or help to power your home has some great advantages – to be sure. Since starting the process of switching over to a combination of solar power and wind power on my rural home, I have concluded that the most notable of those advantages has to be: helping our nation become less dependant on foreign oil imports. I don’t know about you, but I am tired of being held hostage by small countries – simply because they are sitting on lots of oil reserves.

 

You can’t count on getting any financial rewards for going with a renewable energy source – at least not for quite some time. How long it will be until you realize a profit will depend on several factors – not the least of which is how much of the work you are able to accomplish yourself. Here are a couple of quick breakdowns to show you what I mean. I have made rough estimates on wiring and installation costs. These costs can vary greatly depending on how you install your systems.

 

1,000 WATT SOLAR POWER SYSTEM

5-200 watt solar panels                $5,500.00

5-solar panels racks/stands           $1,200.00

*Electrical work                             $450.00

                                            $8,800.00

*If you can do the wiring work yourself, you can skip this cost.

 

1,000 WATT WIND POWER SYSTEM

1-1,000 watt turbine             $4,000.00

1-60’ turbine tower                 $800.00

1-control system                 $1,500.00

Wires                                  $150.00

*Electrical work                      $450.00

**Tower installation              $1,800.00

                                     $8,700.00

*If you can do the wiring work yourself, you can skip this cost.

**If you can install the tower yourself, you can skip this cost.

 

Frankly, by the time you get done with everything, you can figure on spending about $9,000.00 to get 1,000 watts of solar power or wind power. Now bear in mind that you do NOT get 1,000 watts from either of these systems all of the time. Solar panels need sun and wind turbines need – you guessed it – wind. Also, there is a power loss due to wiring and running the controllers. On a bright sunny day, when your solar panels are getting direct sun, you will still not retrieve a full 1,000 watts of power for your use. Likewise, when the wind turbine is running on a nice breezy day, say 15 mph at 60’, you will get something less than 1,000 watts for actual use. How much less depends on many factors such as the type and quality of the solar panels you’re using, the length and size of the wires from the panels or wind turbine to the controller, etc. But just for this treatise, let’s be generous and say that under optimum conditions you’re producing a usable 900 watts with either system. That means, for example, that you can run nine 100-watt light bulbs, when your system is producing at maximum. If you’re on solar power, you’ll get nothing at night (or early morning and late evening). If you’re using a wind turbine, you’ll get nothing when the wind is less than about 7 mph.

 

If you want to know how much usable sun time you’ll get every day in your area, or you’d like to see how much usable wind you’ll get, visit one or more of the following links:

 

http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/

http://www.nrel.gov/gis/data_analysis.html

http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_maps.asp

 

So, for your $9,000.00 investment, you’ll be getting very little in the way of usable power – and only that when your environmental conditions are optimum, which they won’t be as often as you want.

 

If you want to have power 24-hours per day, you’ll need to add a battery storage system. These systems come in 12-volt, 24-volt, and 48-volt sizes. There is no way to project costs as solar power and wind power storage batteries vary greatly in capacity and cost. But for a basic, short-use system figure on spending at least $5,000.00 – including wiring et al.

 

One more factor to consider is the cost of maintenance and replacements. Wind turbines require service, as do solar panels. Solar panels can also be broken, as can wind turbines. Your solar panels will require regular cleaning to perform well, and will need to be re-aimed several times per year to maximize efficiency. Of course, there are automated tracking systems that will do this for you, but they are costly AND consume your precious power. To service your wind turbine, you’ll need to lower the tower – something that most people are not equipped to do.

 

Now for some really definitive numbers! I’ll use a very generous 5-hours per day of efficiency – meaning that your system will produce the 900-watts for five hours every day, or, 4,500 watts per day. In a 30-day month, that equates to 135,000 watts, or 135 kwh. Now just check a copy of your last electric bill and you’ll be able to easily calculate what percentage of your power is now “free.” And now you can calculate about how many years it will take to pay for your solar power or wind power investment.

 

Some things to remember:

 

• If you don’t pay for a battery bank/power storage system – your wind power or solar power system will not work for you all the time.

• Maintenance, repairs and replacements WILL be needed – so factor in those costs.

• Battery storage systems require maintenance, a safe storage room or area as they emit gasses, and the batteries will wear out and need to be replaced in anywhere from 3-10 years – depending on the quality of the batteries selected.

• Solar panels are large and require space for installation – and that space needs to have the best sun. The roof is usually a good place to mount them, if the house is properly oriented or more costly mounting systems are implemented.

• Wind turbine towers require a very large area that is unobstructed to the predominate winds. The tower will be assembled on the ground and then raised – so for a 60’ tower you’ll need at least 85’ of free space.

• Your zoning laws may not allow the installation of wind turbines.

• Your neighborhood covenants may not allow the installation of solar panels or wind turbines.

• Use the links above to determine a realistic number of hours per day that your wind power or solar power system will actually work for you.

 

Even using my very positive numbers, we can see that implementing wind power or solar power is a costly adventure, with limited power generation benefits to you and a very long payback period. So why are the state and federal incentives to make the switch so small? A few hundred dollars of tax incentive (often spread over years) doesn’t go very far on a project of this magnitude. The government should get with the program and offer genuine incentives. For example, any and all money you spend on a renewable energy source should not be taxable at all. And if you spend over a certain amount, say $10,000, on renewable energy sources, then you should be able to reduce your final tax bill proportionately. 

The powers that be keep saying we NEED to get off foreign oil dependency – and when we can spend over a trillion dollars “bailing out” companies that put themselves into a greed-based downward spiral, we should certainly be able to genuinely help Americans who are willing to change over to a renewable energy source. And of course, all renewable energy sources are much, much better for the environment. Isn’t it time for a change?