The Actual Cost Savings of Going Solar

Solar panels just don’t benefit the environment – they can offer benefits with regard to significant savings across the lifetime of a solar panel system.

Here are some basic statistics you should be aware of:

• Solar panels cost money out of the gate but will save money on energy bills in the long run.
• The average home can save between $10,000 and $30,000 over the lifetime of a solar panel system.
• Comparing custom quotes on sites like EnergySageMarketplace allows homeowners to see their estimated savings from solar power.

In a general sense, yes – solar systems really do save money. But like almost everything else in life, exactly how much they save depends on a myriad of factors, such as direct hours of daily sunlight and the size/angle of a roof. Local electricity rates play the biggest role in this equation of just how much solar can save, for obvious reasons; indeed, saving money by reducing an electric bill is one of the primary draws and selling points for solar as a product…and a home upgrade.

The first stage of determining how much solar power can save you involves calculating how much you are currently spending on electricity every year – for example, the average annual electricity use required for a U.S. household is 10,649 kilowatt-hours (kWh). Multiply that by the national average electricity rate (as of October 2021, for this example, which is $0.1411 per kWh) and you will discover that the typical American family is spending just over $1,500 a year on electricity alone.

The next step is to consider the somewhat “irrational” nature of electricity rates and determine what utility company rates will be in years to come. Over the past decade, based on our analysis efforts, national electricity costs have increased at a rate of around 1.3-percent per year – and it’s this utility rate inflation that becomes an added incentive for solar. When you generate your own energy via a rooftop photovoltaic (PV) system, energy costs are locked in at a constant rate so that you no longer have to consider variable utility company costs.

From there, you need to take into consideration factors such as costs associated with a solar system (which comes down to installation and any added electricity costs in the event that your panels do not completely offset 100-percent of your electricity use), the fact that your electric bill won’t disappear entirely just by going solar and analyzing how much your carbon footprint will be reduced with panels.

Ultimately, regardless of whether we’re looking at carbon emissions or furnaces, a solar panel system will generate big savings for homeowners.

As the kind of quality solar panel installation San Diego has been waiting for, The Energy Company can answer any questions you may have concerning solar savings. For more information, please visit www.TheEnergyCompany.com.