What 4 years ROI? With that everyone in your entire state should have solar installed already. My system in CO will take 10-15 years to ROI. Electricity is pretty cheap (12 cents/kWh delivered).
It's crazy how much energy pool pumps use. Has always blown me away.
You also hit on another thing, going Solar should be done as a holistic approach to energy usage at your home. I tend to recommend that people do Solar as a last (or near-last) step. At least knock out all of the easy stuff first: change incandescent bulbs to LED, maybe put some automatic/motion light switches in some places to reduce unnecessary energy usage, and (like you did) change out energy inefficient appliances to more energy efficient ones (if the original is nearing it's end of service life). You just happened to do that last bit (with the pool pump) after the solar install, but that was likely the better option as changing out an appliance just because the new one is more efficient has it's own ROI due to the up-front cost of purchasing the new appliance in the first place.
Damn! my girl has every socket filled with fresheners, night lights, better air filters, dog bowl waterfall, LED lights, its. Ugh!
We have a strong SREC program here, so each Mega Watt I generate gets sold on an exchange (around $300) and I get a check tax free. I got 30% back in Taxes off initial, then between electric savings, we are full net metering, my meter spins both ways and I get credit for all over-production. Our rates are more expensive, we were paying 24 cents a kw for years, and now we pay over 30 cents a kw.
Since resi EV chargers are designed for 240vAC input.... you have to design/install a full 'grid-tied', or Hybrid Solar PV system which outputs 240vAC.
I'm at about 6 years ROI on my system and have 11 cents/kwh
My system is also on track to reach ROI in 4yrs, as long as the sun keeps shining between now and July this year
During the design phase, the projection to reach ROI was 4 years and 9 months, so it's a nice surprise to beat the projection.
Couple of things because I am an engineer. First, the power of a solar system is expressed in units of kW. The energy of an energy storage system is kWh. Your utility charges you for the kWh used. I have a 14 kW (peak) solar array (SoCal) and 40 kWh battery storage - pretty big system for our over 4000 sf house with pool pump and 2 EVs. ROI means Return on Investment and is expressed in terms of % annual return on $$ investment. Pay Back is expressed in Years or Months. As I was taught in school, ROI can be expressed as either a straight cash savings based on initial $$ invested, or as after-tax savings. In the case of solar, the savings is directly related to the bills you no longer pay the utility company and is tax-free, as long as you own the panels. My personal ROI started at 6% Tax Free, but has been increasing the last couple of years because the utility rates that I don't pay have been increasing. I don't care what Pay Back time period is, I do care that almost 8% Tax Free Rate of Return on my investment is pretty darn good and I am very happy. My solar storage takes me through the expensive evening hours and I charge my cars between 10 pm and 4 pm the next day, because that is when the utility rates are lowest. My storage batteries are usually charged up by noon, so the afternoon excess solar generation goes to the grid. I pay $.28 per kWh when I buy it from the grid and the utility pays me $0.04 per kWh when I send excess generation to the grid. Fortunately, I am on Net Energy Metering, so the settlement is supposedly calculated on an annual basis. As long as I generate more kWh each year than I use, my annual settlement is minimal or zero. I am now replacing my gas furnace with a heat pump, so I anticipate a settlement at the end of the year because I am using more kWh, but my gas bill tripled last month, so I still come out ahead with the heat pump.
Wow Northeast states really incentivize solar --- the probably have to considering how cloudy it is. Plus also if you are a big energy consumer with a huge system you can lessen the hit from the flat installation fees for permits, planning and design, etc.My system is also on track to reach ROI in 4yrs, as long as the sun keeps shining between now and July this year
Little refresher to myself to check my math. My system is a 12.21kW system, with 37 Panasonic panels running on Solar Edge inverter. Total system cost was $2.91 per watt. It came online in July 2019. As of right now it's generated 50MWh. So, ~$35K for the system, minus 30% from fed which was $10500, minus ~$11000 worth of SRECs, minus ~$7500 worth of electricity. So my "outstanding balance" is ~$6000 to reach ROI. Yes, ROI around summer this year seems about right. The funny thing with solar installer is that cash price gets you a lower system price than financing. Had I gone with financing, IIRC it would've been $3.25 per watt for the same system.
This is highly dependent on the state you live in of course. I'm in NJ. People love to poke fun at NJ, but it's a great state to live in for installer a solar system and buying EVs.
