Affordable Solar Energy Systems

Affordable Solar Energy Systems

Shalom Lamm, the New York Real Estate mogul may be old school, but when it comes to energy systems, Lamm definitely believes in solar energy.

A huge part of Shalom’s reasoning for why he encourages people to invest in Solar Energy Systems is the cold, hard, mathematics of solar energy.

Say you live in upstate New York in Sullivan County such as Shalom Lamm does. There the cost of electricity runs around 18.5 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Based on an average of around 1,000 kilowatts, that means you’ll pay approximately $190 a month on electricity, or a little over 2200 per year.

How does this compare with solar? According to industry experts, the average price of a kilowatt of solar-produced energy is around 6 to 8 cents per kilowatt.

True, you do have to buy the solar panels and have them installed, typically around 16,000 or so for the average house, but if you get solar panels installed in your home this year, you’ll pay off the entire system in 11 years, (and more like 8 or 9) if the price of electricity purchased from a local power producer goes up.

Meanwhile, the solar panels you have installed on your home today will typically be actively producing electricity for a solid 25 to 30 years.

Let’s assume, the panels effectively stop functioning at 25 years. That’s 14 years’ worth of free electricity at a total savings of around $20,000.

And actually, counting government rebates, currently set at 26 percent of the cost of installation, as well as local and state rebates, the average homeowner with solar probably saves around $30,000.

That’s not to mention that if the power grid goes down in your area, which could happen in any part of the country, the lights, the air conditioner, the washing machine, and the refrigerator at your house will still be humming along.

You are much less a slave to power shortages if you have your own electricity to generate.

In addition, other homeowners have figured this out too. So when it comes to selling your home. According to real estate experts like Zillow, homeowners typically get a 4 percent boost on the selling price of their home if they have solar.

So if you sell your home for $300,000, not only will you get virtually free electricity for a number of years, but you’ll get an additional $12,000 or so just in the selling price of your home.

Nobody can guarantee that we will not have an energy shortage and skyrocketing prices on energy in the future. So it makes total sense to invest in solar.

Finally, if you make more solar than you actually use, you can turn around and sell that electricity to your local power providers.

Of course, you do need to have the money to invest in solar, and if you have to borrow money to get solar panels installed, then the above numbers will be skewed.

Nevertheless, it’s rare that investing in solar will not pay off for most homeowners.