I've seen a couple homes around my town that have solar power and I live in the Desert, where the sun is shinning and it gets really hot during the summer. We run our air conditioner a lot making our electricity bill high.So I just wanted to know if anyone has or knows anyone that has solar panels? are they worth getting and is it the same as having electricity?
and, if given the tax credits, you'll see a faster return on investment in CA than I would have in Western PA (I was given a 0 year return number without factoring any tax credits). Plus you'll be doing something good for the environment. My brother put his house for sale which had solar panels for hot water, and was offered good money for the solar panels independent of selling the house. If anyone has a any no answer that doesn't involve the initial expense, I'm looking forward to reading it.
Our neighbor has solar paneling, and he absolutely LOVES it! It is pretty much the same as having electricity, just better for the environment, and your electricity bill goes down to only about $7 a month!
Solar electricity is electricity, it is just coming from a clean source rather than coal or oil burning generators. The solar panels make DC power, and the inverter converts it to AC and syncs it up with the electricity you buy from the electric company, it all goes into the same pool, there is no difference between them. gr8sk8rgold - Yes, you are right, installing a large solar system on your house can cost as much as a luxury car. What's the return on investment on that car? How has that car improved the environment? People never ask what the ROI is on anything they buy for their house, except for the solar system. Not sure why. However, the return varies greatly depending on where you live. In some European countries, feed-in-tariffs made the return almost immediate. Ontario, Canada just launched a program that can make a solar system earn you money. In the USA, the federal gov't will give you a 30% tax credit on the installed cost, and some states have rebates and incentives that can pay for a large percentage of the system. If you are building a new house and roll the cost into the mortgage, it'll barely change the monthly payments. You should absolutely first invest in conservation. It is much cheaper to save electricity than to make it. For every $ you spend on conservation, that's about $4 less to spend on solar.
