farmeratheart
Platinum Member
Dan,
The PVWatts v2 calculator using the airport between Raleigh and Durham as a location, says a 12 KW system would produce 15,556 AC kwh annually. ~50 panels, that's a big residential system. If I plug 12 kw in for my location, the output is 14,517 AC kwh annually, in Colorado Springs, CO the output is 17,931 AC kwh annually.
I suppose your usage, almost four times mine, is driven by AC needs and having kids at home (as I recall) Up north we tend to forget about the cost of AC and focus on heating.
I still think you are hung up on "hidden" costs. Unexpected and hidden are two different things. But I can see your point, it would be roughly a $25K system producing $1,550 worth of power each year. That is 16 years to break even ignoring the cost of money and without any credits/rebates. If you can use the federal 30% credit, your eventual net cost is $17,500, or 11.3 years to break even, ignoring the cost of money. You would have 8.7 years after that worth $10K - $11K at current elec. rates and assuming a 10% drop in system output due to age. It's possible elec. rates would climb at about the same rate output would decline, offsetting each other.
Ten to twelve years is in the ballpark for residential systems after credits that I have looked at. That doesn't seem to change much across residential system sizes because they have very similar costs per watt. The upfront costs are a high hurdle, that seems to be true of most alt. energy even though the lifetime net costs are very low.
Using the Raleigh-Durham example as the closest to me ... 15,556kWh annually for a 12KW system would translate to 518kWh5 annually for my 4 KW system. That's not too far from the 5500 kWh I've seen each year for the 1st two! I really have to agree with what zonta223 says in his post. Think back to 20 years ago. What did a gallon of gas cost? What did a loaf of bread cost? I really don't know what I was paying for electricity per kWh 20 years ago. It was a different utility in a different region. Suffice it to say, I don't think any of us will be paying what we are today 20 years from now.
Frank