"Never" is too strong a word, Pat. Costs have come down recently, and rebates and tax credits are up. I just put solar on my house, with net metering. It'll pay for itself in about 20 years. That's a long time, but it's not never.
Also, I haven't switched yet, but my utility has recently introducted "time of use" metering for net metering customers. Basically, the excess electricity I produce during the day is credited to me at peak rates, and the electricity I use in the evening is charged at off-peak rates, so I should come out ahead. Especially if I get an electric car in a few years.
I used NEVER correctly and it was not too strong of a word!
I NEVER saw in all the years of my subscription, a residential (or other) solar electric installation published in "Home Power" where the economics were such that it was cheaper for the user to use the solar than to just use the grid. If there was one SOMEWHERE the editors would have moved heaven and earth to be able to publish it...what a terrific poster child! But it N-E-V-E-R happened.
I am a proponent of alternative energy, definitely in favor of responsible stewardship of resources and do strongly favor renewable resources but I am also trained as a scientist and engineer and don't like to operate on wishful thinking. I'm sorry if my "but the emperor is wearing no clothes" comments are unsettling for you.
If you are happy with your situation then I am happy for you.
Yes prices have come down, a little, and incremental performance increases have been made but if you do a complete analysis including all source costs, energy used to produce the cells, the carbon footprint of all operations required to manufacture your components, i.e. a thorough analysis not a biased surface analysis you may be surprised to see your break even time recede back over the time horizon a significant distance.
Even the inclusion of such simple concepts as NPV (Net Present Value) calculations can have a very noticeable impact on break even times. When I was "selling" energy conservation to the Commanding Officer of SUBASE San Diego I had to present thorough analyses of the economics, including NPV. I won't try to teach a short course in investment economics in this post but for those who don't have experience with NPV, here it is the "Reader's Digest" condensed version.
If you do not make the investment you retain the money and gain compound interest on it over the useful life of the rejected project. So, if instead you invest the $ in THE PROJECT you lose that. There is a cost of money. There is an opportunity cost. For the energy conservation project (or any project that is supposed to save $)there are these extra costs which are quite real. So there is an additional cost to the project, that of tieing up the capitol in it as opposed to investing it in some other competing project or...
To be fair when totaling up the cost of a system you not only have to include the cost of parts and labor to install but the maint costs over the expected lifetime and the cost of deinstallilng the system when it is obsolete or the cost of replacement, perhaps folded into maint costs. Systems do not last forever. All this equipment has a finite MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure)
You can always tell the pioneers, they are the ones with the most arrows in their backsides. You may be serving the greater good. What is good for the individual is not what is always best for the group and the other way around. By increasing the volume of PV manufacture and the $ invested in PV you help stimulate the PV industry and allow it to continue to improve its wares and costs. If we all waited for it to be economical before buying in it would take longer for it to become economical, if ever.
I'm glad to hear your utility is "modern" enough to give you a multiple rate structure and net metering. Truly modern utilities will allow you to install breakers on some of your appliances (water heaters and such) that allow the utility to remotely control them, switching them off in "load shedding" situations when peak demands exceed generation capacity like summer afternoons. By running dishwashers and your home laundry on delayed start you can shift those energy pigs to the lower rates too.
Please understand I have no quarrel with you or your installation. You have not done a giant wrong against man and nature. You may have not done an accurate and precise analysis regarding payback but like the folks doing the systems reported in "Home Power" they did it because they wanted to not because it was economical. One fellow in particular really just loved it when he could actually see his electric meter spin backwards even though his bill could not go negative and he was giving the energy to the utility for free to sell to his neighbors.
One final thought... REBATES AND TAX CREDITS are an artificial means of directing your investing, giving you an incentive to do something that would otherwise not be economically feasible. We like to think that the incentives are altruistically motivated and in aggregate serve the citizens best interests. Sometimes they are. On the other hand it is yet another dose of socialism where $ is taken from one segment of our society and doled out to another who will do the bidding of those doing the doling.
Pat
