5 Questions about Home Solar Power: Homeowner Advice
Your simple answers to 5 basic questions that any homeowner knows will lead to clear, honest home solar advice that helps you decide about solar installation.
Is home solar power a good match for you and your house? Let’s find out: What’s your roof like? How much sunshine does your home get? What’s your monthly electricity bill? What can you spend on installing home solar power upfront? And of course… on this big planet, do you think that just one household switching to “clean energy” can really make a difference?
It’s okay if you’re not sure yet; you will be by the end of this guide. We have basic science and solid solar advice to help you decide if home solar power is a match. Learn if, and why, solar is right for you.
When Would I See Solar Savings?
Wondering if you’ll see savings with home solar power? The shortest possible answer is: if your current monthly bill is $100 or more, you’ll see solar savings. Of course, the “when” is not quite that simple. The average home solar installation pays for itself in about 5 to 10 years. After that, you’ll be saving on energy every month for another 15 to 20 years.
If you have an average size house with average energy use and get an average size system installed (about 20 roof panels), those numbers should be about right for you. Since a solar installation usually lasts 25 to 30 years, you’ll see a lot of money saved during the life of your panels! Big picture: you’ll save money if you can make it work to purchase a solar installation.
Cost of Solar Installation?
The average immediate cost of a typical residential system (5 Kilowatts) is often around $18,000 in the United States, but that drops immediately once you look at tax credits. After the tax credits are applied, the cost varies by state but hovers between $12,000 and $15,000. Those numbers are current and from a nationwide sample as of 2020.[1]Solar Energies Industries Association
That home solar installation will pay for itself through energy bill savings after 5-10 years of use, but what about if you sell your home sooner? A 2015 study through UC Berkeley showed that a typical home solar system boosted selling prices by $15,000. So, your system will pay for itself whether you sell the home or not. Most homeowners will see that the investment makes sense as a good value. Now, how can you do it if you don’t have that money to spend? [2]Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Subsidies and other incentives may help cut the cost. Three of the major funding options are leases, loans, and PPAs. A solar lease is a lot like leasing a car. It can be a less expensive way to get clean energy quickly. There are also specific types of solar loans that can get you the funding for solar installation. So, you can look into a solar loan or a solar lease. You can also consider what’s called a Solar PPA deal or a Community Solar option. In those cases you aren’t the owner (or sole owner) of the system, so you don’t have to pay for buying it all.
Of course, if you can find a way to afford to buy and own your system outright, you’ll save the most money. How can you make it attainable? Stay on the low end of that $12,000 to $15,000 range by shopping smart as an educated homeowner. To get the best price and keep your home solar cost low, compare quotes between installers. That alone can trim 10% off your price tag, so it is some of our best solar advice about how to cut your upfront home solar cost.
Does This Roof Work For Solar?
What’s your roof like? To be a good fit for home solar panels, your roof needs strength, size, and it needs to be able to last a long time. You’ll do best with a roof that faces the south side of your property and is in good enough shape to hold at least 5 pounds of weight per square foot for the full 25 to 30-year life of your panels. If that doesn’t sound like your roof, or if you aren’t sure that it does, don’t give up on a solar option. Roof panels are the most common type of home solar power, but if they aren’t right for you there are solar roof alternatives.
Enough Direct Sun For Home Solar Power?
What if your home is in a cloudy area or a shady spot? Will home solar power even work for you? There are a few things to consider, including the placement of your house.
If you’re in the United States, you’re in the northern hemisphere. That means the sun will mostly be south of you as it passes along its orbit. Most of the direct sunlight your home gets will be from the south side. So a roof that faces the south will get the most sun, and south-facing home solar panels will give you the most power! If you don’t have a south-facing roof, you might want to look at a ground-mounted system instead of a solar roof installation. If your panels are mounted to the ground, you can control their direction and point them south for maximum sunlight.
Lots of direct sunshine works best but if your sunlight levels aren’t strong all day or all year, that might be less of a problem than you think. As long as you can capture a lot of energy during peak sunlight times, you can store power in a home solar battery. Once present in only 5% of solar installations, batteries are expected to grow in popularity over the next five years until they are part of a quarter of solar power systems. Batteries aren’t the only option for what to do with overflow solar power. If you capture more energy than you can store, you can also send credits directly into your local power grid with “net metering.” Those credits will save you money later.
What’s One Household’s Real Impact?
What’s One Household’s Real Impact?Even if solar is clean power, how much difference can it really make? After all, one household is just one household. How much can that actually change the global climate? There’s no single answer for everyone, but we can look at a few numbers together. According to the EPA, an average US household emits 7.27 metric tons of C02 each year from electricity.[3] EPA Solar gives off one third or less of the carbon emissions of the natural gas electricity that powers many areas in the USA.[4]Union of Concerned Scientists If we follow that math: with solar, your home’s carbon footprint would be cut by 4.8 metric tons a year! What does that actually mean?
Well, the organization “Ten Million Trees” says that a single mature tree removes about 18 pounds of carbon from the atmosphere annually.[5] Ten Million Trees If that’s true… by switching your household to solar, you could be instantly doing the work of more than 587 trees! Every single year! It’s simple math and science for anyone to see that switching to solar energy makes a big difference.
That’s part of why solar is on the rise. From 2010 to 2020, solar power in the United States has had a huge boom. The average annual growth rate has been 49%! Thanks to the combination of an environmental win and clear solar savings a lot of homeowners have already seen that this home improvement makes sense.
Our solid solar advice should help you decide if you want to be one of the next homeowners to join the national solar surge. And if you’re not sure where to start, Guide to Going Solar is a simple step-by-step guide to all the essential knowledge you’ll need.