My roof mount system is saving me $1000 a year in electricity, plus more in natural gas that I
I disconnected, and it was $0 of my own money thanks to a grant and interest free loan.
Electricity is pre approved to increase a minimum of 5% a year (it just went up 16% this year for people out of town), so the savings will only increase.
I’ll pocket something like $35k in 25 years for $0. Best investment ever.
I’m in canada in a tight valley where it snows a boatload.
There's virtually an infinite number ways to assess something like this, and a single figure out of context is meaningless.
What's the deprecation schedule?
Which financial "context" is it calculated within? A household may benefit from governmental support and profitable, while the aggregate financial situation may or may not be so.
What timeline is it calculated on? A 5-10 year window may be unprofitable, while a larger one may be. An even longer one may change numbers completely...
Since the EU has been under investing in nuclear, solar + batteries investments is the only way forward. While the EU is making good progress, I still think it should invest a lot more a lot faster.
EDIT: I just found out that my comments show up as dead to everyone else. Can you please change that or let me know what to do? I am not a bot...
I mean... so? The immediate alternative is gas, where most of the _fuel_ comes from various dubiously-friendly regimes. At least once the solar panels are in place, China's permission isn't required for them to produce power.
Just installed my plug-and-play panel this week in my small garden. 400W so not enough to power all my appliances. But I'm happy that I'm at least a little hedged against the negative geopolitical developments we're going through.
I installed a solar system at my home in Massachusetts for 17k last year (after tax credits), 7.82 kw.
So far it's covered about 70% of my usage and 5.7 Mwh. I don't have a full year of data yet so I expect that number to grow as it includes the summer months. I drive an EV and this includes the car.
Same. I installed 9kw plus BYD batteries this year (finished first week January) for €19K. Completely self sufficient, even surplus which I distribute to the public net and they pay me for. I hope to have complete data by next year but it looks like I can reduce electricity bills by 85% which is for Europe with really high costs/kw a bargain. Expected ROI 10 years.
This equates to about 20 cents per day per person, or about $73/year.
It is a move in the right direction for sure, but I'm not sure I'd call this a significant statistic.
The title is misleading. $135 is not "money saved", it's "money not spent on fossil fuels" (even for that I couldn't find how it was calculated by solarpowereurope, but the number seems plausible).
To the discussion of whether $50B/y is a big figure or not. EU has around 400GW of PV installed. Cost to install per 1kW ranged between $600 and up to $4000 because a big chunk of that capacity was built when prices were much higher. If we consider average price at $1000 this means $400B on capex alone + yearly operational expenses. It can still be profitable (assuming current PV prices can be sustained + installed capacity doesn't grow faster than storage) but it's going to be many years until the investment is recouped and it starts to actually "save money for Europeans".
In any case, of course it's still nice to depend less on imported oil, even if not for money savings.
Yes, you are right. The money saved is not just $50B.
1) Add the money saved from fossil fuel subsidies, that don't need to be spent
2) Add ethanol/biodiesel subsidies
3) Add defense spending to protect oil pipelines and fossil fuel assets
4) Add healthcare spending, fossil fuels are linked to nearly every kind of disease (except STIs, mad cow, polio, etc)
5) Add deaths/injuries from fossil fuels and the associated hospitalization costs, lost productive human years. Fossil fuels have the highest deaths/TWH.
6) Add the money saved from demand destruction (Less demand --> cheaper oil)
6a) Immediately, decreasing the price of fuel.
6b) Slows down fossil fuel multibillionaires becoming richer. Oil is profitable at $10/barrel, but with global demand skyrocketing, Oil is extracted from costlier sources (fracking/sands) which need a minimum price. However, the cheapest extraction (Saudi) will profit immensely and with that money buy everything else in the world, extracting wealth via rentier capitalism or stock market, making housing, healthcare, everything else costlier for all of us.
7) Creating the initial demand for solar panels, enabling scale production, making solar panels dirt cheap now and forever.
My solar panels amaze me every day. It is just crazy that a flat panel, that doesn't have any moving parts, and requires a once a year cleaning (at most), just eliminated my power bill completely.
If I look at a electricity bills the last year, consumption costs sits around 20-25% of the total (with tax). The remaining 75% is grid connection fees and infrastructure fees that pay for expansion of future transmissions. The argument why those grid and infrastructure fees exist is primarily because of the intermittence problem cause by solar and wind.
This makes calculating the cost saving from solar and wind a bit complex.
19 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 42.6 ms ] threadElectricity is pre approved to increase a minimum of 5% a year (it just went up 16% this year for people out of town), so the savings will only increase.
I’ll pocket something like $35k in 25 years for $0. Best investment ever.
I’m in canada in a tight valley where it snows a boatload.
Edit: People's general understanding of the scale of economies is genuinely terrifying to witness.
What's the deprecation schedule? Which financial "context" is it calculated within? A household may benefit from governmental support and profitable, while the aggregate financial situation may or may not be so. What timeline is it calculated on? A 5-10 year window may be unprofitable, while a larger one may be. An even longer one may change numbers completely...
EDIT: I just found out that my comments show up as dead to everyone else. Can you please change that or let me know what to do? I am not a bot...
So far it's covered about 70% of my usage and 5.7 Mwh. I don't have a full year of data yet so I expect that number to grow as it includes the summer months. I drive an EV and this includes the car.
To the discussion of whether $50B/y is a big figure or not. EU has around 400GW of PV installed. Cost to install per 1kW ranged between $600 and up to $4000 because a big chunk of that capacity was built when prices were much higher. If we consider average price at $1000 this means $400B on capex alone + yearly operational expenses. It can still be profitable (assuming current PV prices can be sustained + installed capacity doesn't grow faster than storage) but it's going to be many years until the investment is recouped and it starts to actually "save money for Europeans".
In any case, of course it's still nice to depend less on imported oil, even if not for money savings.
1) Add the money saved from fossil fuel subsidies, that don't need to be spent
2) Add ethanol/biodiesel subsidies
3) Add defense spending to protect oil pipelines and fossil fuel assets
4) Add healthcare spending, fossil fuels are linked to nearly every kind of disease (except STIs, mad cow, polio, etc)
5) Add deaths/injuries from fossil fuels and the associated hospitalization costs, lost productive human years. Fossil fuels have the highest deaths/TWH.
6) Add the money saved from demand destruction (Less demand --> cheaper oil)
6a) Immediately, decreasing the price of fuel.
6b) Slows down fossil fuel multibillionaires becoming richer. Oil is profitable at $10/barrel, but with global demand skyrocketing, Oil is extracted from costlier sources (fracking/sands) which need a minimum price. However, the cheapest extraction (Saudi) will profit immensely and with that money buy everything else in the world, extracting wealth via rentier capitalism or stock market, making housing, healthcare, everything else costlier for all of us.
7) Creating the initial demand for solar panels, enabling scale production, making solar panels dirt cheap now and forever.
There are probably more.
This makes calculating the cost saving from solar and wind a bit complex.