June 2, 2009

Yesterday I had a consultant for solar energy come by here to take measurements. I wanted to see if solar energy was cost effective for our house. I will find out maybe today or tomorrow. It’s pretty costly, but right now there is a federal credit of up to $30,000 and a state credit of about $2.20 or $1.90. I live in California and their rebate program for solar energy is quickly being depleted.

I had done some preliminary calculations on how much of a system I needed and was surprised to see that they were very close to the figures the consultant got from his computer program.

I am hoping the system will be cost effective. There are several plans available that make it easy and less costly that just paying some $30,000 – $50,000 for an outright system. I don’t have that and if I did I would not be willing to spend so much for solar energy (electricity). However over the long term it may cost a lot over the years, but the electricity bill won’t be going up for at least 18 years and should go down to a very low amount if the system is optimized properly.

More to come on solar energy…
Continued in Part 2