Ok...so I wanted to revisit the "going solar...is it worth it" and look at my assumptions. Well...one assumption was the 25% energy usage. If I want to maximize my tax deduction, then I should try to get the largest system for my money because the ROI will follow this assumption. Well...the maximum tax deduction is limited by the NC Renewable Energy Personal Tax Credit. This credit is 35% of the installed cost up to a maximum of $10,500. So...if I want to maximize this then my system would need to cost: $10,500/0.35 = $30,000.
So...if I play with the solar-estimate.org calculator, that means my system could be a maximum of about 3.8 kW or roughly 46% of my estimated average annual electricity usage.
Now what's interesting is that the ROI for the system is highly dependent on how you finance the system. I noticed that the default borrowing is set to 30-years...aka a mortgage. And what's interesting is that the more you borrow...the better the ROI. So if you borrow 50% of the cost (they estimate ~$11,000 after tax credits) at 6.5% over 25-years, then the ROI is 4 years. If you borrow 100%, then the ROI is zero years. Why is this? Well...the annual loan payment is less than the sum of the utility savings+NC Greenpower incentives + Duke Energy RECs. As the loan life shortens to say, 5 years, then the ROI creeps up to 10 years.
So essentially what this is says...is if you can refinance your home or purchase your home with some extra cash for the upgrade and put on a solar system, then you'll be golden with zero to one year ROI. The best loan terms I could find were 15 years loans on Home Equity. Other than that most loans are limited to 5 years.
Of course, as my wife says....this is all dependent on if you can even put this on your roof. Who knows what our homeowners association would say about the panels. Lots of folks out there can be ignorant...
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Enertia Homes and Reblog
OK...so I saw Enertia Homes the first time on the GreenHD network and thought it was uber cool. That was at least a year ago. Well, for some raeson, I just remembered about it and started looking at it. It's a pretty awesome concept. Here's the link to the MFR website: http://enertia.com/
They are located in NC and they produce very low energy (maybe net-zero in certain locatiosn) homes paired with solar hot water and solar PV. The homes use a doube-envelope system to heat and cool the house in lieu of an HVAC system. Well..in NC, I'm sure we'll at least want a dehumidifier. Oh...and if you have a picky spouse...then maybe you'll want a small HVAC system. However, you could go ahead and install a small geothermal system to minimize those costs...maybe even help the hot water generation too.
On the website, they do have information on energy usage for a house in Durham, NC. They spent a total of $572 over the year for the home (~$48/month). That's not too shabby...
And heres a reblog from another fellow blogger about the homes.
http://sustainablog.blogspot.com/2007/07/enertia-home-modern-marvel-or-lot-of.html
As they've said...there's not a lot of data on these homes...and then there's apparently a fire risk too.
I may just look into beefing up the insulation in my walls using this retrofoam stuff. It can be installed into existing wall cavities that already have insulation in them. That's pretty cool...but it really depends on how much is costs to install and if there's any ROI. If you consider my average utility bill is probably around $70/month...then even reducing it by 50% would save me $420/year. If installing the retrofoam cost me $7,000 to install (probably not unrealistic...I had a quote to encapsulate my crawl space that was $7,000 which included the liner, dehumidier, spray foam, etc. A second quote with everything but the spray foam was $2800..so $4200 just for the spray foam in my crawl space) then the ROI is 16.7 years.
Given that, it would be more cost effective to go solar as I said in my previous posting. That would give me an ROI of 9 years...
They are located in NC and they produce very low energy (maybe net-zero in certain locatiosn) homes paired with solar hot water and solar PV. The homes use a doube-envelope system to heat and cool the house in lieu of an HVAC system. Well..in NC, I'm sure we'll at least want a dehumidifier. Oh...and if you have a picky spouse...then maybe you'll want a small HVAC system. However, you could go ahead and install a small geothermal system to minimize those costs...maybe even help the hot water generation too.
On the website, they do have information on energy usage for a house in Durham, NC. They spent a total of $572 over the year for the home (~$48/month). That's not too shabby...
And heres a reblog from another fellow blogger about the homes.
http://sustainablog.blogspot.com/2007/07/enertia-home-modern-marvel-or-lot-of.html
As they've said...there's not a lot of data on these homes...and then there's apparently a fire risk too.
I may just look into beefing up the insulation in my walls using this retrofoam stuff. It can be installed into existing wall cavities that already have insulation in them. That's pretty cool...but it really depends on how much is costs to install and if there's any ROI. If you consider my average utility bill is probably around $70/month...then even reducing it by 50% would save me $420/year. If installing the retrofoam cost me $7,000 to install (probably not unrealistic...I had a quote to encapsulate my crawl space that was $7,000 which included the liner, dehumidier, spray foam, etc. A second quote with everything but the spray foam was $2800..so $4200 just for the spray foam in my crawl space) then the ROI is 16.7 years.
Given that, it would be more cost effective to go solar as I said in my previous posting. That would give me an ROI of 9 years...
Thursday, December 8, 2011
December Energy Bill
Wow...I sure have been slacking on the ole' blog front. My bad...
Anyhow, I got in our latest energy bill for December (OK...really its for November, but the bill date is December). Here's the results:
Total kWH = 963 (2010 = 1374)
Days = 30
Avg kWh/d = 32.10/day (2010 = 45.8 kWh/d)
% Savings vs 2010 = 29.9%
% Savings compared to former 1300 sf townhome = 108.3%
OK...so the trend continues. We've consistently been around 30-40% savings versus 2010 while using about the same energy as our former (half-sized) townhome.
Winter promises to hold the largest savings. Look at the energy used last year:
Jan 2010 = 3,224 kWh (94.8 kWh/d)
Feb 2010 = 1967 kWh (70.2 kWh/d)
The largest energy usage day we've had was a couple days ago. It was in the high 30s, low 40s....we did 4 loads of laundry (re: dryer) ...and we cooked a lot. On that day we used 60 kWh. Our largest average month (July) has been 32.9 kWh/d. So keeping up with this pattern would mean that we're looking at the potential for savings in the range of 50-67%. Only time will tell how well we do.
Anyhow, I got in our latest energy bill for December (OK...really its for November, but the bill date is December). Here's the results:
Total kWH = 963 (2010 = 1374)
Days = 30
Avg kWh/d = 32.10/day (2010 = 45.8 kWh/d)
% Savings vs 2010 = 29.9%
% Savings compared to former 1300 sf townhome = 108.3%
OK...so the trend continues. We've consistently been around 30-40% savings versus 2010 while using about the same energy as our former (half-sized) townhome.
Winter promises to hold the largest savings. Look at the energy used last year:
Jan 2010 = 3,224 kWh (94.8 kWh/d)
Feb 2010 = 1967 kWh (70.2 kWh/d)
The largest energy usage day we've had was a couple days ago. It was in the high 30s, low 40s....we did 4 loads of laundry (re: dryer) ...and we cooked a lot. On that day we used 60 kWh. Our largest average month (July) has been 32.9 kWh/d. So keeping up with this pattern would mean that we're looking at the potential for savings in the range of 50-67%. Only time will tell how well we do.
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