I’ve had solar panels for nearly ten years, after having them installed on both my current home and my previous one. There are a few reasons why I knew I wanted to invest tens of thousands of dollars into this technology, and why I’ve had no regrets.
A future of free energy
I no longer pay for electricity, and I’m only in my 30’s
This may come as a shock, but I’m no fan of paying utility bills. If there is an option to stop, I seek it out. That’s part of the reason I enjoy living in a rural area where we can have a private well and no water bill—even if that does mean having to invest in backup power to keep the water running. With solar panels, the same option is available for energy
When my wife and I first bought solar panels, we calculated how long until we recoup our investment based on the electricity costs of the time. Unlike a car, solar panels are an investment that eventually pay you back. It may take a while, but within ten or fifteen years, you reach a point where you’ve saved more money on electricity than you spent on the panels.
Our math assumed that electricity costs would stay the same, but we all know that they don’t. All over the world, we’re facing various types of energy shocks. Our prices here in Virginia have gone up like they have elsewhere, but since my wife and I don’t have to pay for our home’s energy, all that is increasing for us is the amount of money we’re saving.
People get sticker shock when I tell them that we’ve spent around $50,000 on solar panels, but the idea that solar panels are expensive is a bit of a myth. That’s because none of us have the option not to pay for energy. The choice is whether you pay to rent power or you pay to produce it yourself. If we’re spending over $300 a month on electricity costs, and we look ahead to how much that will cost us over the next 10, 20, 30, or 40 years, then $50,000 starts to look like an outright bargain.
Believe me, I know $50,000 is not something everyone can finance, but, according to Kelley Blue Book, that number is also the average cost of an average new car in America. I know people who pay more than that for a vehicle which will only ever depreciate and, more often than not, come with an additional cost in fuel. They don’t see how much further their money would go if they bought a cheaper vehicle and solar panels instead.