Greetings! For anyone interested in learning how to design & install a solar electric system for your home or business there will be a workshop happening at the Ashokan Field Campus in Olivebridge this April. This workshop is sponsored by local solar business Sun Mountain Solar and is being put on by Solar Energy International a nonprofit organization that has been providing training programs in renewable energy around the world since 1981. SEI’s mission is to help people incorporate renewable energy into their lives. If you are interested in learning more about this workshop copy this link in to your internet browser: http://www.solarenergy.org/workshops/gridtiedpvd.html

I heard the state gives you money or helps pay for the install?

There are tax breaks. It's complicated, but you can definitally find out quite a bit online (for free).

Not sure about solarguys fee of $700... For the class, seems expensive to me.

It reminds me of the saying, "The best way to get rich quick is to write a book about how to get rich quick".

I'm looking into it for the renovation of my house. The incentives are basically these:

• The State will pay for half of the equipment cost.
  
• the feds and state give you a tax break, but the feds have a tax on the tax break!
  

So I was looking at a 4.2 kW system for my house. I think it's like 20 panels on my roof which optimally will product 5000 kWhours of electricity per year.

The cost of the equipment and intall is in the neighborhood of $36,000. The state pays $16,000 of that, so I'd have to shell out about $20,000. Then on my taxes, I'd realize around another $7000 in savings. So ideally, the set up cost me about $13,000, and then I can theoretically save about $500 - $700 a year in electricity costs. That works out to about a 5% return, assuming my electricity costs don't go anywhere over the next 20 years.

Not stunning by any means, but the environmental effect seems quite good.

Comments??

Evan,
I work as an architect although not on our green design projects. However, one of the partners here built his country house a few years ago and got a similar deal to what you are looking at - the state paid for a substantial amount of the equipment plus he got a tax rebate. He ended up paying about $10K in the end, about one-third of the overall cost. In summer the meter essentially runs backwards so he is selling energy back to the power company. Naturally they BUY it at a lower rate than what they sell it.
The house itself relies on passive ventilation for cooling, geothermal heating, etc. so it is as 'green' a house as possible.
I think it is great you are considering this and is worth the investment.

You might want to wait a year or two. I recently read (don't have the source handy) that new technology solar cells will soon be available commercially (this year) that bring the cost/kW down to that of fossil fuel generators and cut that 20 yr payback to 5 yrs or so.

I've already had the architectural plans changed so that the roof is oriented to the south. I have heard a lot about the reduced cost of the solar panels, and the stocks of high flying solar power companies have been halved in recent months due to the reduced cost of the equipment. So I'm ready to do, but I think I'm going to watch the equipment prices for a few months. In the meantime, I have a lot a building to do.

-em

Due to still high negative ROI at this point after all is said and done, I can see why adoption of this technology has been very slow. This stuff has been on the table for many years (30+?) and moore's law has yet to come into play, which is a concern for its future IMHO. For me personally I can not afford a 10K expenditure (Investment I think would be the wrong word to use here) for going green no matter how much I think it’s a good idea to do so (and I do)

Smike speak well, make sense.

I've also been looking at this for a while, but it is still out of proportion to the return. With 2 in college now and 2 more coming up on it, I don't see this as a viable option yet.