Do Solar Panels Pay Themselves Off

Whether you are interested in solar panels for a residential property or as a commercial installation it is inevitable to think about the profitability of the system and ask whether your panels will pay for themselves.

Do solar panels pay themselves off.

Allow us to explain how to do that. Provided you ve not already bought your panels all you need to do is two simple calculations. The solar panel payback period is a calculation that estimates how long it will take for you to break even on your solar energy investment. Then through the average return it only takes four years to pay the remaining two thirds.

However the time it will take to reach the payback time or the earnings that can be obtained are deeply varied and site dependent. What is solar panel payback period. Factors such as solar panel costs incentives the type of solar panels and your location influence the payback period of your system. The efficiency is not a deterring factor because there is an unlimited supply of solar energy until the sun burns out in 5bn years.

The efficiency of solar panels results in having to install more solar panels which is not a problem in itself since they will pay for themselves and produce less emissions than fossil fuels. Dividing 14 200 by 1 734 gives a solar payback period of about 5 8 years even if electric rates don t go up between now and then. The largest solar energy systems also save the most money but owners will need to wait for some time for the system to pay for itself. Years to payback investment cost solar panels annual savings.

Solar power is capital intensive and the main cost of owning a system comes upfront when buying the equipment the solar module will almost certainly represent the largest single component. Increased utility electricity rates and lower equipment costs are making it easier and less expensive to for homeowners to own rather than lease their solar panel systems. Below are the main factors that influence this timescale. Investment cost and annual savings.

For example if an average solar panel installation costs 18 000 incentives will lower this price by a third. There s no denying that solar panels are a long term investment but given the potential for both saving money on energy. In plymouth it takes only 8 4 years for a domestic solar panel installation to pay for itself compared with the national average of 9 5 years. That s what we d call a great deal.

Purchase and installation can vary from several thousand dollars to 15 000 or even 40 000 for the largest versions. If their solar panels were fully connected by september 2020 they d be paid off before the summer of 2026 and will keep making electricity until at least 2045. Here s how the figures break down for cities in the.