The best time to invest in solar was last year. The second best time is now.
Even in Seattle weather, I cover 10 months a year of my electric bill with an 8kw array.
When it’s hot, it’s sunny, and I love knowing I can run my AC cold and still send back a ton of electricity to the grid for future bill credits.
I put a 9kw array on my house in 2017. When I factor in the federal and state incentives it ended up costing $12k. I will easily save that over the life of the panels. My only concern is the inverter needing replacement before the 20 year mark.
Absolutely worth it over the long run.
Wish it was doable for me. I kind of laughed at the door to door salesmen for suggesting my roof would be good for it. I have a South facing roof but there is also a 60 year fir tree next door that shades damn near all of the roof. I humored them and had one of their guys schedule an appointment for a quote. It was cheaper than I figured (only about $10k) but it would only cover about 20% of my energy usage and would take about 17 years to pay back with the assumption that SCL will be raising rates by 4% each year. I honestly do not even recall the last price hike. Yeah, it sucks that there will be a 10% jump in cost but considering how rare those hikes are compared to PSE, I’ll take it.
Something is going on, it’s +18% in Portland starting 1/1.
https://www.opb.org/article/2023/12/28/portland-general-electric-hikes-residential-rates/
Low snowpack in the mountains due to el nino and a solar cycle maximum and climate crisis heat. We get most of our energy from hydroelectric, so it’s a supply and demand thing I think.
