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Solar is now ‘cheapest electricity in history’, confirms IEA (International Energy Agency) (from 2020) (www.carbonbrief.org)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

for the “Rate I currently pay”, which is 0.08c/kwh

How did you get that rate? We pay 33 cents, and it was 24 cents just a few months ago... wouldn't be surprised if it goes up again next year and the year after since even 33 cents is government subsidised (so - there's no cheaper option available).

otherwise I would have not have pulled the trigger on a 50,000$ project

Ooof. Why'd you do that? We simply put (a bit over) 5kW of panels on the roof, and a good 5kW inverter. One day of sun generates about as much power as we use in a week, and even if it's overcast we still come out ahead.

We're basically only paying for overnight power and pretty easy to keep that to a minimum (with good insulation, efficient overnight appliances, avoiding unnecessary overnight power consumption - such as putting the beer fridge and hot water heater on a timer).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

How did you get that rate? We pay 33 cents, and it was 24 cents just a few months ago… wouldn’t be surprised if it goes up again next year and the year after since even 33 cents is government subsidised (so - there’s no cheaper option available).

All about location. There are supposedly many in my area on a different coop utility, who are only paying 0.03c/kwh.

Ooof. Why’d you do that? We simply put (a bit over) 5kW of panels on the roof, and a good 5kW inverter. One day of sun generates about as much power as we use in a week, and even if it’s overcast we still come out ahead.

I had a few other goals I wanted to accomplish-

Reliability. The grid here isn't the most stable, and blinks a few times per week. And, a time or two per year, we have an outage. This solution has handled this fantastically well, so well, that I don't even notice when the grid has dropped unless I specifically go for it.
Apart of this, was bringing some of my wiring/electrical up to code. This accounted for 10k of the price-tag... I relocated/replaced the mains panel across the house to a location more suitable then my daughter's closet. Also- the panel itself, was pretty old, and needed to be modernized.

One more issue- my PV is undersized a bit. Adding another 3kw, would yield much better returns for me.

Its undersized, because if I oversized it, and sent more energy than I consumed, my lovely utility slaps on a 42$ fee.... which is no-bueno.