I was reading about solar energy in Germany and it got me thinking. When I lived in California it made sense to install solar panels since electricity was relatively expensive and sunshine was relatively plentiful. Germany uses a lot of solar energy, relative to other countries, so perhaps it might make sense to investigate it where I live now.
Six years ago I moved to Northwest Montana (47 degrees, 59 minutes, 54 seconds North and 113 degrees, 56 minutes, and 3 seconds West) about 100 miles from the Canadian border were electricity is relatively cheap (but has been increasing lately) and sunshine is plentiful only 5 months out of the year.
I am currently using 1880 KWH/month, although it can go up to 3250 KWH/month in January and February. We have a ground source geothermal system which helps keep our energy costs down compared to what they could be. It costs about 7 cents/kWh which is far less than I was paying in California.
With our short winter days, assuming I could keep the panels free of snow, and our reasonable cost of electricity I don’t think having solar panels could possibly pay for themselves, but I figure there must be a calculator where I plug in all the variables and see if it might make sense for me. I don’t want to call a local installer since I don’t trust them to tell me whether the numbers add up or not.
Any thoughts?
Basic Charge (Single Phase Service): $22.13/mo.
Energy Charge: 5.936 cents/kWh (for first 600 kWh/mo.)
7.301 cents/kWh (for 601-3,500 kWh/mo.)
10.660 cents/kWh (for 3,501 and over kWh/mo.)