• IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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    16 days ago

    Our solar panels cut our roughly $500/month electric bill to zero when you average it out over an entire year. So that’s $6000 a year. During peak summer our batteries that get charged by the panels send excess electricity back to to the grid that the utility pays a premium for, and last year we got $2500 for that. Our state also pays us for the total amount of renewable energy we generate, and we got about $500 last year for that. So in one year our panels saved us roughly $9000. After we’ve paid off our loan in a couple more years then this will continue generating free money for us.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      16 days ago

      Whoa $500 per month! Our consumption here in Denmark has been stable around $150 per month for 20 years in 3 different houses. Excluding heating. Prices have gone up, but constantly more energy efficient equipment has curbed that, so we use less electricity now than we did 20 years ago.
      I’m guessing you live somewhere that needs air condition?

      After we bought solar panels I calculated it for 2024 and we paid $8 when deducting sales from our purchases. But we have 4 Winter months where we can’t cover our consumption with the panels alone, because the sun is too low on the sky to give much energy.
      Our system is 11 kWh panels, and 7 kWh battery, I am curious how big your system is?

      • IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world
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        16 days ago

        We have about 40kwh panels and 40kwh battery. We use roughly 1mwh per month, with our biggest consumption between our EV, kitchen appliances, and clothes dryer.

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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          15 days ago

          That’s a very nice (big) installation. 😀☀️
          But not as much consumption as I expected from the cost you stated. We use about 500 kWh without the EV, and 650 kWh since we bought the EV, we don̈́t drive so much, our battery can generally last a week on a charge.
          Electricity must be pretty expensive where you live. Seems like you paid 3 times as much for twice the consumption as we do.