Quote:
Originally Posted by Chad300tdt
I have a 9600 watt kiln that will be used 12-24 hours at a time 2-3 times a week possibly 4. I want to see if there is a cost effective way to offset the energy use with photovoltaics considering I live in the Northeast near Philadelphia (so you know the solar conditions here).
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I've done a fair amount of research on solar installation since it's something we're considering for our business. We've got 40K sq.ft. of wide open flat roof just begging for something. The numbers can be a bit daunting, though. Go to FindSolar.com and you can get a rough idea of the size and cost of the system you would need.
Just to give you an idea, we average 12,959 kWh/month. We have a "Good" solar rating. They estimate the system based on 50% of our electrical usage over the course of the year and come up with a 70kW peak system, which covers about 7,000 sq.ft. of roof area. When I ran the numbers last December:
Estimated Installation Cost: $630,000 (for everything-Cells, Batteries, Wiring, Labor)
State of CT Rebate: ($25,000)
Federal Tax Credit: ($181,000)
For an estimated Net Cost of $423,500
The break even point for us would be at about 10 years if you factor property value appreciation (which is somewhat nebulous) and 17 years assuming no property value appreciation.
Obviously a home system won't be nearly as large and as expensive, but the numbers add up fast. You can get long-term loans, but the estimated lifespan on the lastest gen cells are 20-25 years.
We haven't ruled it out completely and have contacted a company that leases the cells as opposed to buying them. Maybe we'll go a different direction all together and do a green roof system.
One thing that made a bigger difference than we expected was change all of our flourescent lights in the warehouse to the new, energy efficient ones. It cost us about $7,000 for lamps, bulbs and labor but we cut 1200 kWh off of our electric usage per month which is almost 10%!