Realized I didn’t answer the original question. No, I don’t have solar panels on my house. My house will definitely need a new roof within 10 years and is what is politely described in coastal Florida as a “tear down” so does not make sense there. I did the ROI calc for putting them on our business as well, but decided against it. And my business building has just about the perfect solar situation - large, completely unobstructed South and Southwest facing roof in Florida.
Here’s why I decided against putting them on my business building.
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Even with the large tax credit, my ROI calc indicated the payback period would be approximately 10 years and that’s assuming only 1% annual degredation, no repairs or re-roofing needed. That calc also assumed no extra cost for cleaning them, so assumed either I or an employee would be doing that (unappealing and potentially dangerous.) That’s an unacceptably long payback period even though it’s hugely optimistic, given that it’s highly unlikely absolutely nothing would need repairing, the panels would perform 100% as predicted and no money would be spent on maintenance.
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From an emotional standpoint, I dislike the amount of money our government wastes on “feel good” incentives that are handouts to mostly wealthier people and don’t really help the environment in the ways people think they do. Solar panel manufacturing is an incredibly environmentally destructive process; in many cases, we’re not decreasing the environmental impact, we’re just shifting it to someone else’s backyard. Feels icky to me.