Katusepäikeseenergia: kuidas majaomanikud peaksid kliimamuutustega seotud investeeringuid arvutama

Kui Josh Hurwitz otsustas oma Connecticuti majja päikeseenergia kasutusele võtta, oli tal kolm suurt põhjust: vähendada oma süsiniku jalajälge, salvestada elektrikatkestuse korral lõpuks elektrit päikeseenergial töötavasse aku ja – ülioluline – säästa raha.

Now he's on track to pay for his system in six years, then save tens of thousands of dollars in the 15 years after that, while giving himself a hedge against utility-rate inflation. It's working so well, he's preparing to add a Tesla-made battery to let him store the power he makes. Central to the deal: Tax credits and other benefits from both the state of Connecticut and from Washington, D.C., he says.

"You have to make the money work,'' Hurwitz said. "You can have the best of intentions, but if the numbers don't work it doesn't make sense to do it." 

Hurwitz's experience points up one benefit of the Inflation Reduction Act that passed in August: Its extension and expansion of tax credits to promote the spread of home-based solar power systems. Adoption is expected to grow 26 percent faster because of the law, which extends tax credits that had been set to expire by 2024 through 2035, says a report by Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association. 

Those credits will cover 30 percent of the cost of the system – and, for the first time, there's a 30 percent credit for batteries that can store newly-produced power for use when it's needed.

"The main thing the law does is give the industry, and consumers, assurance that the tax credits will be there today, tomorrow and for the next 10 years," said Warren Leon, executive director of the Clean Energy States Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of state government energy agencies. "Rooftop solar is still expensive enough to require some subsidies.''

California's solar energy net metering decision

Certainty has been the thing that's hard to come by in solar, where frequent policy changes make the market a "solar coaster," as one industry executive put it. Just as the expanded federal tax credits were taking effect, California on Dec. 15 kärpis veel ühe suure stiimuli võimaldades koduomanikel müüa oma süsteemides toodetud üleliigset päikeseenergiat atraktiivsete hindadega võrku tagasi, segades matemaatikat USA suurimas osariigis ja selle suurimas päikeseenergia turul – kuigi muudatused jõustuvad alles järgmise aasta aprillis.

Pange osariigi ja föderaalsed muudatused kokku ning Wood Mackenzie arvab, et California päikeseenergia turg kahaneb 2024. aastal järsult, isegi 39%. Enne inflatsiooni vähendamise seaduse stiimulite arvessevõtmist prognoosis konsultatsioonifirma California poliitikamuutusega 50% langust. Wood Mackenzie andmetel on elamute päikeseenergia tulemas ajaloolisest kvartalist, kus on paigaldatud 1.57 GW, mis on 43% rohkem kui aasta varem ja Californias veidi üle kolmandiku koguarvust.

Võimalike vahetajate jaoks võivad maksusoodustused kiiresti katta osa roheliseks muutumise algkuludest. Hurwitz võttis oma süsteemile föderaalse maksusoodustuse, kui ta selle 2020. aastal installis, ja valmistub aku lisamiseks nüüd, kuna ka sellega kaasnevad maksusoodustused. Mõned töövõtjad pakuvad tehinguid, kus nad katavad esialgsed kulud – ja nõuavad krediiti – vastutasuks süsteemi tagasirendimise lepingute eest. 

Combined with savings on power homeowners don't  buy from utilities, the tax credits can make rooftop solar systems pay for themselves within as little as five years – and save $25,000 or more, after recovering the initial investment, within two decades.  

"Will this growth have legs? Absolutely," said Veronica Zhang, portfolio manager of the Van Eck Environmental Sustainability Fund, a green fund not exclusively focused on solar. "With utility rates going up, it's a good time to move if you were thinking about it in the first place."

Kuidas arvutada paigalduskulusid ja tulusid

Siin on, kuidas numbrid töötavad.

Riigisiseselt on päikeseenergia maksumus 2022. aastal pärast maksusoodustust vahemikus 16,870 23,170–10 10 dollarit 12-kilovatise süsteemi puhul, mille suuruse kohta küsitakse kõige sagedamini pakkumisi Bostonis asuval päikesepaneelide ja päikesepaneelide hinnapakkumiste võrdlussaidil EnergySage. patareid. Enamik majapidamisi saab kasutada kuue või seitsme kilovatise süsteemi, ütles EnergySage'i pressiesindaja Nick Liberati. Ta lisas, et 13,000-XNUMX-kilovatine aku maksab umbes XNUMX XNUMX dollarit rohkem.

There's a significant variation in those numbers by region, and by the size and other factors specific to the house, EnergySage CEO Vikram Aggarwal said. In New Jersey, for example, a 7-kilowatt system costs on average $20,510 before the credit and $15,177 after it. In Houston, it's about $1,000 less. In Chicago, that system is close to $2,000 more than in New Jersey. A more robust 10-kilowatt system costs more than $31,000 before the credit around Chicago, but $26,500 in Tampa, Fla. All of these average prices are as quoted by EnergySage. 

The effectiveness of the system may also vary because of things specific to the house, including the placement of trees on or near the property, as we found out when we asked EnergySage's online bid-solicitation system to look at specific homes.

Ühe Chicago äärelinna maja pakkumised olid pärast föderaalkrediiti 19,096 30,676 dollarit ja XNUMX XNUMX dollarit.

Nende kulude tasaarvestus on elektrisääst ja riiklikud maksusoodustused, mis pakkumiste kohaselt katavad süsteemi maksumuse vaid 4.5 aastaga. Töövõtjad väitsid, et energia kokkuhoid ja riiklikud stiimulid võivad 27,625 aasta jooksul lisaks kapitalikuludele säästa veel 20 XNUMX dollarit.

Alternatively, consumers can finance the system but still own it themselves – we were quoted interest rates of 2.99 to 8.99 percent. That eliminates consumers' up-front cost, but cuts into the savings as some of the avoided utility costs go to pay off interest, Aggarwal said. 

Säästu maksimeerimise võti on teada oma osariigi konkreetseid eeskirju ja saada abi sageli keeruliste lepingute mõistmisel, ütles arst Hurwitz.

Energia salvestamine ja liigne võimsus

Some states have more generous subsidies than others, and more pro-consumer rules mandating that utilities pay higher prices for excess power that home solar systems create during peak production hours, or even extract from homeowners' batteries.

Californias kehtisid kuni selle nädalani kõige heldemad reeglid. Kuid riiklikud kommunaalteenuste regulaatorid nõustusid laskma kommunaalettevõtetel maksta palju vähem ülemäärase elektrienergia eest, mida nad peavad ostma, pärast seda, kui elektriettevõtted väitsid, et hinnad on liiga kõrged, ja tõstsid teiste klientide elektrihindu.

Wood Mackenzie said the details of California's decision made it look less onerous than the firm had expected. EnergySage says the payback period for California systems without a battery will be 10 years instead of six after the new rules take effect in April. Savings in the years afterward will be about 60 percent less, the company estimates. Systems with a battery, which pay for themselves after 10 years, will be little affected because their owners keep most of their excess power instead of selling it to the utility, according to EnergySage. 

"The new [California rules] certainly elongate current payback periods for solar and solar-plus-storage, but not by as much as the previous proposal," Wood Mackenzie said in the Dec. 16 report. "By 2024, the real impacts of the IRA will begin to come to fruition."

The more expensive power is from a local utility, the more sense home solar will make. And some contractors will back claims about power savings with agreements to pay part of your utility bill if the systems don't produce as much energy as promised. 

"You have to do your homework before you sign," Hurwitz said. "But energy costs always go up. That's another hidden incentive."

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the name of the Solar Energy Industries Association.