I'm struggling to understand this comment. Even without getting into the more complicated models, I look at it from the perspective of NPV. Assumptions:
1) Marginal price of a kWh is $0.17 (typical for a lot of San Diego in low tier usage?), and increases with inflation.
2) Inflation = 2.5%
3) Marginal price of a panel is $770 (assume 275 W panel for $4.00 / W, less 30% rebate)
4) 275 W panel will produce 440 kWh annually out of the box, and decrease 0.5% / yr
With a discount rate of 8%, NPV is positive after 17 years.
With a discount rate of 6%, NPV is positive after 14 years.
Let's say the house is sold after 5 years... with a 6% discount rate, a 10 panel system would need to add about $6500 to the sale price of the house to break even. Is that unreasonable, on homes that typically sell for $400k or more?
Granted, if the system is not purchased outright, and instead financed, leased, etc, the payback numbers fall off a cliff. Is that why you think 95% of the population should not be interested if they are looking at it clearly? Are there costs or assumptions that I'm missing?
1) Marginal price of a kWh is $0.17 (typical for a lot of San Diego in low tier usage?), and increases with inflation.
2) Inflation = 2.5%
3) Marginal price of a panel is $770 (assume 275 W panel for $4.00 / W, less 30% rebate)
4) 275 W panel will produce 440 kWh annually out of the box, and decrease 0.5% / yr
With a discount rate of 8%, NPV is positive after 17 years.
With a discount rate of 6%, NPV is positive after 14 years.
Let's say the house is sold after 5 years... with a 6% discount rate, a 10 panel system would need to add about $6500 to the sale price of the house to break even. Is that unreasonable, on homes that typically sell for $400k or more?
Granted, if the system is not purchased outright, and instead financed, leased, etc, the payback numbers fall off a cliff. Is that why you think 95% of the population should not be interested if they are looking at it clearly? Are there costs or assumptions that I'm missing?
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