Will Having Solar Panels Installed Really Save You Money?
Many people do not realize how quickly solar panels are becoming commonplace. Before too long, it may be weirder not to have solar panels than to have them. That time may still seem a long way away, but by 2018, the United States already had enough solar power to provide for the needs of more than 12 million American households!
Having solar panels installed provides personal as well as public benefits. If the government does not invest in solar power for the sake of society and the environment, private homeowners may do so to decrease their own energy costs.
This is becoming a more attractive option as concerns about energy availability continue to rise. Many people have predicted for a long time that solar power will eventually provide enough energy for everybody. With increasing difficulties around traditional energy sources, that time may come sooner than people think.
Of course, solar panels continue to get better. Even if future solar panels can provide for everyone, what can current solar panels do? Can they really save you on energy costs each month?
COMPARE SOLAR QUOTESRead on to learn about the most important things to understand about how solar panel installation can save you money!
How Can Solar Panel Installation Save Money?
Many people do not appreciate how much energy the Sun provides. The sun blasts energy in every direction at the same time.
Only the tiniest fraction of that energy reaches earth. The rest of it hits the other planets or flies off into space. However, even the tiny fraction of the sun’s energy that lands on Earth is enormous by human standards.
In fact, enough sunlight energy falls on our planet every day to provide for the energy needs of the entire planet for a whole year! The more you appreciate that fact, the more you can also appreciate why so many people think that solar panels will eventually be the main way that humanity gets the energy that it needs.
With such an incredible wealth of energy all around us, all we are waiting for is for technology to advance enough to capture that energy so that we can use it.
Modern solar panels are becoming more efficient all the time. These days, they can capture somewhere between 15% and 20% of the energy of the Sun that falls on them. But how much does that contribute to lower energy costs?
How Much Money Can Installing Solar Panels Save?
There are a couple of different ways to consider how much solar panel installation can save you. Solar panels might save you between $10,000 and $30,000 over the course of your lifetime. Those numbers make it clear that solar panel installation more than pays for itself, even in the worst-case scenario.
The other way to understand how much solar panels can lower your energy bills is to look at monthly energy production. Depending on your situation, solar panels might save you one or several hundred dollars in energy savings every month.
When you combine that with all of the deals that make solar panel installation more affordable, you can see why so many people are turning to solar panels to make it easier to pay their bills every month. We’ll discuss those deals further later on.
The Possibility of Increased Benefits of Solar Panels
Of course, these numbers tend to reflect how well solar panels have performed in the past. There are several signs that solar panels may be even more useful for homeowners than they have been in recent years. Let’s consider just three reasons that investing in solar panel installation might be worth more now than it has been in the past.
Loss of Access to Traditional Energy
First, we have the problem of international wars that affect energy availability. Traditional sources of energy are becoming more scarce. As a result, energy prices are going up higher and higher.
In 2022, the United States has experienced gas prices higher than anything seen in decades. As traditional energy prices get higher and higher, every additional unit of energy produced by your solar panels becomes more valuable.
When you get energy from your solar panels, you decrease how much energy your home automatically buys from the power grid. This may be even more valuable as people start to want to consume more energy. But why would that happen?
Increasing Energy Consumption
The summer of 2022 is breaking heat records all around the world. More and more people are turning to their air conditioners to stay comfortable at home. That puts more and more demand on the electrical system exactly when we have the lowest access to traditional energy sources in a long time.
This raises prices for everybody, leading many people to turn off their air conditioners and suffer through the heat. The seriousness of the situation becomes clearer when you realize that the heat is so bad that people are dying of it around the world.
If summers continue to get hotter, energy demand will go up, leading to permanently higher energy prices.
Increasing Inflation
The second reason that solar panels may be worth more now than in past years is the inflation crisis. Economists are still debating what combination of causes is responsible for recent inflation. However, there is no getting around that the economy is struggling.
When that happens, people have to pay more and more for the same quantity of energy. When you stack prices increasing due to inflation with prices increasing due to energy shortages with prices increasing due to increasing demand, you realize the magnitude of the problem.
However, you can avoid all of that by acquiring your own source of energy. When everyone else is paying higher prices to run their air conditioners, you can run yours using energy that you produce at home.
While everyone else is increasing demand for public power, you can decrease demand. Some people think that if they are getting energy from their solar panels while everyone else is struggling to pay higher prices for their energy, they must be somehow shifting a burden to other people. However, the happy truth is that using solar power at home has the exact opposite effect.
Every unit of energy you do not need to buy from public power sources decreases total demand. That helps keep prices lower for everyone else.
Other Savings Advantages of Solar Panels
All of this means that generating solar power at home can save you higher and higher amounts of money as energy prices go up. However, solar panel installation can do even more than that.
There may be days when you do not happen to use all of the solar power that your panels generate. So where does the energy go when that happens?
Incredibly, the extra solar power you generate at home can be fed back to the energy grid. Once it is there, your neighbors and other people can use it.
By providing extra energy for everybody, you can help further lower the demand for scarce energy sources. This is yet another way that solar panel installation can help other people by fighting back against rising energy prices.
Of course, you are not generating this extra energy for free. Not only can you help your neighbors by providing extra power, but you can earn money while you do so. This becomes even more beneficial if you take a trip away from home.
You may be gone from your house, but your solar panels will still continue to produce as much energy as ever. That means that all the energy they produce will be sold to the power grid. That puts money in your pocket and makes it that much easier to decide to take a vacation away from home.
Do the Best Solar Panels Require Expensive Maintenance?
Some people are amazed by the performance of solar panels but imagine that they must be sensitive devices that require expensive maintenance. Anyone who has handled solar panels personally knows that the opposite is true.
Solar panels are robust and can function in almost any environment. They are resistant to damage and require next to no maintenance at all. In fact, if you do nothing to maintain your solar panels, they will continue to work well for years and even decades.
Of course, even if your solar panels are functioning, they may not provide you with much power if debris is blocking sunlight from reaching them. For that reason, getting the most out of your solar panels requires putting in a little simple maintenance every once in a while. In most cases, this is as simple as making sure that nothing is covering your solar panels.
In some cases, you may need to do a little extra to get the most out of your solar panels. If there is a branch providing shade to the top of your home, it may keep your solar panels from operating with as much efficiency as they can. Even if there is no such branch when you install them, one may grow over the years.
When that happens, it can be necessary to remove the offending branch so that sunlight can reach your solar panels again. Other than that, solar panels do not require any regular maintenance.
COMPARE SOLAR QUOTESDo Solar Panels Provide Any Other Benefits?
We have already talked a little about how solar panels do more than benefit the homeowner. They can also benefit society. They provide energy for other people while also decreasing our consumption of non-renewable resources.
Once we use up our non-renewable resources, we will never get them back. Solar panels can help us keep a store of non-renewable energy sources for as long as possible.
On top of that, solar panels are beneficial for the environment. Solar panel energy production does not produce carbon dioxide or any other greenhouse gases. As a result, investing in solar panels is a great way to lower energy expenses while decreasing your contribution to the greenhouse effect at the same time.
However, because solar panels provide all of these public benefits, there may be special deals available for solar panel installation. Solar panel companies often work together with the government to provide solar panel installation at a discounted price.
Many people invest in solar panels to lower their tax liability as well as their energy bills. In fact, more and more rebates and other incentives are coming online to encourage people to invest in solar technology.
It is one thing for solar panels to pay for themselves by lowering your energy costs. It is another for them to do so years ahead of schedule because you received other financial benefits for your purchase.
How Can I Save as Much Money as Possible With Solar Panels?
Solar panels save people more or less money depending on where they live. They are an especially good investment for people who live in places with tons of sun. They’re also a better investment for people who consume more energy since solar panel installation can help such people lower their energy costs more.
Many people do not realize that air conditioning consumes huge quantities of energy. It can even be responsible for half of the total energy consumption of a household in warmer climates. That means that solar panel installation is an even better investment for people who live in hot places that require more frequent use of air conditioning.
Understand the Savings Benefits of Having Solar Panels Installed
The more you know about the benefits of having solar panels installed, the more you might appreciate why they are becoming more and more popular. Many people are attracted to solar panels because of the personal benefits they provide through cost savings. Many other people appreciate that fact along with the benefits that solar panels can have for society and the environment.
To learn more about how solar panels can save you money or to speak with solar panel experts, reach out and get in touch with us here!
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