Solar

I picked up a brochure from Ace Hardware on Saturday about installing solar power. We have a pretty ideal roof situation - south facing and unshaded. However, the brochure had a worksheet where you could pencil out the cost savings considering your current energy usage. According to our PG&E bills, we are using perhaps 7000 kWh of electricity per year, which works out to barely above the Ace example's "baseline" estimate for a home and considerably below their "low" estimate. Apparently the average home uses in the neighborhood of 10,000-11,000 per year. Of course, we have gas heat, a gas hot water heater, and a gas stove. And we don't watch all that much TV. Anyway, given the fact that our usage is on the low side, the system would not pay for itself apparently for about 3o years. That's based on a 2.5 kilowatt system.

Bummer that it is so expensive ($12,000-15,000 for the system above, and that's after factoring in several thousand in state and federal subsidies).