$4/watt for a complete system is a little high. I see whole sale advertises systems down to about $1.80/watt but at that point you're getting into a 11,750 watt system which should produce double what I currently need. and I hope to cut my usage in half.
Right now reduction is a better goal for me then producing power. We're a tiered system and at roughly 500-500 kwh/month the rate jumps. lowest tier is 6.4 cents/kwh. next tier is just shy of 10 cents/kwh Every little bit above that line really hurts. So far every single price increase has come to the second tier. It's climbed by almost 2 cents/kwh in the last 3 years and more increases are already scheduled.
I've previously done the measurements on hotwater usage and I'm currently tracking electric usage daily. I average about 9kwh/day in hotwater use. Now that the sun is out and I'm no longer heating the house I average 19 kwh/day of power used. So since it's sunny anyways, I can easily knock 9 kwh/day off of my usage. That will reduce my bills to about 300 kwh a month easily keeping me away from that upper tier.
|