We recently invested in a 51 panel Panasonic solar powered system for our home in Kennebunkport and installed by the team at Assured Solar. This is my personal residence and after living in the home for 2 years and primarily heating and cooling with electric heat pumps, we decided to invest in solar panels to get very close to a ZERO Energy Home in Southern Maine.
We are now producing 90-95% of our own power and need around 20,000 kWh per year to heat, cool, and overall every day power useage for our 3,700 sq ft home. This solar setup will produce around 17,000 to 18,000 kWh per year getting us to 90-95% free of CMP power, oil, and propane usage.
This solar panel system is projected to save us nearly $97,000 in power costs over 30 years, produce a 17% ROI per year, and the carbon emissions saved is the equivalent of driving 512,000 miles LESS per year! We will also be receiving around a $13,000 tax rebate for installing this system. This is very much worth doing.
The #1 key though is if you are considering going solar, you have to be living in a very tight high performance house to make solar really work, or be willing to update the energy efficiency of your existing house.
Also, installing electric heat pumps for your primary heating and cooling needs as well as a hybrid electric heat pump hot water heater, combined with solar, will allow you to essentially produce your own “fuel” for heating and hot water making solar one of the best investments you can make in your home today.
The team at Built By Adams would love to help you build a new high performance home combined with solar power to get you as close to ZERO Energy as possible.
