Back in August I applied for the DC Renewable Energy Incentive Program and was approved. I chose Clean Currents as my installation partner and they helped me apply for the program as well as design my entire system. The DC incentive program offered me $11,064 for a 4 KW photovoltaic solar system which covered nearly half of the cost. The federal tax credit will provide me with $7,838 or 30% of the total cost of the system. Another benefit of investing in a solar electric system is the right to sell my 4 Solar Renewable Energy Credits. You can choose the to sell your credits over time and in the end get more money back on your investment, but I decided to sell my credits upfront and lower my intial investment to $1,500. That’s right with the DC and Federal funds plus the approximate $6,800 from PEPCO for my credits I only had to spend $1,500 of my own money.
Now let’s take a quick look at how much energy I will be producing annually versus how much I use and see how long it will take me to pay off the $1,500 investment. My 4KW system should produce approximately 4,888Kwh/yr while my usage is on average 5,400Kwh/yr. That means that nearly 90% of my energy consumption annual will be covered by my solar system. After looking at my PEPCO bills over the past two years I annually spend between $900-$1,000 which means I should be spending $90-$100 per year going forward. So in 2 years I will have saved more than my initial investment. Why doesn’t everyone do this? Well I will say I was lucky. DC offeres a unique program and I was the last approved candidate for 2010 (literally got my application in on the last day) and it’s unclear if the program would continue or at leats continue with so much funding.
