Solar 101: Benefits of Solar
Making the switch to powering your home with solar energy has many benefits. These benefits are coincidentally a lot of the reasons why someone decides to go solar; such as, saving money or reducing your carbon footprint. Going solar has financial, environmental, and social economic benefits!
Reduce or Eliminate Your Electric Bills
If you don’t have a lot of cash in hand, don’t worry! Solar loans make solar achievable by letting you pay less than your electric payment every month. Once you have paid off your solar loan, you can enjoy the free and clean energy for decades to come. Also, with all the federal and state incentives in place, you can save even more by going solar now!
Smart Investment
The Northeast is one of the most expensive regions in the United States when it comes to the average residential retail price of electricity. You also need to consider the gradually increasing electricity rates, the aging and outdated grid system that will need to be updated/replaced, and the scarcity of the fossil fuels that will make all non-renewable energy very costly. Therefore, going solar is a sensible type of investment.
Protect Against Rising Energy Costs
Relying on the traditional form of energy means that your electric payments are prone to unexpected price spikes since they are tied to the ever-shifting global energy market and domestic policy changes. However, solar systems harness a consistent and reliable source of energy that lessens or can even eliminate your dependence on big utility companies. Therefore, freeing you from the whims of electricity pricing.
Increase Property Value
Market research has found that homes equipped with customer-owned solar sell faster than homes without solar. Each watt of solar adds around $3 to a home’s resale value, which means if you have invested in a 7kW system you can potentially price your house with a $21,000* tax-free equity increase. To learn more about how solar increases the value of your home, check out our recent blog post about it!
* “Selling into the sun: Price premium analysis of a multi-state dataset of solar homes,” Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Environmental Benefits
Infinite Supply
Unlike traditional energy sources that rely heavily on a finite supply of fossil fuels, the amount of solar energy that hits the earth each hour is enough to provide the energy needs of earth’s entire population for a full year! Needless to say, there is more than enough to power your home or business with it.
Readily Available Resources
While the excavation, transportation, and processing of fossil fuels require extensive capital, solar systems are scalable products that require one-time installation with minimal maintenance. Solar energy is captured where it is used. This means it can be harnessed anywhere a solar panel can be mounted.
Reduce Carbon Footprint
The generation of solar power has minimal impact on the environment as it does not produce CO2, water pollution, or greenhouse gases. A Northeastern home with a 7.5 kW system can offset almost 10,000 lb of CO2 per year, which is the equivalent to saving 50 trees or off setting 11,000 car miles driven.
Social Economic Benefits
Create Jobs & Boost Local Economy
The argument that transitioning to renewable energy will cost jobs simply isn’t true. In 2016, 1 out of 50 new jobs created in the U.S. was a solar-related job and the solar industry contributed $84 billion to the GDP according to The Solar Foundation. The solar industry now employs over 260,000 Americans, creating jobs about 12 times faster than the rest of the economy.
Making the decision to go solar has many benefits for not only you and your home but your community as well. Do you have more questions about solar? You can contact us here to request a free quote
and see how much you can start saving!
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Utility costs are on the rise and there’s no sign of them slowing down. Consumers are feeling the pressure of constantly climbing electricity rates. As inflation continues to affect nearly every industry and energy demand increases, utility companies are charging more, which means your bills are getting higher. In fact, many experts agree that utility prices will only continue to increase, making it harder for households and businesses to keep their budgets under control. NYSERDA provides detailed information on historical energy rates throughout New York State for example. These patterns follow the same trends nationwide.
Backup Power During Outages