If this was sold back to the grids what would be the profit i would stand to make per day on energy received in these panels?
How did you come up with this answer?
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Considering capital outlays, such a system might never recover its initial investment. That’s why we don’t see such small photovoltaic plants popping up around the country – the economic case isn’t there. One of the problems is that you would have to sell your electricity wholesale, at a ridiculously low price like 2 cents / kWh.
If you were displacing electricity that you would otherwise use, then the financial case is different. Retail electricity could be 20 cents / kWh, 10 times as much, and you could get your money back over time, and start to make a profit.
I’ve assumed you’re in the US, with no special feed-in tarrifs. If you’re in a country with a premium rate for solar-generated electricity, the business case could be very different.
This question is too generalized to answer. Are you australia? If so ergon buys the power back at 45cents a KWH which is 3 times what they sell it for.(this is guaranteed for 20years) We have a 2.4kw system and it will take approx 15years to pay itself off. Once carbon trading is in full swing electricity costs are going to go up by 40%, then obviously it will take approx half the time.
I’m putting in a $ 100,000 solar wind project on ST Thomas, Virgin Islands so I have some experience here…..
1) depends on where you are…the further north the less efficient the panels are because early morning and late afternoon sun hitting at a great angle isn’t anywhere near as good as noon hitting perpendicular……….the US Department of Energy has a “solar calculator” showing how many hours a day over the year you get enough sunlight to actually run the panels….in the Caribbean the answer is 6 so in Wisconsin you might only get 4 really usable hours a day, Nevada 5, Seattle…forget about it…..
2) the panels I’m putting in are ( roughly) 2 x 3 feet…you would need access around all four sides of a panel…you are NOT going to crawl 35 feet across an array to fix a unit in the middle……so lets say you get 35 panels tall ( 70/2) by 12 wide (3 foot with a 3 foot access area between each row = 72/6) or 420 panels. Each puts out 175 watts at max. So you are cranking out 73,500 watt hours, or 73kW.
If your local utility buys back ( “net metering” ) the juice at, say, 20 cents a kWh, you get $ 14.75 an hour. If you have 4 usable hours a day x 365 x $ 14.74 you get back something like $ 20,000 a year.
You pay about $ 7.00 a watt for a panel. The 175 watt panels are, rounding up, $ 1200. each. Times the 420 panels number is $ 475,000 dollars. Add in about $ 12,000 for the inverter to change panel volts to power company volts, and maybe another $ 20,000 for installation you are looking at $ 500,000 AT LEAST to put in the system you propose.
AT $ 20,000 a year in sales, its 20-25 years payback.
Now, you can play with these numbers up and down but you still get the answer of A LOT of money to buy and build and a LONG time till payback.