The Numbers: Solar Energy Savings

   Posted By:    Amanda Gillen

One of our customers, Bruce Pollard of Sicklerville, NJ, sent us a great email which laid out his costs and savings when installing a 4.5 kW solar electric system with groSolar. Here are the numbers:

It was just a little over a year ago that groSolar finished the installation of the 4.5kw Solar Project on our house. I thought it would be a good time to do some evaluations and see what my true saving was.

Let me lay some background. I had electric hot water heater, clothes dryer, stove, microwave, light and other normal stuff. We were using oil hot air heat but after the energy audit decided to switch to a Heat Pump with and electric back up system. Our oil cost was $3400 a year and our electric was $3168 a year. This totaled $6568.

During this past year our electric bill was $1975. Considering this was one of the coldest winters and this summer was on of the hottest we were still able to save $4593.

The cost of the heat pump was about $10,000 with the state of New Jersey giving us 50% back within 90 days of install. The savings basically paid for the cost of the heat pump in one year.

On the Solar side we spent about $39,000 with the stage grant paying $7,980. We have received over $6,000 in Federal tax credits this year and expect to get the remaining $6000 next year. We have also received the first 2 payments totaling $2,000 from selling our SREC. So we are down to $17,020. With $2,500 a year from SREC sales a for the next 4 years we are down to $7,020. With energy savings over those same 4 years of about $4,000 a year we should be ahead of the game by about $8,980.

Thank you for your assistance in getting all the details worked out. It was a pleasure working with you and groSolar.



Thanks for letting us share your numbers Bruce!





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