A year of Solar Power and some very accurate early estimates….

Well, it’s been just over a year since I had the solar panels turned on, and I’ve learned one important lesson:

1. Either Bella Energy did a perfect job of estimating my energy usage for the entire year, and sold me the exact right number of solar panels needed to generate that exact amount of energy I’d use, or
2. Wholesale energy is very, very cheap? 🙂

Xcel Rebate

The reason I know this? Here’s the rebate check for the entire year of 2009, in which I sold energy back to XcelEnergy. A whopping $6.15. Now granted, when I started last year, my “net meter” started at “zero” and was running at below zero for the whole year, and I’m at about -100 now, but I was stunned at how close to “zero” usage I ended up.

I’m not complaining… Having monthly electric bills of $7.00 (just for the connection to the grid), and this rebate means my “out of pocket” for the entire year was roughly $75 bucks was absolutely worth it. At the current rate, the whole system should pay for itself in about 7 or 8 years. And that’s if Xcel doesn’t raise the rates for electricity.

All in all, I’m very happy I did this… 🙂