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this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2025
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I'm not sure that red tape is what killed it for me, to be honest.
Up until about 5 years ago, there were state and federal programs (IIRC mostly in the form of tax rebates) where I live such that panels and installation were essentially 50% off. In addition, the power company paid 1-to-1 for the excess energy. The folks who were lucky enough to be able to buy solar in those days were breaking even in the 5 to 7 year range and they get grandfathered in to the power company's 1-to-1 buy back basically forever from what I understand.
Now, there's only the federal incentives, the power company buyback is some ridiculously low amount that it makes you wonder why they bother at all, state incentives are gone, and the cost of panels + installation has sky rocketed. We looked into it several years ago, and with all the recent changes, it was going to take 15+ years for us to break even under fairly optimal conditions. A lot can happen in 15 years and we just weren't comfortable enough financially for it to make sense.
Yup, this was it for my wife and me too. We don’t use enough to make it worthwhile and I held out for next generation tech.
Well, with the tax rebates expiring, we’re getting them installed by end of year. It should take 9 years to break even, so not awful, and really it’s always sat just about there with our usage. But it’s insane that we aren’t funding this or chasing it harder. Having that much decentralized capacity, while surely difficult to plan for, adds priceless resilience.
Edited to add: added bonus, we’ll be less stingy with the AC in the summer! Only 108 today… this is fine.