Summary

After reading this site, you should have a better understanding of where to begin and what the overall process is like from start to finish.

After identifying my project budget, I also identified areas for further costs savings. Those areas where:

• Purchase cheaper solar panels - Less power output, but saves $95 per panel
• Ship to a commercial address rather than your home  - Saves $90
• Do not purchase the Ethernet Gateway - No real-time data, but saves $500

Taking into account all these savings, the project budget becomes $2,530. This reduces the time to break even to just over 11 years.

Finally, note that the calculations on this page assume the cost of electricity from the utility remains constant over time. However, we all know that the cost of energy tends to go up.  As prices go up, the time it takes to pay back your solar system gets shorter.