I have been aggregating traditional and alternative energy news stories for some months now on my website www.mountaininvestments.com and today is the first time that I have come across a news item that I thought was really valuable to all of the general public. Published on the sunpluggers.com site, the link is http://sunpluggers.com/stories/imby-site-offers-easy-way-to-estimate-your-solar-production-0498
It describes a new on line calculator, that will take your location and the size of your system and give you the cost and payback calculation for a solar or wind installation. I live in a very sunny locale, between snow storms, in Jackson, Wyoming. We are fortunate to have very cheap power here, about a nickel a kilowatt. Using my rooftop and eight cents a kilowatt, even with the current Federal tax credits, the payback on my 5 kilowatt system would be 52 years. Now, this isn't a surprise to me, really. Our power comes from very cheap hydro. But the cost of our power would have to rise to the really crazy level of $0.55/kw to get the payback down to 7 years. That price per kilowatt is what Hawaii was paying for diesel powered electricity in the summer of 2008.
It confirms to me that solar efficiency and cost per kilowatt installed is still not low enough to make sense in my community, but it may make sense in your circumstances. Here is the link for you to test your own location: http://mercator.nrel.gov/imby/
