Trace Sell back/ Payback Rant [RE-wrenches]

[Travis Creswell, Ozark Solar]

Jason,

No incentives other than the Federal Tax Credit available to business's. 
It's 25% tax credit then follows with a accelerated depreciation schedule.

My rough analysis is pretty ugly.

Sun Tie 2500 + 20 Astro Powers 120's.  Assuming I don't charge retail but
still make some money I would need to charge something like 15k for this
system before labor and racks etc.  Around here I'd better use 6¢ per kWh
for a business.  Assuming a annual avg. daily sun hours of 5 for a fixed
array (probably a little high) this array might produce 4380 kWh's per year.
 $15,000/$262.80 = 57 years.

I'm afraid to even look at battery system comparison.

As others have mentioned the battery back up feature is pretty important to
most folks and in many cases should be the key reason to purchase such a
system.  It probably doubles the payback period but it's already pretty
long.  Maybe its like people paying 5 times more for a Honda mower without
doing the math that they could buy 3 Murray's that would probably last an
awful lot longer than one Honda.  Those same people are very proud of the
Honda lawn mower and they get to an awful lot of satisfaction when they look
over at the neighbor cussing his dead Murray.

Travis Creswell
----------
>From: "Jason Fisher, Aurora Energy" <aurora at toad.net>
>To: RE-wrenches at topica.com
>Subject: RE: Trace Sell back/ Payback Rant [RE-wrenches]
>Date: Tue, Jul 11, 2000, 9:49 PM
>

>Wow, a 10-15 year payback sounds pretty good.  What are your incentives and
>utility rates out there?  I feel optimistic in my area if I can show a
>payback period within a thirty year system life.  At 10-15 years, it should
>be obvious that for economics alone, they should choose PV!  Of course, I
>can already show someone how a DHW solar thermal system can pay for itself
>in under ten years yet that doesn't mean they'll buy it

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