Yesterday, was my first full day of green watching.
When I asked hubby Prad, whether I should include the energy to filter water in our pool, his thought was no. Our house has solar, and we are energy neutral. I say, that’s cheating. The whole point of “green_watch” is to see how energy reliant my life is throughout the day. That we were able to afford solar is besides the point.
For all the publicity surrounding solar, here are some sobering statistics from TriplePundit– as of 2007 :
Photovoltaic cells, most of which are made from silicon, have exploded in use around the country over the past five years as once-prohibitive costs for home use of the technology have declined. Between 2002 and 2006, the number of new photovoltaic systems installed in U.S. homes nearly tripled to 7,446 from 2,805, according to the Interstate Renewable Energy Council in Latham, N.Y. Industry officials say that such installations are expected to top 11,000 this year.
To put this in perspective the United States has about 70 million single family detached housing units. The yearly installation rate would have to go up by a factor of over 6000 to reach 1% of the existing single family home housing units per year (more for attached townhouses, apartment buildings, and other housing structures).
This is why energy efficiency and conservation, the two low hanging fruit in energy reduction, need to become both personal and national priorities. This starts with monitoring, of the kind performed here, with “green watching”.
La Marguerite 
I totally agree with you, whether solar becomes affordable for the masses or not. Conservation and care for the material world are values that extend beyond worries about global warming.
Really cool that you kept track of all your energy use for a day! You’ve inspired me to do the same. So much of this battle is just awareness because most people don’t think twice about turning on a light or plugging in their laptop. It’s frustrating that even those who can and do install solar don’t do any kind of energy audit or take energy efficiency measures before getting a system.
Sydney
http://www.sunrunhome.com
Thanks Beth. Value change will take some time. Meanwhile, pocketbook considerations from economic crisis, will hopefully force needed restraint on the part of citizens.
Sydney, glad you were inspired! 🙂
The problem with energy audit and energy efficiency is, just like biodiversity and many other critical environmental concepts, those are terms, that are not sexy enough to engage citizens. The clean tech and energy efficiency industry could use some better consumer marketing. So far, it has been run by engineers, and there lies the problem.
Solar is *not* a privilege of the rich. It is well within reach for average middle-age, middle-class families who have a good retirement savings plan.
Depending on the subsidies of the state you live in and the amount of electricity you need to generate, a solar system would probably cost you somewhere between $20 and $50 thousand. Now consider that standard financial advice is to invest about 1/3 of your savings in fixed-income securities (bonds, CDs, etc), and 2/3 in stocks. A solar system is very much like owning fixed-income securities, in that you are going to get a steady, regular payback for what you invest. (True, you’ll get less income on cloudy days, but over time, the payback is very predictable.) So on the basis of standard financial advice, it would be reasonable for a family with total savings of $60 to $150 thousand to consider a solar system as an alternative to the fixed-income portion of their savings – provided that the return was at least as good as standard fixed-income securities. And it is: a (warranted) solar system just sits on your roof and cranks out electricity, day after day, without any moving parts. It’s about as dependable as US Treasury bonds.
Now, $60 to $150 thousand in savings is NOT the mark of a “rich” family. (Think of those commercials with people carrying around 7-figure “nest eggs” under their arm.) It is not the kind of money that newly-married 20-somethings might have at their disposal, but it is a *very* reasonable amount to expect a middle-aged middle-class couple to have saved, especially if they do not want to be living on Social Security and eating dog food in retirement.
In my particular case, my wife and I paid about $25,000 (in CA) for a solar system that is saving us about $2500/year by paying over 90% of our electrical bills. Estimating a 30-year life for the system, I calculate the investment to be generating a return of between 6 and 7% annually, which is *much better* than standard fixed-income securities of comparable risk. (To know exactly how I arrived at this figure, you’ll need to look at a standard Finance 101 textbook, but it’s easy to see that the initial investment will be returned in about 10 years, and then we’ll have essentially free electricity for 20 years.) And of course, our solar system has an advantage that no conventional bond or CD could ever match: the utility company is asking for a 12% rate increase next year, but even if they get it, our electrical bill will *still* be essentially covered.
So I would suggest that believers in solar set aside whatever negative attitudes they might have about “rich people” and just look at the cold, hard financial facts. No, you can’t have solar on a shoestring, but it’s well within range of an average middle-class family.
Craigkl- Something does not add up. Assume you have 5.5 hours of sunshine per day in a sunny part of CA, and a $17,000 rebate on your solar PV system, that comes to a solar PV system cost of $42,000. At $8/Watt installed, that is about a 5 kW peak solar PV system. It will generate about 25 kWhr per day of AC power. Assuming an overpriced electric rate of 17 cents/kWhr, that is $4.25 per day of avoided electric costs, or $1550 per year. Based on $25,000 out of pocket costs, zero maintenance costs, zero efficiency loss over time in the panels, and zero cost of money, you recoup your investment in 16 years. After that, you receive electricity for *free*, apart from maintenance costs. If you are in a sunny climate with lots of UV and high temperatures, then the panels will need replacing in 25 years,and their efficiency will be lower than the manufacturer’s nameplate.
I do this calculation in sunny Florida every 6 months, and it is a big money loser still. My electric bill of $200/month will go to $600/month of loan payments over 20 years with a solar PV system that replaces 90% of my electricity use.
hmm. i think once solar becomes as cheap as fossil fuels – which won’t be long now – i think it’ll be affordable for the masses. The tipping point will be 99c per watt