Nooclear, uh, Soooolar Power!

Since I can’t have a small modular (nuclear) reactor in my back yard (yet . . .) we’ve decided to settle for solar power.

QUESTION: Would I really want a small modular reactor in my backyard?

ANSWER: If I had the acreage, I’d do it.

Here’s our courageous story:

A few months ago, we had a salesman from Utah-based Blue Raven solar stop by the house (we also had a salesman from CenturyLink stop by as well; we ended up saying yes to both, so it was a good month for sales people to stop at our house). And lest ye think we were easily influenced by a slick salesman, we’ve been kicking around the idea of installing solar power since we moved to Ammon about six years ago. So we were eager to listen to what these folks had to say.

By the numbers, what they said made a lot of sense.

On average, we’re paying about $84 a month for electricity from Rocky Mountain Power. Now, it’s easy to hate your electric utility, seeing as there’s no competition among them. We fought back against high electricity bills when we moved into this house by ditching the electric water heater and the in-wall electric heat for gas appliances as soon as we could. (One of the benefits of converting an all-electric home to natural gas is that the outside walls are six inches thick, rather than four, so there’s that added insulation.)

As we put pencil to paper, we saw that, short-term, we’ll pay $90 a month for the solar power installation, plus the regular monthly fees – about $25 – to Rocky Mountain to remain connected to the grid. That seems expensive. But we’re hoping that our 4.72 kwh system will generate enough electricity, particularly as we engage other cost-saving measures such as shutting off unused computers and converting over more to LED bulbs, to help offset the increased cost as we sell electricity back to the utility. As it is, with optimum generation, we ought to be capable of producing 102% of our electrical needs. We’ll see what happens.

Then there’s the benefit of the federal tax credit – a whopping 30% -- for residential solar installations. For our system, that amounts to about $6,000, likely spread over two tax years. Our loan is structured that we have to put that money back into the system, or our payments go from $90 a month to $130, so it’s a good incentive to kick that money back into the loan, which is what we’d do anyway.

Blue Raven will also make our first eighteen payments of $90 a month, so if we also pay $90 a month, we’ll see that loan amount nearly halved in the first year.

While the numbers helped, two other factors helped us clinch the deal. First, a good friend of ours in Sugar City is also installing solar through Blue Raven, and he agreed with us that the numbers looked good. We also have a good friend in the neighborhood who had Blue Raven do solar on their roof almost a year ago, and they’ve been pleased with the results so far.

We’re about three-quarters of the way through the process – we still have to have Rocky Mountain come put in a new meter before we can turn the system on (and thanks to a hailstorm that damaged the roof, the panels will have to come down for a day as we get the roof repaired). We’re optimistic, however, that everything will be running by June.

I’m anxious to see what our performance will be like, particularly as we head into another air-conditioned summer. I’m planning on doing some economies with the AC this summer, as for about six weeks I’ll be the only one home as everyone else heads off to scout camp. I’ll put the temperature at 72 rather than the 68 most want it at, and we’ll see how it goes. That does make the top floor of the house a bit warm on the warmest nights, but I’ll just sleep in the basement with the dogs and turn the AC lower on the weekends when everyone’s home. (Although to sleep even better, I should put the dogs elsewhere as they generate a LOT of heat when they sleep.)

I’m also going to do some insulation – when we remodeled the laundry room last year, we discovered the roof above it had not been insulated, nor the roof above the adjacent bathroom. So I’ll be at work tossing some insulation up there in the hopes that’ll help cool things down/warm them up in that part of the house. I’m also working on insulating the garage. Though it’s not heated, having that additional insulated space next to the house should help a little.