Solar Home Panels Can Reduce Your Power Bill and Increase the Value of Your Home

[Solar Systems Philippines]

Solar Home Panels Can Reduce Your Power Bill and Increase the Value of
Your Home
By Howard Parker

One of the more interesting ways to add value to your house whilst at
the same time reducing your power bill is by adding solar home panels
to your house. With the housing market in the doldrums, and the
specter of rising energy prices from various sources coming into play,
most home owners are more and more likely to consider home solar
electricity as a way forward.

There are a number of benefits to using home solar electricity and a
lot of questions to consider when installing solar home panels.

The first thing to consider is installation costs - are you going to
buy the solar home panels, get them installed, and have an electrician
run the wiring? Or have you considered a DIY home solar electricity
project? Also, while solar home panels are the most obvious addition
in a home solar electricity installation, they're not the only part
that needs consideration. You will also need a DC to AC converter, and
you'll want a battery bank to store the electricity for use later.

The next thing to consider is whether or not there's a tax incentive
program for home solar electricity in your area; a lot of
municipalities have them, and there's word that there may be increased
federal tax incentives for home use of solar energy and wind energy
resources in future budgets. The reason why these tax incentives are
important is because of the cost-benefit ratio of installation.

Calculating the cost benefit ratio of a home solar electricity
installation boils down to working out how much electricity you use,
how much you'll generate once your solar home panels are installed and
in use, figuring out how much money the difference will save each
month, and then dividing your installation cost by that number (your
annual maintenance costs should be deducted from the sum of a year's
worth of savings as well). So obviously, any tax credit will reduce
this return on investment time as it will bring down the initial
investment cost.

One of the older metrics for comparing solar home panels to their
installation cost was to assume that you'd sell the house at some
point during the 'buy-in' period; depending on the state of the
housing market, that may or may not be a valid assumption, but a home
solar electricity installation will always attract buyers and increase
the value of your house. However, making and/or installing the solar
home panels yourself will obviously reduce this 'buy-in' period - it's
surprising how economically you can build your own home solar
electricity installation.

One should also avoid getting 'locked into' the idea that sunlight has
to be stored as electricity in batteries; you can get a lot of benefit
from solar home panels on a smaller scale, even if all they do is
power attic fans and circulate hot air out of your house in the heat
of the day. These can provide significant savings over the course of
the summer, and can pay for themselves faster than a full-on home
solar electricity system. This would be a good start if you decide to
build up your system in stages.

You also need to look at how much power you actually use. Installing
solar home panels is a good thing to include as part of an overall
conservation program, where the house is switched over to more energy
efficient appliances. (If your refrigerator is more than ten years
old, for example, odds are that a modern replacement will use 25% less
energy, for instance). Even switching to lower power bulbs, like going
from incandescent to compact fluorescents, can make help reduce your
total home power budget.

In some counties and areas, if you generate more electricity than
you're using, the utility company is obligated to use net metering, or
relative buyback metering. In places where this holds, you can often
times get a home solar electricity installation run to pay for itself
in less time - and you get to see how much electricity you sold back
to the electric company. (Sometimes, they'll even send you a check for
the difference, or just apply it as a credit against future bills.)
However, one unspoken advantage of this type of system is that it
reduces the amount of material outlay you have to buy. You no longer
have to buy a battery array if your excess power is fed back into the
grid and you get a credit. While the battery array is the least
expensive part of the solar home panels setup, it's also the part that
needs direct maintenance and replacement the most often, so this can
make a difference in your overall savings.

There are also some geographical and landscaping considerations for a
home solar electricity installation. A solar home panels setup needs
some space that faces to the southern horizon to be effective, and the
amount of ambient sunlight may make a difference to payback
timeframes.

To conclude, you will need to take into account all of your own
particular circumstances when considering a solar home panels project
for your own home - power usage, situation, location, for example, and
obviously cost. One thing is for sure - you will find the cost of a
DIY home solar electricity installation extremely advantageous and
it's really not as complicated or as expensive as you may think. If
you want to realize your return on investment quickly, making and
installing you own solar home panels is definitely the way to go.

We offer more detailed articles and guides about solar home panels and
other information about home solar electricity on our website at
http://homepowergeneration.net

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Howard_Parker

For inquiries or questions about solar home systems, please call
Ailleen or Jelyn at 254-1358 or 262-0126 or text 09159397454,
09335201230, 09496812951 or visit www.solarsystemsphilippines.com