As you spend each dollar in life, you want to know that you are deriving some level of value in return. Whether it’s buying groceries, paying mortgage, or investing in a educational pursuit, our hope is the boomerang we sent out (our time and money) lands back in our hands wrapped in value and increased stability. The obvious outcomes in the previous examples are simple: healthy bodies, assured living situation that builds you future profit, and specialized knowledge to open up job opportunities. So, what about your utility bill?
As eluded to in my previous post, I derive zero return of investment from paying my utility bill. All I truly care about are the electrons that flow through my meter and so that I can keep all the machines in my home operating. It’s like the gasoline we put in our cars it is the combustive catalyst that causes our vehicles to move. Essentially, a resource that is part of a sequence of operations to get us to our end game. Electrons are no different; each kilo-watt/hour allows clothes to be washed, televisions to spring to life with cartoons, and delicious meals to be cooked. So you’re probably wondering, “How can I derive a return of investment that is simply a resource I have to consume anyways?”
With the old recipe of receiving electricity (utility generates, transmits, and distributes) undergoing an ingredient overhaul, present-day opportunities have opened up allowing people everywhere to own the generation portion of their electricity needs via solar system. Of course, you can’t “island” your self from the grid entirely as there are liability issues for the utility should you lose your generation source and life-sustaining operations could not continue at your home. The number one question our Peak Power Solutions consultants hear from aspiring self-generators always surrounds the initial investment that is required. We’ve been conditioned to look at the initial dollar outlay as the primary driving factor rather than holistic value of the long term investment. So how much do you have to pay to get solar?
Here at Peak Power Solutions, we always advocate you perform a self-assessment of where you’re at now and where you want to go. You’re probably like me where you don’t spend more than 10 seconds looking over your utility bill; maybe they added some new fonts or slapped a few graphs to show my historical usage. Before the options of solar energy or energy storage, we all just paid our utility bill mindlessly. It was just something you needed and couldn’t negotiate unless you were a large-scale user like an industrial plant. The average residential customer in California over the last decade likely paid the utility company over $20,000, based off the average size home and average cost/KWh in the state.
A common adage we have throughout Peak Power Solutions is that not all electrons are created equal. The utility is quite familiar with that concept too. Not only is it more expensive for them to produce kilo-watt/hours (KWh) during the summer months, the utility needs to know they have the kilo-watt capacity (KW) to fulfill the demand. Translation for us: tiered rate schedules and Time of Use charges. All utilities have this handy document on their website called the tariff. The tariff specifies all of the contributors that go into what you pay per KWh, whether it’s meter charges, fuel fees, transportation costs, or decommissioning fees…the list can be extensive depending on who’s your utility.
This is an important piece of it all, because this is where your most authentic value is birthed. There are no tiered or Time of Use rate schedules, or baked-in capacity charges when you install a solar system. Your solar system produces electricity at the same rate, as long as the sun is shining, and you don’t get penalized for using that electricity at certain times of the day. What is the rate? Zero dollars and zero cents. Furthering this value proposition is the electrons simply have to travel from the inverter on your solar system to the arteries of your home. What you don’t know about the utility is they have to over-generate for two reasons: to accommodate for “line loss” in the transmission process (due to the remoteness of generation sites) and for the amount of resistance formed on the grid (due to motor loads). Having onsite generation is the most efficient and environmentally-sound generation method, while yielding the most advantageous return of investment on your home when it comes to leveraging what was once thought as a non-negotiable cost of living. It is embedded within the preceding concept of how the Peak Power Solutions came about!
The time has never been better to explore the options through the expertise and devoted attention of Peak Power Solutions. Whether you’re a long term owner looking to firm up your energy strategy for for decades to come or someone simply wanting the KWh output for a fixed amount of time, Peak Power can tailor the right solution to fulfill your investment and power needs.
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