How much would it cost to to build a solar power system to power my house @2500kwh per month?
Question:
Answer:
would depend where you live in the world,
if the government gives any rebates,
if you live independant of the grid,
Check your local pages for a solar energy shop normally they are happy to give a good rough estimate
you would need divide that by 30 to work out what you need a day 83kwh then you would need to divide that by four (peak sun hours during the day) so essentially you would need a 20kw solar system...
This would work out to $200,000 not to mention the space it would take up
so essentially you are using a lot of electricity maybe for about 5-6 people and
I assume you are even heating your hot water and heating and air conditioning via electricity.
These can be overcome via thermal insulation and solar hot water systems..
A solar hot water system for 6 people can be installed probably for 6 people at about 7000 AUD this would nock off one third of your electricity bill... As this is like running a kettle constantly. Also look into hydronic floor heating and radiator heating...
Do things to reduce your energy like energy efficent lightbulbs, clotheslines etc.
If you tend to truly heat your home via electricity you could probably afford to knock your house down and rebuild in with solar passive in mind than to fork out 200,000 to buy solar panels
I would first of all look at ways of reducing your energy because you are using a lot of electricity and your bill must be very large and you would be releasing a lot of greenhouse gas..
Then you can look at a system that does say % of the work which would already would be reduced to say 60kwh a day..
(taking into account your hot water as being 1/4 of electricity bil)l
which you could then do 25% of the work which would then cost you about 40,000 for a 4 kw system giving you 16kwh day while also spending 10,000 on hot water system and getting hot water for free.
The system would be tied to your normal grid so you can still get electricity as normal so you would only be paying for say 45kwh a day instead of 83..
This would also give you the option of expanding later on.
and trying to manage that extra 45 kwh a day you are using.
About $10 per kwh, so $25,000 would be a good rule of thumb
I only used 750kWh last month and paid a bill of $54.
First thing you need to do is get your electric use under control.
To start with, to power your house completely on solar power would be impracticable. Using 2,500kWh a month would require you to fill your yard with solar panels.
Next the power has to be stored somewhere for future use, say at night. So you need a battery array. For your energy consumption I would guess 60, or more, car batteries. Then you would need the inverters for switching the power from DC to AC.
So the cost of all the solar panels would be around $100,000 then the batteries $3,600, and the inverters are around another $3,000. Then there is the cost of labor to set it all up.
At 2,500kWh per month, I would guess around $110,000 would be a good guess for a start up fee. Then you have maintenance. The batteries only last about 3 to 5 years so you'll have to buy new ones and pay to dispose of the old ones.
I hope that helps.
Well it depends on alot of different factors, such as where you are, where the panels will be installed, what angle, are they going to track the sun, etc...
2500kwh per month is alot, I would first recommend that you make your more more efficient so you can affort to use solar. The cost to make your more more efficient is substantially less than just putting solar panels on the roof.
There are hundreds of things you can do to increase your homes eficciency:
1: use al CFL lightbulbs
2: close all air leaks
3: change your windows to a double pain, gass filled window system
4: get a professional in there to be sure all of your insulation is good and add some as needed.
5: buy a more efficient HVAC unit
6: use tankless water heaters instead of tanks.
Now recalculate your kwh per month and then size a solar panel system to match. Doing it this way you will save alot of money, otherwise you will just end up shelling out about $80,000 for a system to cover 2500kwh per month.
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