It is my guess that the people that can afford solar power live in large houses.
The thought occurred to me that the people that can afford solar (not many people have $10k – $20K laying around) mostly likely have large houses with many electronics.
These large houses will need large solar arrays.
I guess ideally a solar panel system would work best in a much smaller house without many electronics.
I am sure that the average kilowatt stats for houses that have solar are way off because most of the ones installed are installed in large homes.
I’m not so sure about that. I think you have to think about this as small power plants – There is a relative fixed cost of entry for all the non-panel items, so there is some economy in having lots of panels. I happen to live in a 1300 sq ft house that has a GREAT roof for solar collection. I will be putting a 6.1kw system on my house shortly at a even though that is almost three times what i consume. I am taking a short term loan from my bank for the 32.5k (the materials and DIY installation) and my total cost after xcel rebate (27.5k)and federal credit (2k) will be $3k. This means I’ll be paying 50 cents per watt. My hope is to have it ‘live’ by July 15th or so. Woo Hoo!!!
I’m having Namaste install a fairly small (3.6kW) system on my fairly small 1500 sq ft house (with not many electronics). This system is also a little larger than I needed (~99-105% of my current consumption), but I’m hoping for an electric car (or at least plug-in hybrid) in the next few years.
BTW, I also have a $250 rebate coupon for Namaste. Contact me (john at milanski dot com) if you are interested.