A crew from A&R Solar is busy today installing an array of photovoltaic panels on my roof. It’s a 2650-watt system with a ten-year warranty, grid-tied (no batteries), and they guarantee that it will produce at least 2.3 megawatt-hours per year. We haven’t gotten our first electrical bill yet, so we don’t know how much power we actually use, but the contractor estimates (based on the average consumption rate for a house this size) that the panels will supply 60% of our annual electricity. I bet we’ll do even better, since we have brand-new appliances and a shiny new suite of LEDs occupying almost all of our light fixtures. It’ll be fun to see how it works out!

Financing couldn’t have been easier – we got an “energy smart” loan from PSCCU at 4.75%. We’ll pay the loan off in five years and the panels should pay for themselves in seven; after that it’s pure profit, and the system is supposed to last for at least 20 years.