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To: Broken_Clock who wrote (103825)	5/21/2001 10:21:51 PM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 436258

PV (photovoltaic) electricity is reported to be 20-25 cents kWh. If you can get a tax incentive (sorry, Don), it's better.

To: Broken_Clock who wrote (103825)	5/22/2001 9:15:09 AM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 436258

PK, in order to compare the costs of electricity from the grid in Hawaii with the cost of a solar photovoltaic unit, you have to compare the opportunity cost of not paying up front for a solar unit (i.e., continuing to pay $0.23/kwh) with lost investment value if you did shell out the approx. $15,000 for a small residential unit with approx. 7-kw capacity. Assume that if you invested what you would have to pay for a solar unit instead in some reasonably safe investment, you would get a return of about 8 percent a year, or about $1200 on a $15,000 investment. For residential users, a payback period of about 5 years is considered reasonable. So in very round numbers, if you expect to spend more than $6,000 on conventional electric bills for the next five years, you would be much better off with a solar unit connected into the grid. But there are more advantages. For instance, if your investment payback period is five years, it means that for subsequent periods, your electricity cost is virtually free, except for the costs of service from the grid, mainly at night. On the other hand, if your solar system produces more output than is needed during some periods in the daytime, you may be able to sell the excess to the grid at the same price. Different states have different laws regarding how much a user will receive for sending excess power into the grid. Finally, since your system will provide most of its output at times that are usually similar to the times when peak power is demanded in the grid, widespread use of solar reduces the demand for conventionally available peak power, which tends to be more expensive than base load power. I suspect that a large part of peak load requirements in Hawaii are met by oil fired generating plants, and you can be sure that the price of oil will just continue to go up in future years. Art