Savings add up fast with EV+PV combo

2000-kwh-evpv

editors-blog-entry3In just three months with a 5.59 kWh solar system here in Aurora, Colo., we’ve produced 2,000 more kWh of electricity than we’ve consumed.

We’re banking these kWh with our utility, Xcel Energy, and will be using them to power a future electric car, either a Ford Focus Electric or a Nissan LEAF.

For those of you motivated by money, that’s $1,200 worth of gasoline savings at $3 per gallon and 20 m.p.g. By the time the Nissan LEAF or Focus Electric arrive in Colorado in about 1½ years, we will have banked somewhere around 18,000 miles worth of gasoline free driving, or about $2,700 worth of fuel (at $3 per gallon, 20 m.p.g).

At the rate we are currently going, with the EV+PV combination, we will have hit solar payback in less than three years ($8,000 = our out of pocket costs for our 5.59 kW system). After that, we’ll have free electricity and free gasoline. And this calculation doesn’t even take into consideration yearly utility rate hikes and increases in the price of gas!

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In most states with good to very good solar incentives, people with good rooftop space and who combine EV+PV will achieve total payback in three to six years. After that, they’ve got free home electricity and free gas – for 20 years, or possibly more.

Given the tremendous benefits of EV+PV, when there are more of us telling the world our own, or, as we also do here at SolarChargedDriving.Com, others’ solar-charged driving stories, solar-charged driving seems certain to take off.

People aren’t dumb. They’ll see the economic and environmental benefits and climb aboard the EV+PV Express — in droves!

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