Brian Sadler of Solar Renewables talks about how solar panels can help you save money and become more energy independent. They also benefit your community by reducing reliance on the grid.
John: Hi, I’m John Maher, and I’m here today with Brian Sadler, Vice President at Solaris Renewables, a solar company in Massachusetts providing premium solar and storage technologies with exceptional customer service, and designing, installing and servicing solar systems in Massachusetts, Southern New Hampshire and Maine. Today our topic is the benefits of solar power for your home and community. Welcome, Brian.
Brian: Hi, John.
The Benefits of Having Solar Power On Your Home
John: So Brian, what are some of the benefits, first of all, of having solar power on my home?
Brian: I think underlying is energy savings, right? So a lot of the motivations for folks is saving money. There’s a bottom line somewhere in the decision-making process in order to go solar. And regardless of how you go about it, you have the opportunity to save some money in your energy bills specifically against your electricity, given that solar is creating that electricity.
So you’re able to get more energy-resilient and independent by being able to fix some of your costs and lower your costs by investing in solar. And a lot of that’s through what’s what we call the Net Metering program, which is a bidirectional meter that’s installed, when you go solar, by the utility, which is able to measure the give and take of power from your house to the utility and from the utility to your home. And that is to make it able for the solar system to lower that kilowatt-hour demand, which is what all of our electric bills are based on.
Solar’s Impact On the Community
John: Okay. And then beyond my own home, can solar power have a positive impact on my community as a whole?
Brian: Absolutely. So just think of our neighborhood. So like we just mentioned, the net metering, right? So in real time during the day, our solar system’s going to generate a lot more electricity than our home needs, so it’s going to flow through our net meter, effectively spinning that meter backwards or lowering the demand that you have from the grid.
And you’re pushing power onto the utility lines right from your house, and electricity doesn’t discriminate, so it’s just going to go right down the street and go to your neighbors’ homes, and they’re going to be essentially benefiting from clean renewable power that was made on the same street.
So very efficient, as opposed to a lot of the utility power is centralized and made at a central power plant, and then it’s sent on either our local utility lines, or if we don’t make enough power during certain times of the day, week, year or the month either, we would be buying power on the open market and that would be coming through high-tension power lines to our local grid and then being distributed out through the power line.
So there’s a lot of line loss and inefficiencies and we’re buying a lot more power than we’re actually using. So this is really…solar is a tool for not only individual homeowners and businesses, but their neighborhoods and communities to benefit from.
How Solar Panels Help You Save Money on Your Electric Bill
John: Okay. And then we’ve talked before about the financial benefits of solar power, and you mentioned saving money on your bill as well. Can you give a little bit of more of a specific breakdown on how solar panels can help me save money on my electricity bill over time?
Brian: Sure. Really, it comes down to that Net Metering program, as well as by on a billing cycle on a monthly basis, your utility is going to read your meter, and if you are decreasing that demand and that kilowatt-hour charge that you have the dependence on the grid from, then you’re spending less than you were with the utility before.
And if, based on your site conditions and the setup of your solar system and the anticipated productivity, you’re going to be able to have a degree of offset, right? So, your solar system is offsetting your demand and need of the utility, and otherwise you are generating your own clean renewable power to satisfy the need of your home.
And then you’re able to build up credits through the Net Metering program that live on your electric bill, and therefore can be drawn upon in future months when, say, you don’t make as much solar power as you did at different times of the year. And, therefore, when you owe the utility in a given month, but you have credits to draw on, that bill that you owe is either eliminated or offset by, yet again, those credits that you generated at different times of the year.
John: Right. So typically that would happen in the winter where your solar panels are maybe not producing as much electricity, maybe not as much as you’re using in your house, so you might owe something on your bill, but because you have all those credits built up from overproducing in the summer, then you’re able to use those credits in the winter to help keep your bill down or eliminate your bill entirely?
Brian: Absolutely. Yeah, the winter’s the biggest one because we typically have a stretch of November when the sun drops, we have daylight savings and then the clocks come back and now it gets dark really early and our days are really short and the sun is now lower and our solar systems become less productive.
And so we have November, December, January and February where we have lower sun angles and less sunlight throughout the day, that’s day hours, less opportunity. But if we built up some credits through the spring, summer and fall, then those credits will be able to offset those winter bills. It’s just a matter of how much you were able to build up and how long those credits will last to offset the bills in the wintertime.
There’s also the peak of summer, so potentially you have central air or maybe a pool and other things that have a high draw in the peak of summer, and maybe you build up credits through spring and early summer, and then maybe in the hottest times of summer you’re using a lot of air conditioning or the pool pump’s running a lot, and now you have an electric bill. And those credits will also offset that time of year as well if need be.
So it kind of happens automatically. It’s really the goal is to make your electric bill more of a statement of that give and take of credits. And in a perfect world, you can eliminate that utility bill altogether, but not everyone has the site conditions to be able to do that, so the more of your electric bill you can fix with solar, the better the economics are. But if you’re able to fix even 50% or 70%, I mean, it’s really the economics are compelling and you’re able to save money by fixing that portion of your electric bill.
Can Solar Panels Contribute To A Cleaner Environment?
John: So then less from a financial standpoint and more of an environmental standpoint, can installing solar panels in my home help to contribute to a cleaner environment in my neighborhood or in my area?
Brian: Sure. By generating your own clean renewable power, now you’re taking yourself out of the piece of the puzzle and demand on the grid. So, if you’re in an area that’s burning natural gas or coal and you’re lessening that demand by generating clean renewable solar power, well, there’s not as much fossil fuels that need to be burned in your town or the adjacent town or down the way from the power plant, right?
So the more folks that are adopting solar, the less demand on the grid, the more efficient that our grid and resilient our grid becomes as well, and you’re able to have more clean air, water, and land because of it.
John: And then you could go another step further, too, and install something like air source heat pumps, ductless systems for your heating and your air conditioning in your house, and now you’re not even burning fossil fuels in your own home and releasing fumes into the air in your neighborhood and then using your solar panels to help to provide the electricity for that kind of a system, right?
Brian: Yeah, great point. I mean, the more that you can do on your own property to be energy-resilient and generate your own power and localize that as opposed to the centralized power plants, which is a concentrated pollution site. And then again, like you said, by heat pumps, which use more electricity for heating for instance in the winter in our region, but are tremendously more efficient across the board in the winter, and really for air conditioning as well are significantly more efficient and then you’re making your own power to satisfy that demand, well, you’re again, even moreso taking yourself off of the grid of the centralized power. And like you said, you’re not putting a smoke stack on your own building that is sending out pollutants from fossil fuels right on your own property.
Do Solar Panels Increase The Value Of My Home?
John: Right. Is there any evidence that installing solar panels can actually increase the value of my home, or is that something that potential home buyers are looking for now?
Brian: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there’s been some tremendous data put out over the past, really going on over 20 years now. So, the Department of Energy worked with the Berkeley Labs to do a 15-year study. I believe it started in 2000 through 2015. And that’s really when the solar industry was really in its infancy and just beginning out.
Things have come a long ways. Panels are not only more powerful, more efficient, but they’re more aesthetically-pleasing as well. But that 15-year study showed that homeowners can expect a significant increase in their home value, that homeowners want it, that homeowners are interested in saving money and eliminating or reducing one of their electric bills, and are willing to pay more for homes with solar, and that those homes sell faster as well.
More recently, Zillow and Redfin have also come out with studies that show a significant increase in home value and how quickly they move off the market for a higher cost. A lot of these studies did focus on strong solar areas like California, Massachusetts, New York, where there already are higher home values. So it really showed that across all these regions, that homes with solar sold at a premium and faster, is what it comes down to, and that potential buyers wanted it and demanded it in some cases. So they wanted to look at homes that had solar existing already.
John: And then modern solar panels actually last longer too, right? Their useful life is longer? So you could be buying a house with solar panels on it that have been on there for 10 years and still be able to expect a good, long, useful life from those solar panels that are existing, right?
Brian: Absolutely. Yeah. I think part of that maturation is that the panels are more resilient, last longer, and I think there’s a lot more quality manufacturers. Previously, there was a real divide between the haves and have-nots in terms of quality, and we saw a lot of foreign products that were a little more of a commodity product, and now we’re seeing an improvement across the board.
And I would say that most panels in our market now have a useful life expectancy of 40-plus years. So yeah, if you’re looking at homes that have a solar system already, there is the opportunity to have still decades of life left in that system.
I think one of the challenges, again, is education, right? That’s been something that, it’s a relatively new technology. It’s not like it’s been around, per se, for 100 years and everyone understands this and everyone’s already bought a solar system at their last house. So there’s a lot of education that needs to happen to understand what it is, how it works. And we find that through the real estate industry, that carries as well, where there’s an understanding that it’s a detriment and it’s something to be fearful of, and there’s a lack of understanding.
And so we as an industry and a company, we spend a lot of time with the real estate industry to help them understand and support them, because we feel, and all the data supports, that it’s an attribute to the home-buying process.
How Can Solar Contribute to a More Sustainable Future?
John: Right. So can you finally elaborate on how an individual action like deciding to install solar panels on your home can contribute to the overall broader movement towards making a more sustainable future in our region?
Brian: Absolutely. I think investing in or going solar, and however you do go about it, and supporting renewables is a way to decrease your carbon footprint and being a more sustainable property, be it home or business. Any way that you can do that, it’s a tremendous value.
We talked about some of the energy savings, right? So your lessening the demand is a really localized benefit, there’s a community benefit. And then there’s a regional benefit when you’re lessening the pollutants that are being released into our environment as well.
And a lot of times we do find that folks that are supportive of renewables also are doing other actions to be more sustainable. Obviously, low-hanging fruit that’s really accessible to everyone is recycling or reducing your use and reusing, things like that, limiting commuting, moving to electric vehicles. And a lot of these things, supporting companies and products that have sustainable methodologies as well.
So I think what we find is a lot of our customers, solar is a piece of the puzzle, and it definitely has a tremendous impact, but a lot of these folks are looking at other ways that they can have a more sustainable lifestyle.
John: All right, well, that’s really great information, Brian. Thanks again for speaking with me today.
Brian: Thank you, John.
John: And for more information, you can visit the website, it’s solarisrenewables.com, or call (781) 270-6555.