Making Money with your Solar Panels

Let’s not dance around the issue: solar panels have a pricey upfront cost that causes many Americans to balk at the thought of pouring their money into them. The media has hardly been kind about this aspect of owning a solar panel system, so you might be wondering how you make the panel’s benefits outweigh this cost: you know that the long-term financial savings will eventually cancel out the cost of installation, but what if you want to make your solar panels go to work for you now? There are a number of ways that your solar panels can not only save you money, but can actually line your pockets, making them an excellent investment beyond their other qualities. Here are a couple of ways you can utilize your panels to bring in the dollars:

Sell Back into the Grid

Solar panels needn’t just generate power for you and your family’s home: you can also power up your neighbors and be paid by the electric companies for doing so. Selling the excess power from your panels back into the grid is a brilliant want to make money from your solar investment: over 30 states allow net metering, a system whereby your solar panels’ electricity production, and contribution to the grid, is monitored, allowing you to receive the full value of any excess power. Although this might not feel like much of a benefit while you are still paying off your system, when you consider that it’s often cheaper to have a loan for a solar energy system than to pay a traditional energy bill, this additional income really does become just that.

Sell your Space

You yourself can become a grid for nearby neighbors and businesses: if you have a lot of roofing real estate, or just the means to install panels, you could be in the position to sell your excess energy directly on to nearby power users. As the owner of your system and the energy it receives, you are unique position of being to sell that on and to set the price, which will undoubtedly be lower than the energy company’s but which will make you a healthy profit.

Tax Credits

The government are eager to see as many people as possible choose sustainable energy and so offer a number of incentives to get you to make the switch. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 allows purchasers of solar energy systems to receive up to 30% of the cost of any system up to a total of $2,000, while half the states in the country have their own solar energy rebate schemes, a number of which will half the cost of installing your system.

The initial cost of installing solar panels might seem scary at first, but when you take into account all the ways they can pay for themselves you’ll soon realize that this upfront outlay is negligible: you’ll soon be on your way to earning some green while staying green.