Sure. It's ~11kw system, cost ~$35,000 out of pocket, received ~$8,800 back in tax credits.

My estimated 'break-even' point is towards the end of 2031, assuming nothing crazy happens to electricity prices.

I would hope that you have a commercial operation included in your system sizing bc 27 kW is like 4 households worth of juice.

Look for paybacks in the 5 to 10 year range. More than that and your installer is selling you more than you need! You sill not compete with your utility =)

And for Pete's sake: 1) conservation (it's free!) 2) efficiency (as much as 10:1 payback for demand reductions and energy use optimization) 3) go ahead and get a pv array.

Not OP, but I've had a 12.3kw system for two months now. Electric here is $0.085/kwh and the utility buys it back for $0.027.

Why a 27kw system? That sounds huge if residential. We have 2800 finished square feet and use about 2000kwh/month and I think 12.3kw may have been overkill.

If your payoff period is that long, I would get another quote. Or look at making your home more efficient. I’m getting solar now and the break even Point is projected around 7 years.

27kw system!?

Unless you live in a giant mansion, or in a warehouse, there is no way that much solar is going to fit on your roof.

Most houses will max out around 8-10kW, unless they are very large, or have their entire roof area optimally oriented in single large planes.

Even the most advanced panels these days make 20 watts per SF. To get 27,000 watts you would need almost 1,500-2,000 SF of roof area completely covered. Considering most roof profiles have 1/4 to 1/2 of their roof planes pointed away from the sun, you probably need a 4,000+ SF single story house (or 6-8k SF two-story).

Not to mention, a lot of utilities limit the size of residential solar. I've seen as low as 10-15kW limits if you're on a single-phase 240v service.

But if you can get away with it, more power to ya! With a system that size you could probably get bids from commercial contractors who may be a little more cost effective, and won't have to charge as much overhead to cover their army of door-knockers.

As for actual advice, you might save some by buying components yourself and getting quotes just for installation.

You can buy panels for around 60c/watt, inverters for 30c/watt, and the balance of components for a few thousand on top of that. If labor is about $50/hr, you'll get about 3 man-days of work per $1,000. Most residential install crews are 3-4 people, and they can do a system in 1 day. Double or even triple that and you're still in the $3k-$4k range for install labor. $1.50/watt all in is do-able. Minus solar credit, and perhaps local credits, $1.00/watt is not unheard of.

If you can get equivalent of 5x system capacity in kWh per day, on a 10kW system that's 50kWh per day. 8c/kWh price would be $4-5/day, $100+/month. $15k - 10kW ($10k with credits) system pays off in 100 months or less (8.3 yrs).

That's the math I am penciling out for my own home renovation and install later this year.