[hectormalot]

It depends. 80% of my electricity cost is taxes. If I produce it using PV, the consumption is never taxed, and the benefit is pretty substantial, on top of the market electricity price. (One rarely finds low risk investments that return 20-25% year)

[gertlex]

Curious where you are roughly located; Does that 80% include the distribution of the electricity?

Should I interpret the 20-25% returns as being, your annual savings on the utility bill are 20-25% of the cost of your PV install?

[hectormalot]

Netherlands. No distribution fees are separate.

Roughly speaking the electricity is about €0.06 with about €0.20 in taxes on top. So offsetting consumption nets me about €0.26 cents per kWh.

The installation of a 2800kWp system cost me about €2600 and generates between 2400-2750kWh annually, so about €650 euro. In a 10 year timespan that’s an IRR of 20%, creeping up to 25% for 20 years.

[gertlex]

Thanks for the numbers! I had no idea taxes were such a large fraction elsewhere. Good to know/consider. I'm most familiar with California. (and actually can't give a % that is taxes offhand)

After the first year of having PV, I determined my own payoff time of about 5-7 years, so that was nice and self-justifying, and haven't dug deeper into details on that.

[__alexs]

Congratulations for being the only person in the thread who did an ROI calculation.

Did you DIY your install?

[hectormalot]

Partly, I did the electrical work myself (dug a cable to the shed, added a breaker, etc). Asked the installer to put the panels on the roof and connect it to the existing line. The roof is low, so access was easy and they were done in a less than 2 hours, kept the cost low.

[guerby]

2800kWp => 2800Wp :)

[hectormalot]

Oops yes, that would otherwise make for very cheap solar.

[dzhiurgis]

And 80% of your solar installation cost is labour...