Hunter Creek PV envisioned. As mentioned in my previous blog, solar hot water is out, PV is in... Well how much could we save at Hunter Creek phase II if we were to go with PV. Off course you can hire an expensive consultant or go to the National Renewable Energy lab's website. (NREL is of course based in Colorado!) But anyway their page with the PV-Calculator is here (there are a few steps).
The app actually estimates the energy production and cost of energy of grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) energy systems throughout the world. It allows homeowners, small building owners, installers and manufacturers to easily develop estimates of the performance of potential PV installations.
the image gallery below show the steps I followed to determine the location (zip code) and size, by zooming in on google map imagery and plotting the approximate roof area covered by solar panels.
Click on images for larger view and swipe sideways for the steps followed
After filling in the blanks and some assumed (default) values given by the PVWatts' Calculator it spits out the grand total.
At 10cents a kWh tat totals $12,349 per year. On all 4 buildings and a cost of that could be a potential savings = $49,396
How about the investment? That depends on the price of solar panels per kWh, this again depends on location and size of installation.
The NREL website has an open repository of data of Solar projects historically as well as geographically, there is the most conservative as well as the most favorable scenario.
As well as the late cost benchmark quarterly analysis.
MOST CONSERVATIVE 77.3 x 1000 (kW) x $5.80 = $448,340 per building
x 4 = $1,746,960 all four buildings
MOST FAVORABLE@ $2.13 = $164,649 per building
x 4 = $658,596 all four buildings
