Calculate Your Solar Energy Savings
The National Renewable Energy Labs has an online tool to help you calculate how much you might save by installing solar panels at your exact location. The program, entitled In My Backyard (IMBY) allows you to draw a solar array on your rooftop using the Google satellite maps system, calculates the amount of sunlight available month by month in your yard, and then tells how much you’ll generate, how much you’ll save, and the approximate payback time for different sized solar arrays.
Here at 42 degrees north, the savings are lower and the payback time higher than I would have thought, but there are variables that I didn’t input to the calculation which might have changed the numbers a lot. Give it a try and see how your location fares in the solar arena.
The program is at NREL IMBY.
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