Breaking Utility Company Dependency
It’s convenient being connected to the utility grid. Most of us never question it. We just accept the merging of our homes to the wires of a nearby power plant as a fact of life. After all, the home needs electricity and the utility company is the way it happens, right? We grow up taking this fact for granted and just carry on with our lives. But how does that utility company grid operate? Where does it get its power from? What is the utility company’s incentive for selling us electricity all of our lives? Is there a better way for homeowners to power their home? What if there was a way we could not just power our homes, but own the means to do so? These are questions generations in the past seldom, if ever, asked themselves. But times have changed and with the advancement of solar photovoltaic technology, more options are available to middle class America.
When you maintain the status quo of letting the utility company power your home, you pay retail prices for an energy supply you never get to own. Each month, you are charged fees for the electricity you use, and after paying it, you start all over again. No matter how many times you pay out over years of loyal patronage, there is no option to invest those payments into shares of the company. The utility company simply pockets your bill payments and keeps on charging you each month as if you are a first-time customer. It is not uncommon to see your rate increase up to 40% in a ten year period to cover inflation, grid maintenance, and company executive bonuses. In the past, we have largely been stuck paying out these increases with no alternative, except maybe to move and hope the next utility company is a little cheaper. But now, there is a new game in town and that game is called energy independence.
A Better Way To Power Your Home
There are many ways modern-day Americans are achieving energy independence. Some of the most common are solar, wind, ethanol, geothermal, biodiesel, and biomass. Among these, the most promising by far is solar energy. With solar, you can harness the most plentiful source of energy in the solar system—the sun—then store and direct it at will to supply power to all of the appliances of your home.
There is an extremely low level of carbon emissions through the process of generating solar power and supplying it to homes. According to Vattenfall, a Danish utility company, solar PV works out to about 50g of CO2 per kWh compared to coal's 975g of CO2 per kWh, which amounts to 20 times less pollutants generating the same amount of power. To top this, solar panel and inverter distribution costs have gone down drastically over the past decade, making the switch to solar now cheaper than traditional fossil fuel energy as supplied by utility companies.
The Last Payment Leading To Energy Independence
Perhaps the greatest selling point of all about solar hearkens back what I mentioned earlier in this blog. When the utility company provides your electricity, they charge you retail rates and never give you a piece of the pie. But when you go solar, you get to own the pie outright! That’s right . . . with solar, your payments for electricity can stop completely. Those who pay to install solar upfront with cash experience this satisfaction automatically. No more utility bills! But for most homeowners who take a financing term, once you make that final payment, your woes are over. No more paying endlessly anymore to power your home.
Now I have to say here that most utility companies charge a few dollars to remain connected to the grid and will charge you for the additional energy you use beyond your own solar power production. But by and large, going solar means finally cutting down your utility bills drastically, if not altogether month after month, year after year. When you go solar with Green Solar Technologies, you receive a 25 year warranty on your solar PV system, which will continue to power your home many years beyond that.
Getting Ready To Make Your Last Payment
So what utility can tell you to stop paying them because you’ve been a long-time customer? No utility company does this, but when you take matters into your own hands and qualify to go solar, this is an inevitable reality for you.
The choice is clear. Stop paying forever to the utility company. Instead, invest into your own solar PV system and earn the right to energy independence.
by Ged Friedman