Shouldn’t that someone be you and your family? Every day I hear people complain about the ‘payback’ for solar power. They say: “If I save $500 in the first year -that means I have a fifty year Payback.” With logic like that, those geniuses deserve what they get. They can’t tell their kids they did the right thing or the smart thing. If Power Company executives and investors were as smart as the last genius we talked to, they would be living in slums and we would be burning twigs to cook our porridge.

-Do you think that centralized Wind and Solar power is going to save you? As the power companies acquire more solar, wind, and other renewable technologies, here is what you get to pay for;

• Energy commodity costs
• Delivery charges
• Transmission fees
• Distribution fees
• System line losses
• Government subsidies
• Executive salaries
• Company overhead
• Employee benefit and retirement plans
• Company bad investments
• Company new investments
• Tax benefits given to the power companies
• Local taxes
• State taxes
• Federal taxes
• Special assessments
• Regular and unscheduled rate increases
• …and they own the system and its value-you just get to pay for it.

In our new energy world, most of these costs will increase every year, some a little less frequently. All these costs apply to “regular” power-not just renewable energy and power. When you invest in your own system, you pay the initial cost and 6-7% interest on the investment. You also pay some maintenance costs, which are almost always less than $100/year.

In turn, you pay none of the other costs that I have listed above; no executive salaries, no bad investments, no taxes, no fees, and zero overhead and profit.

The value of your power production increases every year, as does your system’s value. And, you can tell your kids you did the right thing and the smart thing.