Be gone, skeptics: One million solar installations and counting

2nd Aug 2013

It's hard to imagine that there are still naysayers out there when it comes to green energy.

It has proven itself time and again to be an economical and completely clean source of electricity, and in the past few years the cost of installation has fallen precipitously. Yet there are still many who claim its all a fad.

Fortunately, the smart ones out there are raising their voices to make the case that solar power is here to stay.

Kylie Catchpole, an associate professor of solar engineering at the Australia National University, recently wrote an article for The Conversation that outlined how the country can get another one million people to install solar power systems onto their roofs.

To her, it will only take gaining some perspective on what, exactly, roof-mounted solar power systems offer.

It's a well established fact that solar power saves you money in the long run. Most solar manufacturers are guaranteeing a product lifetime of at least 25 years.

Studies have shown that in Australia, solar users typically pay off upfront costs somewhere between five and 10 years. Simple math shows that, even when being conservative, installing solar panels could give you at least 15 years of zero electricity costs. This is easy to get behind, and most people are.

What's next, Catchpole argues, is that more people will wake up to the fact that as homeowners increasingly adopt solar power technologies, the lower overall electricity prices will sink. This has already been proven in Germany, where widespread solar penetration has lowered the cost of electricity price exchanges by 10 percent.

The skeptics of yesteryear have already been silenced by statistics. Now it's time to make Catchpole's projections a reality, and install a million more solar panels.

Posted by Mike Peacock
 

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