Solar panel installations are booming across America. In the not-so-distant past, this technology was seen as too difficult and expensive for everyday people; the technology was prohibitive as far as limitations to its practical application.
Now, solar panels are cheap, efficient, and accessible in comparison to traditional forms of generating energy or heating. The advantages are clear, and current trends in solar are pointing in one direction: More solar, at lower prices, especially here in Arizona.
Consumer-Focused Trends
Not surprisingly, of course, Arizonans are buying a lot of solar panels. They are the third-fastest solar energy-adopting state in the nation, behind only Texas and California.
Those beautiful, clear, and sunny desert skies are perfect for generating solar power, and now is the time to take advantage of a solar installation and choose an installer.
Pay-As-You-Go Leasing
The up-front costs of a solar power system used to be a substantial roadblock to going solar, but now the momentum is swinging in the direction of solar being among the cheapest options for energy.
Among other ways to reduce the cost of a solar panel installation, solar leasing allows consumers to add panels to their home for no money down, making it available for almost every Arizona family home.
The energy purchased through the solar lease is less expensive than the energy from the Utility. The utility is at a disadvantage in how its energy is produced, using systems that are complicated and expensive to operate, fueled by materials that are only increasing in cost. This is what allows users to produce more cheaply than the traditional power source.
Even better, when users lease, the leasing company takes responsibility for maintenance and oversight as well, bringing even more value to the equation! This also reduces a big portion of the risk of installation that existed in the past.
Maintenance-Free Usage
Solar cells presently are far more robust and resilient than most technologies. Depending on how the solar panels are installed, most have no moving parts and are built using weather-resistant metal and glass, which can hold up against all but the worst forms of weather.
With today’s monitoring systems, it is also easy to identify problems before they develop, if they ever do at all. Users will be able to rely on the system to keep the lights and air conditioning on, which is a must on a sweltering 110-degree day in one of Arizona's summers.
Solar is becoming increasingly attractive, thanks to this, keeping the total cost of ownership extremely low, and the ROI extremely high.
Net Metering
Arizona’s net metering policies are another reason why solar is so attractive in the state. The system of net metering with local utilities is one of the biggest contributors to the surge of solar installations in recent years, overcoming a lot of the challenges that existed in the previous decades.
How net metering works is simple: If users produce more solar power during the day than they use, the excess energy goes onto the power grid, and they get credit for it. On a rare cloudy day here in the southwest United States, the energy that users produced with the panels that went onto the grid will come back to them.
This means users are, for the most part or entirely, energy-autonomous and won’t be consuming energy produced at a much higher cost by the utility. Worth noting is the added benefit of contributing less to the overall carbon footprint.
