5 Reasons to Buy Solar Panels for Your First Home

Here is an overview of the top five reasons to buy solar for your new home today.

You’ve purchased your first home, and now you find yourself overwhelmed with a flock of tasks ranging from updating your legal address to repainting the house. Even though you may not want to add another item to the list, you should know this is also the perfect time to install solar panels. It’s worth carving out a few extra hours from your busy schedule to consider the great reasons to buy solar. With the current state and federal incentives in place, you’re likely to discover solar power is far more affordable than you might expect, and you can also enhance the value of your home by installing a renewable energy source.

1. Solar Panels Can Eliminate Your Electric Bill

Although you will rely on grid electricity during certain time periods, your cost will be more than offset by your new ability to sell excess power back to the utility company. Even during cloudy days solar panels still absorb a significant amount of energy from the sun, and the average solar-equipped household is able to eliminate its electricity bill altogether. With your own ability to generate power and resell it, you will experience the rising cost of electricity as a positive force for your budget instead of a negative one. Furthermore, if you decide to move off the grid entirely and add a battery storage system to your household system, you can enjoy true energy independence.

2. Solar Panels Make Your Home Stand Out

As a new homeowner, you’re undoubtedly more focused on settling in than on considering the future sale of your house. Nonetheless, choosing solar power now is a meaningful investment in the long-term value of your home. Research conducted by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory on 22,000 home sales across eight states found that new home buyers are willing to pay an average of $15,000 more for a house equipped with a 3.6 kilowatt (kW) solar power system. In addition to the statistical dollar value that solar panels contribute, there is also significant impact from the proactive environmental statement they represent. The global pressure to transition to other power sources will continue to grow, and future homebuyers will search even more intensely for alternative energy systems.

3. Solar Panels Help the Environment

The production of public electricity in the United States accounts for more than one-third of the country’s global warming emissions: You draw energy from a system that is primarily fueled by burning coal when you flip on a light switch. With each year that passes, scientific consensus on global climate change makes it clearer that we must switch our energy generation to renewable sources. According to estimates by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Renewable Energy Laboratory, the nation will lower carbon dioxide emissions by the equivalent of 70 typical coal-fired power plants if we can transition to generating 25 percent of power through solar and other renewable sources by 2025.

4. Colorado Has Countless Solar Panel Tax Credits

Financial incentives are the best reasons to buy solar for you home. You can take advantage of some of the strongest renewable energy incentives in the United States as a Colorado resident. Each local utility company offers its own incentive package, and some of these incentives include an upfront payment to homeowners for solar renewable energy credits (RECs). In addition, Colorado offers financing through the Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program, in which your solar installation cost can be spread out over twenty years of property tax assessments. A generous federal tax credit program reduces the amount of tax you owe on a dollar-for-dollar basis for the cost of your new photo voltaic (PV) system, if you put it into service by the end of 2016.

5. Colorado Solar Panel Prices Are Lower Than Ever

The price of solar panels has been falling steadily as the technology behind solar panel manufacturing grows more sophisticated. Prices have dropped by 6 percent just over the past year alone, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, and they have come down by 48 percent since 2010. These lowered prices have been magnified by the federal tax credit mentioned above, but when that tax credit ends on December 31, 2016, even the strongest manufacturing improvements won’t be able to make up the uptick in costs for homeowners. For this reason, 2016 opens the most affordable window ever for installing your new home solar power system.

There has never been a better time to invest in solar power systems. You have already placed significant resources into your first home, and adding a solar home power system will give strength and value to your investment. Living in Colorado you have the opportunity to benefit from some of the country’s most generous incentives for renewable energy. Buying solar panels for your first home puts you in a win-win situation: You can help the planet by reducing fossil fuel consumption, and you can build your personal financial strength at the same time. To learn more, come explore our free first-time buyer’s guide to solar panels.

Have additional questions on solar panels? Come explore our in-depth responses to commonly asked solar energy questions today.

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