Got my bill:

Basic svr fee: $22.73
Energy use: 46.86
Demand: 12.37
Fuel used in power generation: 20.58
Property tax surcharge: 1.16
Transmission:12.69
Cost of BJ's (includes bent over): 48.50
Energy efficiency: .16
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$116.55
Sales tax: 10.80 (of course)

Total: $130.85

A couple of notable thoughts:
Energy use kw/h: 711.53 (I don't know if that is a lot?)
Average cost/day: $3.89

Keep in mind, this is for my office and no solar.
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For Kansas that is pretty damn high. $.1839/kWh.
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I got curious and looked at my last bill. My electric rate is 12.256 cents per kwH plus a base rate of $20.72, and my gas rate is 72.614 cents per therm plus a base rate of $21.54.

So if I use no energy at all, my bill will be $42.26, and then it goes up from there. (This may not be exactly right because part of the base charges are sales taxes, which are probably related to use.)
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I am having solar panels put on next week. They are enough to replace my existing electricity usage. There will be 27 panels and they are guaranteed to produce 92% of original efficiency after 25 years. These will easily pay for themselves, especially since electricity rates always go up.
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The ROI on solar depends on a lot of factors obviously.

In parts of CA, there has been a lot of solar installed so at noon there is frequently a surplus of electricity but at 5pm there isn't. This is one reason why they want to go to tiered pricing and it is going to make it harder to get the solar panels to pay for themselves. Since you have electricity when it is cheap to buy and you don't have electricity when it us expensive to buy.

Yes you can do batteries, but they are expensive. Where there is already a lot of solar, the utility isn't going to want to store a home owner's excess power at noon and give it back at 5 for free, but obviously they could be required to do so by regulation.

But solar with batteries might be the way to go.

And then people think that means they will have power when the power goes out. But that is not true by default. You usually have to pay for additional electrical work to be able to take your house off the grid to do that and that can cost thousands of dollars more.
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This is why I'm putting in an 18kWh solar system with an ability to decouple myself from the grid.
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I have 24 panels at the house, ground mount out in the pasture. It was expensive. I can't sell back to the company and build up credits i.e. store on the grid. A friend in CO can store. She has a bizzillion energy credits.

A storage battery is ~15k. It would be quite expensive to re-wire my system, as mentioned before.

So, instead of paying the electric company $200-300 during the summer, I am paying a low interest payment of $300/month all year long:-), But my bill for last month was $48.

I have learned that you use energy hogs during the day. Manage usage and it works well.

It will take me 10 years to pay off the loan. Not really smart on my side. The salesman was good. Gvt rebates, electric co storage (grid) ability's, "you can get the price reduced by 1/3 in the first year". NOT in my case.

Before you sign up for solar, talk to your electric utility first.

In the end, the main thing is the it "possibly" add value to the property.
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The cost of electricity is SHOCKING.
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