Installing solar panels on your roof is one of the most sound financial decisions you can make today. A well designed and installed solar power system can produce electricity for 25 years.
Investing your hard earned money will be recovered through savings realized on your monthly utility bill. As long as the sun rises, you’ll be producing electricity instead of buying it!
The cost of solar energy technology has come down in the last ten years. Add the fact that the cost of electricity in the Philippines is one of the highest in the world, installing solar panels on your roof may be one of the best financial opportunities available.
A simple way to view this is that the solar power system that you pay for upfront will reduce the electricity that you purchase from the local power utility. The amount of electricity produced and thus the savings per month will depend on the size of the solar panel installation.
When you look at your monthly billing from the local power utility, you can compute how much per unit of electricity is being sold to you, expressed in kilowatt-hours or kWh. If you divide your total Pesos due by the quantity of kWh on the bill, you will arrive at a Pesos per kWh rate which is your cost of electricity. In the areas served by Meralco, the average all-in rate is a little less than PhP 8 per kWh.
A solar power system is typically sized in terms of kilowatt-peak or kWp. One solar module or solar panel would have a rated capacity of 300 to 400 Wp. Multiplying the capacity of modules used by the number will give you the total system capacity in kWp.
While local conditions and system efficiencies vary, most modern configurations when installing solar panels can easily produce an average of 1200 kWh per kWp per year.
This means that a solar power system purchased at Php 65,000 with a size of 1 kWp can produce 1200 kWh per year, or 100 kWh per month. Assuming you consume all of this energy (which is generated during daytime hours), this means about 800 pesos of savings per month on your utility bill or 9,600 pesos per year or Php 240,000 over the next 25 years. This also means you are protected from any future price increases by the local power utility. Your investment of Php 65,000 can be recovered in less than 6.8 years, with every kilowatt-hour thereafter effectively free.
Are you ready to find out more about how much solar panels cost and what system size is right for you? Check out our free “Get Quote” tool to see which reputable service providers in your area offer this service and what options are available for you.