Condo and Solar

We went over to Ft. Lauderdale on Sunday to clean out the condo. We signed the sellers' documents on Tuesday morning, and the buyers are scheduled to sign their docs Thursday afternoon. We'll be getting the proceeds wired to our account, which we will then immediately put into our mortgage. Huge sigh of relief to immediately follow. Something I haven't blogged about much is the solar array we're adding to our house. A while back we decided to install solar electric panels to give us some backup power in case of a power outage, as well as to make our lives more environmentally friendly. Our original budget called for 0.96 kilowatts (6 160-watt panels). Our area of the country gets an average of 5 full-sun hours per day, so we could expect about 5 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per day. According to our electric bill, we use about 30 kWh per day in the winter and about 50 kWh in the summer. So our panels would provide between 10 and 15% of our energy. Not much, but it's a start. A few months ago we learned that Florida started a solar incentive plan which gives a $4/watt rebate. The 160-watt panels cost about $800 each retail, but the rebate knocks that down to about $160 each. Taking this into account, we can now budget for 18 panels (the most we can fit on our roof), which kicks our power output to 2.88 kW, close to 15 kWh per day. We'll be generating about half of our energy via solar during the winter! There are risks, of course. We have to pay for the panels up front and get them installed and then apply for the rebate, so its possible all the rebate money could be exhausted by the time our application gets approved. Of course, we'll be putting holes in the roof to mount the panels, and that makes me nervous. And the next hurricane could rip the whole thing down. Those are all "what-ifs," though, so we're not paying much attention to them. We have a good chance of getting the rebate, we're getting a professional installer to do the job, and you can't do anything about hurricanes except move. I know I owe y'all pictures of a lot of things. Add the solar to the list. Speaking of pictures, I don't have a HNT pic this week. Sorry for the "inconvenience." I'll try to get one for you next week. Hope everyone's having a good week. The weekend is almost here! *hugs*