You Paid for a Tiny Piece of Some Guy’s Solar Panels

Dear Readers,

This blog post goes out to one of my regular readers, PP. Thanks, PP, for providing me with this fascinating information I’m about to impart to a lot of other people.

PP went to a retired commercial airline pilot’s house and noticed a lot of solar panels on the roof. PP asked the retired pilot about it, and here’s what he found out:

The guy had 28 solar panels on his roof, each 65 ½ inches by 39 inches by 1.5 inches. Um, I think when they operate at their peak, when the sky is clear at noon, they generate 215 watts. (I’m not good with electrical stuff. I’m probably getting some of this wrong.)

The total cost of the whole solar panel system, including the panels, an inverter that converts DC to AC, a second meter, and a “tie in” was $45,000. Yikes! That’s a lot of money!

But he got a lot of tax credits and rebates from the government. He got a 30 percent tax credit from the federal government, (I guess that’s 30 percent off the total cost.) He gets $1,000 per year for five years worth of tax credits from the state of Arizona. He also gets a rebate from Tucson Electric Power of 3 dollars per watt, which somehow equals $18,000.

The guy figured that with all these rebates, he’d break even in about 8 years, as long as there are no unforeseen maintenance expenses.

Also, the unused power that his solar panels generate flow back to Tucson Electric Power (TEP). It’s like TEP has a miniature little power plant on this retired pilot’s house.

PP said that he heard that the government requires power companies to generate at least 10% of their power through green, renewable ways. The power companies either have to build their own solar panels or wind turbines or whatever, or they can pay private people to put solar panels on their houses. TEP is encouraging people to get these solar panels on their roofs by offering these rebates.

So there's the information.

My question is: Is this OK?

Well, the worst thing I see about the situation is that people don’t know where their tax dollars are going. How many of you knew that a little bit of your tax money is going to fund the power of one of your neighbor’s houses? And this guy’s not needy, either. He’s very well off. It’s the principle of the thing, you know.

But I’m a little bit of a hypocrite when I complain about government handouts and the road to socialism and things like that. I complain a lot about tax money being spent unwisely, but the truth is that I have personally accepted money from the government. I'm also going to be employed by the government, so I'm going to be accepting a lot of money from the government.

However, I feel like I’ve been responsible with the money I’ve accepted from the government, and I’ve put it to good use, like getting an education and getting a career and becoming a productive tax-paying member of society. And if there is social security left for me when I get to retirement age, I’ll most likely take it. That’s why sometimes I think I’m a little bit of a hypocrite. Yes, I’m guilty.

Ya’ll without sin can cast the first stone.

But who wouldn’t take free money from the government? Who doesn’t like free money? It’s takes a lot of chutzpah to turn down free money.

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa