Bought my first few panels today. Better late than never!
this post was submitted on 28 Mar 2026
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I paid ~$800 for 1.2kW of solar panels on my van in 2023. The 600Ah of LFP was an additional $1,700. I've not paid a power bill in 2.5 years. How anyone could choose to not go solar baffles me. I was paying $3/kWh through the city-owned utility. Nominally, it was somewhere around 15 cents, but after all the fees that Austin charges, despite using only 20kWh/month, my bill was $60 at minimum.
The city has now raised rates five times since I went off-grid, so a straight $60 times 30 months undersells the ROI. It would now be $75-80, and $80 times 30 months means I'll have broken even by May.
Less than three years, and when the power goes out in town, I'm unaware of it unless I run into a complaint on Reddit.
Too bad the US is owned by fossil fuel companies and weapons manufacturers who make money on wars fought over said fossil fuels. If we could at least eliminate the subsidies from taxes, then people might actually see how much more it costs. But as long as taxes pay for fossil fuel production, it will always appear cheaper to those not paying attention.
I disagree. Here in Texas, for example, even while politicians push new fossil fuel investments, property owners and private solar companies are deploying small and medium sized photovoltaic projects all over the state. Solar is a higher percentage of our total generation mix every year, 10% of the total last year (<1% 5 years ago), and its growth is dramatically outpacing that of fossil fuels. You won't see headlines about this, but the market forces are real
Howdy, fellow Texan. Yeah, even we have realized fossil fuels are kinda a stupid way to power things. It doesn't help that ERCOT is a shitshow.