Get a Free Solar Power System on Your Commercial Building

If you own a commercial building, you can get a solar power system essentially free.  Here’s how we did it.

First you have to decide how large of a system to buy (how many panels).  To optimize the financial yield of our system, we purchased an array that maximized the southern roof exposure of our building.  This array will produce about 70% of the electricity we use annually (our building is located in Appleton, Wisconsin).  This is about ideal, because as you attempt to reach 100% solar, the marginal return on the incremental investment in panels will diminish.  In the months we over produce (make more energy than we use), WE Energies pays us a wholesale price for the overproduction.  The wholesale price is $.04/kwh, compared to the $.13/kwh we effectively get by offsetting the energy we use in a month.  Keeping our investment to a 70% system minimizes the number of months we overproduce, and thereby maximizes the rate of return on our investment.

Our array cost about $58,000.  We paid $18,000 in cash, and borrowed $40,000 from Fox Communities Credit Union (on an equipment loan).  Because we own the system, we qualify for the 30% Investment Tax Credit (ITC), which equals $17,400.  This essentially pays us back our down payment.  We will also qualify for some state credits, which we will use to pay down our loan.

Our system will save us about $550 per month on average, and our loan payment (10 year amortization) is only $420 per month.  So there you have it: zero down and positive cash flow every year.  That’s better than free.  When the system is paid off, it should save around $7,000 per year, and the system has an expected useful life of 25 years.

Act fast!  - the 30% federal tax credit available in 2019 drops to 26% in 2020, 22% in 2021, and 10% in 2022.  Thank you Appleton Solar (www.appleton-solar.com) and WE Energies for making this possible.

Brian Murray

Murray & Frank Properties, LLC