A recent study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory looked into how much money homeowners can save with solar panels, and the results were incredible, as reported by the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
The study sampled 500,000 homes across the United States in 2021 and found that the median American household saved an estimated $691 a year on solar energy.
While past studies only considered the savings on the utility bill from solar, the study from Lawrence Berkeley took into account installation fees, loan payments, mortgages, tax incentives, and household income.
"This is one of the most comprehensive, household-specific, national estimates of rooftop solar impacts on household energy burden," said lead investigator Sydney Forrester.
The study found that, on average, about 75% of U.S. households saved money on the cost of energy with the adoption of solar power.
The largest beneficiary of solar was low-income residents. Those in the U.S. West experienced the biggest drop in percent of income spent on energy falling from 7.3% to 5.7% with an estimated saving of $821 annually. Across the country, low-income households reduced the proportion of their spending on energy from 7.7% to 6.2%, an estimated savings of $660 a year.
In particular, solar reduces the rate of high or severe energy burden from 67% of all low-income households before adoption to 52% of households following adoption.
"[The study] shows that the cost of energy that you get from rooftop solar is very competitive for low and middle income consumers," said Ram Rajagopal, director of the Stanford Sustainable Systems Lab at Stanford University. "It reduces their energy burden, given access to the right incentives."
The price of energy bills is increasing, with bills raising 2% monthly in 2023 in the U.S. Most home electricity sources are fossil fuels, such as natural gas and coal. These energy sources can lead to water pollution, harmful air pollutants, and land destruction.
Solar panels, on the other hand, are an affordable energy source that can reduce reliance on dirty energy like fossil fuels and can save you between $25,500 to $33,000 over the lifetime of your panels, according to Forbes. Over 25 years, you could save as much as $95,000. You can use EnergySage's free tools to get quick solar installation estimates and see how much you can save.
"I applaud the paper's overall goal, which is to raise awareness about the potential for rooftop solar to help alleviate energy burden for low-income disadvantaged community households," said Eric Daniel Fournier, research director of the California Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA. "We strongly believe in the potential of rooftop solar… to address this important equity issue."
Future studies from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory aim to research a variety of homes and households, addressing low-income families who may not be able to afford upfront costs. States like Michigan and Maryland are addressing this by lowering costs for low-income families through legislation.
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