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Hi, this is George with Argo electrical. And I am the surge protector guy. So we’re right smack dab in the middle of our generators versus solar power cost analysis series, and our podcast. This is our podcast number 20. We started this in September August of 2023. And today is the third day of January 2024. So, our last podcast, we discussed the cost of a solar power setup, which includes a inverter and includes lithium battery bank, along with six have solar panels from a manufacturer that offers these products in the Atlanta Georgia area. Okay, just to recap, you know, the price for what they sent me I ask for an estimate yesterday, I got one in my email today was $7,400, you get the inverter, you get the battery bank, which I believe is two batteries, and you get six solar panels. Okay, so now, having said that, we also included in that cost, the price of someone like myself, who is a non restricted electrical contractor, the old timers called it master electrician, you know, and then what we did back in August, September, we charged about $7,500. To this gentleman, what we did was we got on the load side of the meter base with a 200 amp main breaker, we disconnected the power to the interior electrical panel, we ran into a new disconnect on the interior side, which is normal for any heavier equipment, you’ve got to have a disconnect within 10 feet and within sight of whatever it is you’re doing. I don’t care if it’s a water heater or a hot tub, whatever you’re not supposed to straight wire on, we even know we always do that, you know even when the panels in the same room. So anyway, you know, you come out of the load side of your new disconnect on the interior of the home, you feed that to the live side of your inverter, you come out of the inverter and feed that into the lobes the land side of your interior electrical panel. So we said the price for all of that is going to be right at $15,000 Sounds like a lot of money, right? Well, for my 1400 square foot house, I put down a you know even number, what I feel like is close to the average, probably a little closer to $300 a month. But anyway, just for you know, being a conservative number there, we multiply 265 times 12 which came out to $3,180 that would be 12 months of energy costs and $265 a month price tag rounded up to $3,200 we multiply that times point 75 or 75%. And that’s $2,400. Now $2,400 is what you would save in the first 12 month period, if you would use the batteries to power your home for say 18 hours a day. And then use six hours a day to recharge the batteries either off the grid or and or the solar panels. So now if we take that $15,000 Total to purchase the equipment, hit the install installation perform, divide that by $2,400 it would take six years and three months to completely pay for the unit. Now having said that, after the six years is up, then you would not have any money in your in your unit. These people are claiming that these batteries are good for at least 20 years and they’re warranting the setup for 10 years. So you You know, the whole point that I’m getting at is, you know, by the time you got to the 20 year time frame, not only would you have provided an ultimate, an alternative pathway to energy if you had a power outage, but you know, by the end of the 10 year period, you would have paid for the unit and saved enough on your energy costs to pay for a setup all over again. To me that, that makes sense. If you have money, obviously, everyone’s not going to be able to afford this. But at the end of the day, if you’re looking at putting a backup generator, standalone backup generator on your property, and you’re thinking about spending anywhere from 10, to $15,000, to have one to run the whole home, the standalone generators are the way to go. The transfer switch on these generator setup, states has no energy, it sends a message to the Generac generator, it cranks up the transfer switch, locks in disconnecting power from the power source from the grid, and then the generators forming, feeding the house. And then now you’re powering your generator with either natural gas or LP gas. So these batteries set up for whatever. If it senses no power, it does the same thing. But you’re running off the batteries, you’re not running off a few you know, this is green energy, re rechargeable energy. To me, it makes complete sense. If you’re going to make this type of investment to definitely do a little research, looking into these solar power battery backup, inverter setups. They’re, they’re very maintenance free. You know, the prices have really come down in the last five years. If you’re interested in and looking into something like this, and you say, Hey, this is a little bit too technical for me. I’m not an electrician. Feel free to call me at 770-596-1437 You can find us on the web at auto expo.com Once again, I’m George and I am the search tech guy. Thanks for coming
