“With the cost of electricity, [it] keeps going up and up, I figured you know what? Let’s go solar,” said Whitney West, who lives in Jacksonville, FL’s Pottsburg Landing neighborhood.
She and her husband, David, recently decided that the time was right to make the switch to solar and zero-emission driving.
“So we got our Tesla and we figured out how much money they were saving in gas and then I found an app that told us how much money, like how many gallons of gas we’re saving, how much electricity we’re saving, everything. So I figured, why not just go solar too. So we went up to Momentum (their solar installer) and asked them OK, what are the logistics? And they broke it down with to us and it just made sense.
“Even with us switching to solar with the solar panels cost, our electric bill was going to go down just a little bit. So what we did was we just kept saving, saving, saving and once we got our first bill from that number, I’m paying that off.
“So our electricity bill is going from $168 to just $34 and my whole house is run off of the solar panels and the battery. It’s great,” said Whitney.
Whitney and David are proving that going solar isn’t just good for the environment, but it’s also good for the wallet.
“So they (the solar installers) were able to create an array of solar panels on my roof just so I can power enough, and just a little bit more, because JEA does not buy back one-for-one, and so no matter what, I’ll have a little bill from JEA, but eventually down the road, I’m really hoping JEA will buy back energy so that way I’m actually making money off JEA,” Whitney said, referring to Jacksonville’s public utility, which has a net metering policy, which was rolled back in 2018.
The rollback resulted in making the payback period longer for rooftop solar customers that send power back to the grid.
Whitney says on sunny days her panels make more power than her family uses, sending that additional power either back to JEA, or to be stored in her home’s battery. The battery, for the most part, powers her home at night and provides a backup should the grid’s power ever be interrupted.
“I have my battery that I charge up to 100%. So after the sun sets, I have my battery to rely on,” said Whitney, adding, “we are 64% energy efficient based on the panels and the battery. That’s what the heat running right now is. It has been cold over the last nights.”
For the rest of this story, which includes information about federal and local incentives, watch the video report.
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