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Originally Posted by FlyingScot
Not sure of your professional background, but when you say "this is ignoring the tax credit for solar" you raise a red flag that you are not calculating the return correctly.
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Sorry, what I was trying to convey is that the cost to the homeowner is not representative of the actual cost, due to the government incentive. Thus if you want to calculate the "savings" of something like solar, you would really need to go by the actual system cost.
Or, to lay it out a little differently, government incentives do not necessarily scale. If someone pays half your restaurant bill, it might be cheaper than cooking at home, but that does not mean that overall dining out offers savings relative to eating in.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FlyingScot
(You've got a couple of other mistake too, but I don't want to pile on.)
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Go ahead, I always welcome informed debate and am happy to learn. Keep in mind I was trying to keep this discussion simple (but accurate) and not try to turn it into an ECON201 course.
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Originally Posted by FlyingScot
Returns on any investment should be calculated on an after-tax basis--the money that ends up in your pocket at the end of the day.
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To a certain degree, yes. IMO you need to consider broader factors if you are going to promote things like solar as a viable alternative.
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Originally Posted by FlyingScot
When I said my panels were returning >15% per year that was a post-tax return (IRR) that would conform to any business school textbook or the (pretax) numbers that an investment firm such as Fidelity would provide on their investments.
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I obviously can't debate that without you disclosing your numbers (which I am not asking you to do), but you would agree that your return rate as stated is far above most averages and norms? Or do you think that is the kind of return the average person should anticipate?
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Originally Posted by FlyingScot
with much lower risk.
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The risk part is very debatable, IMO. Tell me about risk at the end of the panel lifespan, after you have real data on panel failures/outages, damage, etc.
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Originally Posted by FlyingScot
Any professional financial analyst would tell you that the solar on my house is a home run
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A "professional" financial analyst would factor the value of the investment based on the final return, not an early midpoint number. So far though, from what you post, your "investment" in solar is fairing well above average.