Peter's Viewpoint

During our latest trip to Malta, I discussed alternate energy with an Australian in our group.

Through our discussion and comparison of what the electric company is doing in both Greece and Australia, it appears that electric companies may be in collusion.

The companies from both countries make consumers that want to use alternate energy pay for the investment of producing electricity from the sun.  Additionally, both strongly suggest that we use a bank loan for the investment that they say will have a return on investment in 10 years.

Out of curiosity using a calculator found on the Internet, I did the numbers for Maryland which is almost on the similar longitude with Athens, Greece and the results showed that using 50% of the solar energy in the home that uses about $200 per month (meaning that you would still be paying about $100 per month for electricity) would require about 18 years to make a profit with an initial cost of $57,000 for the 7.1 KW system.

The currently proposed system in Greece is that you buy 20,000 euros worth of solar equipment to produce energy but you are not allowed to use that energy directly, instead you must continue to utilize the electricity provided to you by your electric company and they will collect the energy produced by your equipment and give you a credit on your electric bill in an amount just about the same as what they are charging you.

As an alternate method oddly enough, the electric company will supposedly allow a consumer (in Greece) to use wind energy to directly power their home.

Why the difference?  Your guess is as good as mine.

While criticism about the abuse of energy in the United States continues, I have not seen any particular efforts by Greece or Europe to offer tax incentives for the promotion of using photovoltaic systems.  Currently, the federal government of the USA allows homeowners to take a tax credit of 30% of the purchase price up to $2,000.

Here is a link to calculate the return on your investment in solar panel photovoltaic systems:

Return on Investment for Solar Panels

and a pdf with more information:

Solar power, a guide to making money on your investment

I believe that the majority of sunlight areas should use solar energy but not giving money away to public electric companies.

I think that we might as well start our own community electric company!