11 Best Solar Companies in Mountain Brook, AL (Jan 2023 Review)

The Cost and Benefits of Solar in Mountain Brook

For the majority of homeowners, whether or not to invest in solar panels boils down to the cost. The overall price and potential savings vary depending on a few key factors such as:

• How much energy costs for you: The average household in Mountain Brook pays around $2,100 a year on energy alone, so you could gain that much in savings.
• System size and type: Some models are more costly than others, so the one you choose can raise or lower your upfront cost. Plus, the more solar panels you need, the more it'll cost.
• Whether or not your roof gets a lot of direct sunlight: This, along with your roof configuration, affects affect how much power your solar panels can generate.
• Incentives: The federal solar investment tax credit, which can save you some money, allows you to deduct 30% of the cost of installing your solar panel system from your taxes. Additionally, not including incentives, you can save about $21,000 over 20 years on your energy bills.

Even though a solar panel system costs a decent chunk of money upfront, it can save you thousands of dollars over time. The question of how much, though, depends on a number of factors, like the size of your house and your local electricity rates.

Solar Incentives in Mountain Brook

In order to increase solar panel installation and usage, federal, state and local governments — and even some utility companies — offer incentives to help make switching to solar power more affordable and accessible. When you install a solar panel system on your house, you can claim the federal tax credit, or ITC. This credit currently lets you reduce your tax bill by 30% of the cost of your solar panels. In addition, there may often be some state and city incentives that you can take advantage of to further save. For more information about local incentives, visit our our article on solar incentives.

Environmental Impact of Switching to Solar in Mountain Brook

If you want to add solar panels to your home, one of the primary reasons why may be to reduce your reliance on nonrenewable energy. But how much can using solar energy instead of traditional energy actually affect the environment? If your family consumes a lot of energy, you can impact the environment even more by switching to solar energy. While solar panel manufacturing releases carbon dioxide emissions, the panels make up for it by considerably decreasing the amount of CO2 you would have released if you still used nonrenewable energy. In Mountain Brook, you can reduce your carbon footprint by 90 pounds a year with solar panels. As you can see, trading traditional energy for solar has so many other benefits outside of saving money. One of the primary ones is that you can help save the planet too.