16 Best Solar Companies in Big Bear Lake, CA (Aug 2022 Review)

The Cost and Benefits of Solar in Big Bear Lake

Solar panels are powered by a free energy source — the sun — but before you can take advantage of this you will first need to pay to set up your system. Some main factors that determine the cost of installing a solar panel system on your home and how much it could save you over time include:

• Incentives: Something that can reduce the cost of your solar project is the solar investment tax credit (ITC), which is a tax credit that lets you deduct from your taxes a percentage of the project cost. You can also save a decent amount of money on your power bills, which can give you an average of $34,000 of savings over 20 years.
• Typical energy usage: The more power your household consumes on average and the larger your current power bills are, the more likely you'll benefit from making the switch to solar.
• Choice of solar panels: The kind of solar panels you choose will affect your total cost. High-efficiency monocrystalline panels will cost more upfront but can also save you more money over the lifetime of your system. If you don't need to maximize efficiency, you can go with a higher number of more affordable panels.
• Average daily sunlight: Since Big Bear Lake gets lots of sunlight, your solar panel system will most likely be able to generate enough energy to power your whole home, which impacts how much you can save on your energy bills.

As a result of solar panels now being cheaper than ever as well as several solar incentives, they are a worthwhile investment for the majority of homeowners.

Solar Incentives in Big Bear Lake

In order to increase the adoption of solar power, federal, state and local governments — and even some utility companies — offer incentives to help make solar more economical and accessible. You qualify for the federal solar investment tax credit (ITC) for the tax year you turn on your a solar panel system. You can also potentially stack the ITC with other local incentives. You can learn about the incentives you can take advantage of in the table below.

Environmental Impact of Switching to Solar in Big Bear Lake

If you're considering adding solar panels to your home, one of the primary reasons why may be to lower your greenhouse gas emissions. You may be asking yourself — how much does making the switch help the environment anyway? If your home uses a lot of energy, you can impact the environment even more by switching to solar power. Though solar panel manufacturing emits carbon dioxide, the panels make up for it by greatly lowering the amount of CO2 you would have produced if you still used nonrenewable energy. In Big Bear Lake, you can reduce your carbon footprint by 50 pounds a year with solar panels. Since solar energy is plentiful and makes electricity without CO2 emissions, making the switch to solar power is one easy step you can take to help the environment.