15.6 MW Solar Power $46,000 question
I welcome any and all ideas and critiques regarding this issue. Please comment or PM me if you have any thoughts. Good or bad. :-)
I am installing a 15.6 megawatt Grid Tied solar system on my 30 unit apartment complex. Cost will be $46K all in. With 30% federal tax credit and accelerated deprecation for the system net payback is scheduled to be 6-8 years. This would be phase one as there are actually 3 electric meters on the property. 5 separate buildings. The solar for the other two meters would be 5.9 kW for $19K and 17.1 kW for $50K. That is should I decide to continue and the first one works out to my liking.
I'm also doing roofs at the same time to the tune of another $50K. OUCH!
I pay all utilities on the property. I've rehabbed everything and put in thousands of dollars of insulation new windows, doors, new HVAC's etc...so fairly efficient at this point. 2016 Electric bills ran 17K ok $240K gross rents. 2017 should be higher in both categories as I've renovated and put an addition 5-6 apartments on line.
Some questions for thought?
1. Has anyone done this or considered doing this on this scale?
2. Considering that it will lower my electric bill, which is a dir ft operating cost I will in essence be raising my NOI, this raising value/equity in property. My thinking...I save 4K in electric translates to $40K in equity w/ a 10 CAP. Save $15K in electric for all three phases and I've added $150K in value.
3. Electricity costs will only go up in future so these numbers should hopefully get even more favorable.
4. Wondering what kind of value I would get whenever/if ever I sell. Certainly someone would be willing to pay something extra for solar panels installed. Even if I just got an extra .50 on the solar on the back end that would an extra $60K or so on the back end.
5. Still all said, hard to bite the bullet and come out of pocket $100K when I could use that same $$ and go buy another project...