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Solar panel ROI calculation for river walk redesign

Captured from Claude · 108 messages · 26 images · 1 file · started May 17, 2026
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We're adding solar canopies over the seating areas on the river walk: roughly 40 panels at 400 W each. Can you work out the payback period and the 15-year ROI? Local power is $0.18/kWh and the turnkey install is about $41k after incentives.

Photo of the river-walk seating area beside the river
Claude

Happy to. With 40 x 400 W you have a 16 kW array. For a temperate, coastal canopy site I'll assume ~1,250 kWh per installed kW per year, which is on the conservative side:

  • System size: 16 kW
  • Annual yield: ~20,000 kWh
  • First-year savings: ~$3,600

Here's the model:

panels       = 40
watts        = 400
kwh_per_kw   = 1250          # annual yield, temperate-coastal
price        = 0.18          # $/kWh
install_cost = 41_000        # turnkey, after incentives

kw      = panels * watts / 1000      # 16 kW
annual  = kw * kwh_per_kw             # 20,000 kWh/yr
savings = annual * price              # $3,600/yr
payback = install_cost / savings      # years

print(f"{kw:.0f} kW - {annual:,.0f} kWh/yr - ${savings:,.0f}/yr")
print(f"Simple payback: {payback:.1f} years")

So at a flat tariff you break even around year 11 and finish the 15-year window roughly $13k ahead. I cross-checked the yield against NREL PVWatts. Want me to factor in rising energy prices and panel degradation?

Yes, assume energy prices rise 4% a year and the panels degrade 0.5% a year.
Claude

With escalation and degradation the break-even pulls in nicely:

  • Price escalation: 4%/yr   Degradation: 0.5%/yr
  • Adjusted break-even: ~9.8 years
  • 15-year net: ~$28,400
cum, rows = -install_cost, []
for yr in range(1, 16):
    yield_yr = annual * (1 - 0.005) ** (yr - 1)   # degradation
    tariff   = price  * (1 + 0.04) ** (yr - 1)    # escalation
    cum     += yield_yr * tariff
    rows.append((yr, round(cum)))

print(rows[-1])      # (15, 28362)

Plotting both cases against the up-front cost:

Line chart of cumulative net savings: the flat tariff breaks even at 11.4 years, the 4%/yr escalated case at 9.8 years

The 4% tariff growth more than offsets the half-percent degradation, so the escalated curve steepens and crosses break-even almost two years sooner. I'd present the escalated case as the headline and keep the flat case as the conservative floor.

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