Today’s green guest blogger is Charlie Burrows with an article about one very big benefit of doing your part. It not only is good for the environment and conserving energy and resources, solar directly saves you money and in a lot of cases your investment in solar can even give you immediate positive cash flow.

“Solar PV Systems: If they are good for the Earth and they save you money, why not?”

Solar energy. As soon as the phrase is uttered or mentioned you can guarantee there will be at least one person (at least where I live) that rolls their eyes or “tuts” it away as some magical myth that hippies and Green Peace and earth-friendly veterans have made up to stop us from using those nasty carbon dioxide emitting devices we all use. Well, admittedly it was probably worse a few years ago than it is now but the stigma still lingers around solar power and incredibly it is still not being taken seriously. As a fairly logical and straight forward thinking individual I am inclined to look at things with an icy cold clarity, pondering the ultimate question: How much will it cost and will it save me money?

The answer to the latter part of the question is yes of course it is going to save you money. No matter what you may think of “hippies” or Green Peace or anyone that favors solar panel technology (myself included), I think it’s safe to say we are not stupid and without logical thought. This technology was introduced as an alternative method for generating energy but in a more eco-friendly way. It has succeeded and not only that but it does save money in the long run. Like with anything, there is an initial output of cost but even this is not astronomical and the benefits easily outweigh installation costs. These include:

Electric bills being reduced (we all like this one)

You are reducing your Carbon footprint as your shiny new system is not emitting any harmful CO2 to the atmosphere. For a standard system it could save over 30 tonnes of CO2 during its lifespan. That is an enormous amount even as a general estimated figure.

If you sell your property you can command a higher price due to your existing installation.

Some figures show you can actually get a better rate of return by investing in a Solar PV system than by using a bank account or ISA.

You are not relying on a limited resource in order to run your system and sunlight will always be available.

The list could go on there really are that many positives to installing Solar Panel technology. The Feed in Tariff is ever changing it seems, with the Government assessing costs etc. but you can also make money by selling unused energy back to the grid if you have a surplus amount you don’t use.

Normally I am the first to be skeptical about new technology or anything that has an all-singing, all-dancing list of benefits but let’s face it, solar pv installers and various systems have been available for a while now and the gradual popularity of them can be seen across the country and indeed, across other countries but still this stigma persists of it being something that is “not real” or “not as good as they say it is”.

So again I ask, why shouldn’t we be investing in what is a clearly productive, cost-effective and eco-friendly scheme that saves money and contributes to the world we live in? It’s a no-brainer.