REWahoo
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give
I'm looking for input/opinions:
Our electric co-op has a new pilot program offering to lease co-op members without solar panels (that's us) a whole house battery backup system. The offer is for a 10 year lease (early termination fee of up to $500) with no up front installation charge. I can lease one or two 25 kWh batteries at a cost of $37/mo per battery, including tax. The co-op owns and manages the batteries, handling all maintenance and warranty-related work.
Here's the catch: The batteries will be used to help support the grid when needed but will always reserve a minimum of 50% of the battery capacity for our use if we lose power. The co-op will also provide us with a monthly bill credit (currently set at a flat $40) to pay for the electricity to charge/recharge the batteries.
We live in a rural area in an all-electric home, no gas. When the power goes out we lose all services, even water. We experience two or three outages every year, generally lasting only a few hours, but have had longer outages. I have a portable generator which we have used to run a window a/c unit or portable heater if the outage was in the peak of the summer or winter. That involves running extension cords and always making sure I have fresh fuel for the generator, which is a bit of a pain. That's why this offer has caught my interest.
Some brief research says the cost to purchase an installed whole house battery system of that size would be $25,000 or more, something that doesn't come anywhere close to passing my cost/benefit threshold. But leasing a two battery system for $74/mo is tempting.
The co-op says they will lease only 20 batteries in this pilot program and I got my application in early so I'm on the list. I got a call Friday saying all the info and the photos I sent with my initial interest form look good, all that is remaining is for them to come out and get an in-person look next week, then sign the lease agreement.
Thoughts?
Our electric co-op has a new pilot program offering to lease co-op members without solar panels (that's us) a whole house battery backup system. The offer is for a 10 year lease (early termination fee of up to $500) with no up front installation charge. I can lease one or two 25 kWh batteries at a cost of $37/mo per battery, including tax. The co-op owns and manages the batteries, handling all maintenance and warranty-related work.
Here's the catch: The batteries will be used to help support the grid when needed but will always reserve a minimum of 50% of the battery capacity for our use if we lose power. The co-op will also provide us with a monthly bill credit (currently set at a flat $40) to pay for the electricity to charge/recharge the batteries.
We live in a rural area in an all-electric home, no gas. When the power goes out we lose all services, even water. We experience two or three outages every year, generally lasting only a few hours, but have had longer outages. I have a portable generator which we have used to run a window a/c unit or portable heater if the outage was in the peak of the summer or winter. That involves running extension cords and always making sure I have fresh fuel for the generator, which is a bit of a pain. That's why this offer has caught my interest.
Some brief research says the cost to purchase an installed whole house battery system of that size would be $25,000 or more, something that doesn't come anywhere close to passing my cost/benefit threshold. But leasing a two battery system for $74/mo is tempting.
The co-op says they will lease only 20 batteries in this pilot program and I got my application in early so I'm on the list. I got a call Friday saying all the info and the photos I sent with my initial interest form look good, all that is remaining is for them to come out and get an in-person look next week, then sign the lease agreement.
Thoughts?