Two years ago we flipped the switch on our solar panels. It’s hard to believe we’ve had them that long. They’re still a bit of a novelty for us, and we check often to see how much power we’re generating.

Last year, I took a look back at our first year, remembering some of the highs and lows, and calculating how much we’d made and how long it would be until we’d made as much money as we invested in the panels.

I’ve been waiting to do the same thing again and see what progress we’ve made.

Last year, my calculations were only based on part of the year. While the panels were live as of the end of April, we didn’t receive our first cheque from the hydro company until July. This year is the first time we have a full 12 months of payments.

Just in case you’re new to our solar saga or don’t remember all the details, we’re part of Ontario’s microFIT program. Under this program, we install solar panels, and then the power that we generate goes back into the provincial grid. The province pays us $0.396/kWh. You can read about the whole saga of Going Solar here.

But now onto this year’s report.

The grand total that we made on the solar panels last year was $4,473.91–up just a bit more than $850 over the year before.

So what does this look like? Something like this. The golden yellow is this year and bright yellow is last year.

We had a better fall and winter this year compared to last year. Everybody knows it was a much milder winter, but it was also sunnier.

I was often amazed when Matt told me at the end of the day how much we’d made. When the sun’s in the southern hemisphere, it sometimes doesn’t matter how bright it gets during the day. The angle of the sun is just so bad that there’s no way our panels produce at their max. But even in the depths of winter we had days where we were making double digits, which was a huge win.

The other huge win this year was finally getting our HST refund. This is the 13% sales tax we pay in Ontario on pretty much everything–including the labour and materials to install our panels. Because we run the solar almost like our own small business, we’re able to claim a portion of the tax–in the amount of more than $4,000.

Our other big numbers were finally setting a new daily record when we finally broke the $28 mark and making $831 more than we spent on electricity for the whole year.

Because it was such a mild winter, we didn’t have any issues with snow on the panels like we did last year. Even the ice storm wasn’t a big deal.

In fact, now that we have them, we really don’t have to do anything–except count the deposits to our bank account.

Last year, I estimated that it would take about 9 years and 4 months before our income equaled the investment we made in the panels. When the panels were first installed, I thought 8 1/2 years was a realistic estimate. Using this year’s numbers, the payback period would be just over 9 years.

This is definitely a long term investment, but the money is only part of the equation for me. I really feel alternative energies like solar are something we need more in the world. And I feel like I have a personal responsibility to support these alternatives as I can.

At the farm, we rely on our own well for water and our septic for sewage, we have geothermal for heat and air conditioning, and we generate power for the grid through these solar panels. Plus we’re preserving 129 acres, doing our best to be responsible stewards of our own little chunk of the earth.