Cost of PV systems and landscaping over lava and other financial questions (Kailua: for sale)

[MakamaeNeNe]

I will be looking for a home to purchase next week while visiting. (We opted to buy right away against all opinions to rent first-- there are personal reasons for this.) Anyway, as I'm looking at homes and we are trying to identify a budget, I have a few cost questions:

1. Does anyone know the going rate, in general ($5000-10000 range is fine) for a photovoltaic system that we would purchase and have installed? The size would be 20 panels, if I had to estimate, for a 1200 square foot home. Then, does it double for a 40 panel system for a larger home? If not, what would you estimate the larger system to cost?

2. If we were to opt for a home that has lava as its entire landscaping (in Kailua Kona area), because it is new construction, what would you estimate the cost of some basic landscaping-- trucking in soil and planting a small amount of grass (maybe 400-600 square feet), a few tropical beds, maybe a 8000-10000 square foot lot?

3. What is the cost of garbage pickup by companies on Kona side?

4. What is the cost of a solar hot water heater with installation? And, how often do they require service?

5. If we were looking to cut back overgrowth on a property, and clean up for nicer, but still fairly basic landscaping, what would you estimate that cost to be, including labor? (area to be landscaped maybe 5000 square feet.)

6. What is the cost of flood insurance in the high risk flood zones?

And here are a few, other related questions since you're already reading (thank you!!)--

7. Why does it seem like there are a high percentage of homes for sale in Pualani Estates right now? Is there something wrong with the community or risk for increase in taxes, etc?

8. Why do I look at some homes, same square footage (within 10%) and the taxes for one may be $1000/year while the other are up to $4000/year? Is there an appeal process?

9. If a home has a "water feature" (little pond with a motor to move the water), should we still expect that mosquitos will breed there? Would the presence of some intended plants increase this (i.e., placed lily pads)? Would the presence of fish decrease the number of hatching mosquitos?

10. Regarding the overgrown plots of land-- should I expect a fairly quick clearance of pests (cockroaches, centipedes, mosquitos, etc...) after cleaning the property up?

Thank you to anyone and everyone who is willing to help answer these questions!!!

[MakamaeNeNe]

One more question-- what is the monthly cost difference in leasing panels and buying that energy versus HECO cost? Maybe per month, for example, a 10% change, 50% change? Thanks!

[hotzcatz]

Haven't a clue.

Electric rates run about .44 cents a kilowatt hour so use that to make calculations.

We just buy our systems since the payback time is usually less than 6 or 7 years, especially when you factor in the tax rebates and such. Once a grid tie PV system is installed, there aren't a lot of moving parts to wear out, I don't know if/when they'll ever need to be replaced. Also, if you own your system, you're not at the mercy of who-ever-it-is that 'owns' the panels if they decide to change things on you later.

We had a 1.5 kW battery bank system on one house that we sold for more than we paid for it when we switched to the 4kW grid tie system on the other house.

[terracore]

Our electricity rates haven't been .44 cents a kilowatt hour since the price of oil was $115/barrel. I did a quick calculation from my last electrical bill and it came out to .32 cents, but that was including all the monthly fees that would still be there if I used zero electricity. So our rate has to be substantially less than .32 cents/KWH. I had heard it was down to .22 but I couldn't verify that. Our "energy cost adjustment" is a negative amount so it lowers the bill, not raises it. At our house it is about -$8.50/month.

Edited to add: Our solar hot water system cost about $5500 (materials and installation), but after all the rebates, tax credits and incentives were applied, the net cost was about $1700.

I'm not sure about maintenance. We haven't done any in the 4 years we've had it, though this year we will probably have to clean the panels but I will do that myself. At this point we consider that the solar hot water system has already more than paid for itself. Our electricity bill has been under $100 almost every month since our daughter went off to college 2 years ago.

In addition to the solar hot water we line dry 90% of our clothes and we don't have air conditioning, and we have converted all our lighting to LED, and we have "energy star" appliances.

Until the cost of solar comes down, or the price of electricity goes up (both are likely) we saved a lot more money by investing in conservation than we can save by converting to solar. When that equation changes, we'll probably go to PV, but our last electricity bill was $87. There is no way a payment on a whole-house solar system would be that low for us.

[Dreaming of Hawaii]

Well, I guess the cost of electricity depends on who you believe. A website called Hawaii Energy says that it is currently 29.8 cents per kwH on the Big Island, but a website called Electricity Local says that the rate is 42.47 cents. This is 2016 information on both sites. According to HECO, as of April 2015 the cost per kwH was 32.1 cents on the BI.

[terracore]

29.8 cents is a lot closer to the 32 reflected in the bill I just paid than 42.47.