Buy Victory Panels

In the past ten years, we’ve installed solar panels on my house three times. This year we’ll do it again. We save for a while, buy panels, earn our money back on sunshine, electrify more systems in our house and then repeat.

Through all the industry changes, the reduction in panel costs, and fluctuating incentives, I’m often asked, when is the best time to buy? My answer: every time. Every single time we spent money on solar panels it ended up being one of the best purchases of our lives.

Why? Because financials are only part of the story. While solar panels can, and should, make some economic sense, I can speak from experience (as a proud owner of 40 of them) that there is so much more to PV than ROI.

Beyond ROI — The Unquantifiable Benefits

Having solar panels means experiencing the unique, incredible, and unquantifiable pride in producing your own power. As I type this article, electrons that were sitting in silicon solar cells on my roof, just a nano-second ago, are now rushing through cables and providing electricity to my computer. My car is charging on these same electrons, which are also making my dishwasher and hot water heater run. I’m harvesting energy from the sun like a plant and the ineffable satisfaction of running my entire home from this infinite clean source is enormous.

Solar panel owners also get to bask in energy independence. Gasoline prices may go up, utilities may raise rates, and yet our panels make us are immune from this variability. We’ve locked in our price of electricity, and inflation, OPEC, and other energy price influencers become irrelevant.

There is also the pleasure of knowing that we’re no longer sending our money to oil state oligarchs or supporting deepwater drilling; that we no longer carve coal from hillsides with our dollars or contaminate water with fracked gas. With solar panels, we are our own mini power company quietly rivaling the Enrons and Chevrons of the world. Our invested dollars not only produce clean energy but put any earnings back into our own middle-class pockets.

Finally, Solar panels give us small folks the rare chance to do something empowering in the face of myriad forces beyond our control. As heat records rise and wildfire smoke contaminates our air, how great to feel part of the solution, to feel like you’re putting your shoulder to the wheel and pushing ourselves and our society in the clean energy direction we need to go.

It’s like buying Victory Bonds during World War II — we’re pooling small resources into a greater cause with enormous potential if there is mass buy-in.

So why not take part in this Victory Panel movement? Make the decision to put solar panels on your roof. Don’t wait for perfect incentives or legislation or new shingles in 15 years or for the prices to come down more than they already have. Scientists tell us we don’t have time. Solar is within reach today and provides so many enormous personal and community benefits in addition to financial payback.

Your tomorrow is in your hands today.

Buy Victory Panels.

Joe Wachunas is a passionate environmentalist. He works at the nonprofit Solar Oregon that educates and advocates for clean energy. He also works at the nonprofit Forth which advocates for electric, shared, and smart mobility. He lives in a net-zero home with solar panels that charge his electric car.