- 20 January, 2009 11:19 AM EST
- My Head Is Pounding
Why, you ask, is my head pounding? Maybe it's the three gentlemen above the roof of my home office pounding with hammers as they install a photovoltaic electric system. Yes - I'm going green. While there are many reasons for me to do it, for me the main driver is opportunistic economics. As I see it, my electrical bill is not going down anytime soon. At present, where I live, the State Government is willing to pay for 20% and the Federal Government is willing to pay 30% of the installation cost. That's 50% off. At that price, I'll make my entire electrical bill go away and receive approximately 20% annual return on my investment and a payback period of about 5 years. I cannot think of anything else that will provide a fairly safe 20% return on investment. Are there risks? Sure. Some claim costs of these systems will fall by 50% in the next few years. I don't see what will cause that to happen. If anything, they'll go up. Most are not made locally. There is a relatively good chance we will see inflation where I live, potentially causing prices to go up. Foreign-made goods may go up faster. In addition, the tax credits could potentially disappear - especially the State tax credits. So, this is it. I'll suffer through a few days of pounding on the roof above and have to part with a fairly significant amount of money, but I'm fairly confident that the returns I get will be solid.
What's the point? Well, I think this is a good example of finding the opportunity in chaos. In one fell swoop, I'm flexing my social responsibility and going green, and making what I think is a rock solid investment with fantastic returns. I believe these types of opportunities are rampant. If there are things that needed to get done, now may be the time. Most will negotiate. Prices on most goods are lower than normal in most geographies globally. If you have the capital, now may be a good time for certain types of investments - particularly infrastructure.
