Solar panels paying dividends

Last year I made some major changes on my home and had a saltwater swimming pool installed. One of the drawbacks was that my electric bill shot up, due to the cost of running the pumps. At the peak, my bill was running nearly $600 per month; a result of higher rates per kilowatt as you move into higher tiers of usage.

To help offset those costs, I changed our hot water heater from electric to propane and installed an electric generating solar system (not to be confused with the solar heating system I installed with the pool – which keeps the pools at a pleasant 82 degrees).

Solar voltaic...