Switching to renewable energy is such a win-win: for your long term financial savings and for the environment. But choosing a system can be a daunting task! Many default to solar when thinking of switching to renewable energy, but there are other options available that can make more sense for your unique situation. Here's a guide to how to choose the right renewable energy source.

1. Assess your energy needs

The first step is to assess your energy needs. The easiest way of doing this is looking at your electricity bill. If you are planning for a system other than the one you currently use, try out this Excel spreadsheet. The average American uses about 1250 Watts per day.

2. Assess your resources

3. Assess state and federal incentives

Federal incentives are phasing out. Small solar energy systems are eligible for a 30% federal tax credit through 2019. The tax credit decreases to 26% in 2020, then to 22% in 2021, and expires December 31, 2021.

State incentives vary widely. The Database of State Incentive for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE) allows you to search state incentive by zip code. Incentives are only available to those who purchase rather than lease a system. A variety of financing options are usually available, see this useful guide to help navigate them.

4. Compare costs

Obtain estimates for your energy source(s) of choice, with the addition of available incentives and potential energy produced by each source. While solar energy is often the cheapest renewable option, it does depend on state incentives and on the unique situation of the area at hand.

Other considerations: storing energy

Storing energy is a complicated problem that we’ll tackle in another post. The basics of it are that normally the power to your house is connected to an electricity grid. If you have solar panels on your house, the energy they create actually goes into the grid, not necessarily directly into your house. The energy company calculates how much you put into the grid versus how much you take out- this is also why you can turn on the lights when it’s dark out if you have solar panels. If you’d like to go “off-grid” or disconnect from the power grid you must have a solution for storing energy if you’d like to be able to turn on the lights at night and run your refrigerator (unless you have a constant source of energy like microhydropower).

Final notes

Because renewable energy relies on… renewable… resources, it is hard to make an across-the-board comparison. We recommend considering solar, wind and microhydropower and making a choice based on energy potential and cost. It is of course also possible to combine systems! This may allow you to take advantage of say, the round-the-clock availability of microhydropower with the abundance of solar energy. There are also options to pool resources and create a community-based system rather than an individual residential system.