If you have your own solar power system, you literally own the power company. Heck, you ARE the power company. It can be a big chunk, at first, but over the long term you should save some big bucks. Like the big power company, you’ll have maintenance costs, but at least you won’t have to replace 10,000 poles next time a hurricane or ice storm rolls through. The big power companies know that solar is the cheapest power source now, so follow their lead!
I own another power company, too, or at least some shares of it. First there were shares of one of the local power companies. The GOOD company, not the one that supplies me. Then there were shares in this hot shot company that is buying up other power companies and installing solar farms all over Florida and other places. Then they bought the local power company.
The “financial advisor” says I need to sell some shares. I have too much. It upsets the balance. Maybe sometime I will sell, but here is a company that is making money hand over fist while investing in loads of solar power. Just imagine the profits they’ll have when they finish all the solar farms, quit buying coal, quit buying natural gas and use up their last nuclear rod? Sell? No way. They pay good dividends.
I think it was Don Lancaster who suggested this sort of investing to pay your bills. Invest in what you use. You eat, so invest in a profitable food company. You drink, so invest in a beverage company (this has been the crown jewels in my family for over a century). You wear pants…and so on. So why not a power company? Since most power companies are keen on solar for THEIR use but don’t really want you to have it, wouldn’t there be a sweet irony to you using their dividends to build YOUR solar power system?
Well is there a future in power companies? Some thoughts there: Yes, because not everybody can do their own solar power system. Yes, because as electric cars catch on they’ll need power, too. Yes, because we keep finding more ways to use more electricity. Yes, because they get rate hikes tied to costs, so they are guaranteed to make money.
I don’t use much power from my grid provider, but they charge a lot anyway, because they are corrupt and inefficient. I’ll pay the bill with my dividend checks from the other company. I’ll also keep making most of my own electricity and maybe get to spend what I don’t get billed, assuming I ever quit expanding the system! Maybe I can just put that expense down to “entertainment”, because I really enjoy this stuff!–Neal