Practicing what he preaches, EEM doctoral candidate Ariel Castillo completed a solar installation on his home in 2010. Ariel, who is conducting research on solar power under a grant from the Solar Institute, said that his installation included 18 230 watt SunModules and 18 micro inverters. Ariel calculates that 70-80% of the costs paid in the first year by various Federal, Virginia and Fairfax County incentives, as well as from selling SRECs . By way of comparison of costs to conventional power from the grid, Ariel determined that power costs from his solar installation, after incentives and SRECs, will be about $2.00 per watt, as compared to about $7.00 per watt for typical residential power in Virginia. And, Ariel says, "that's not counting longer term payback components such as increased value of the real estate and utility savings."
