Solar savings don't add up

Would you spend $3,750 to save $3.75 a month on your electric bill? Why would Schneider Electric spend $750,000 on solar panels in order to save $750 a month ($9,000 per year) on their electric bill as highlighted in the Daily Herald's Business section on Dec. 11?

Dividing $750,000 by $750 reveals it will take one thousand months or a little over 83 years to recoup the cost of installing solar panels that blot out the view of their facility in Palatine.

According to the article, the panels are expected to last for about 40 years. If the solar panels remain maintenance free for the entire 40 year life span, Schneider Electric will recoup less than half the installation cost.

Is there some form of a perpetual motion machine here that I have overlooked? Closer reading of the article reveals that Schneider Electric only invested $90,000 in the $750,000 system with you and me paying the remaining $660,000. How you ask: by confiscating it from us in taxes and rewarding it to them in federal and state tax incentives and tax credits. Maybe I missed something but I don't remember agreeing to subsidize Schneider Electric's electric bill, do you?

Taking money out of your pocket and putting it into mine isn't perpetual motion and taking our money to pay for someone else's inefficient but politically correct electricity isn't either; it is socialism, it is wasteful and it has to stop.

Mike Butz

Bartlett