Solar Energy & Well Water

With rising energy and water costs does it make sense to invest in either or both Solar energy and digging a well? Anyone out there have experience with either of these?

I've looked into digging a well and it looks like it would cost around $15,000. If you were able to get enough gallons per minute from the well your payback on the investment would be a year or less.

Thanks.

I've got wells at all of my sites. No softners. But I use city water for RO generation and it's reject for mixing with soap.

As with a home swiming pool, solar collectors mounted on a rooftop can be used to generate warm water.

If you subtract out the hundreds of thousands of tax dollars (federal grant money) that is usually involved in purchasing and installing one solar panel system to convert sunlight to electricity to power a car wash, the benefit cost would be negative.

Arguably, one good way to save electricity is conserve its use; variable frequency drives, air gates on dryers, low-energy lights (i.e. LED), modern software, etc.

If the flow rate is acceptable, the supply is reasonably assured and the well water doesn't require too much pre-treatment, a private well can make sense.

You may also want to check with the city because some areas restrict the use of private wells during times of drought.

PV solar- Likely to be a poor ROI, unless strong incentives are available through your local utility and state govt. I saw one owner discussion of this where the utility agreed to pay market rates well above what they paid for other sources of electricity, and the ROI was still around 10%

If you have good access, a well is the best bet for decent ROI of the two.