Free tool
Generator, UPS & Solar Cost Comparison
Compare a generator subscription, your own generator, an inverter battery system and solar over five years in US dollars and Lebanese pounds, with the cost per kilowatt hour for each.
Four ways to keep the power on, costed over five years in both US dollars and Lebanese pounds. Everything is editable, including the exchange rate, because the rate moves and a calculator with a fixed rate is wrong within a month. The honest answer is usually a combination rather than one option, and the table shows why.
Cost over the period
| Option | Up front | Each year | Total | Total in LBP | Per kWh |
|---|
Reading the cost per kilowatt hour
The total is what leaves your pocket, but the cost per kilowatt hour is what lets you compare things that are not really alike. It takes everything, the purchase, the fuel, the servicing and the batteries you will replace, and divides it by every unit of energy the system will actually deliver over the period. A generator subscription has almost no up front cost and the worst rate per unit. Solar has the worst up front cost and, if you keep it long enough, usually the best rate. The crossover point is the only number that matters when deciding, and it moves with the fuel price.
Why the subscription figure is calculated from amperes
Neighbourhood generator supply is sold by the ampere rather than by the unit, which hides what you are paying. Five amperes at 220 volts is about 1.1 kilowatts, so the energy it can deliver depends entirely on how many hours the generator runs. The tool converts your subscription into the kilowatt hours it can actually deliver during the outage hours you entered, then prices it. That is what makes it comparable with the other three, and it is usually the moment people realise how expensive the convenient option is.
It also shows the ceiling. A subscription does not just cost money, it limits you. Exceed the amperes you pay for and the breaker goes, which is why an air conditioner and a water heater cannot both run on a small subscription no matter how the bill is paid.
Batteries are a running cost, not a purchase
The most common mistake in costing an inverter system is treating the batteries as part of the up front price. They are stock that wears out. A lead acid bank cycled hard every single day will not see four years, and replacing it is a cost that arrives whether or not it was budgeted. Lithium costs far more at purchase and often works out cheaper per unit delivered, because it survives more cycles, tolerates deeper discharge and loses less energy on every round trip. That is why the efficiency and replacement interval above change the answer so much.
The honest conclusion
Very few sites are best served by one option alone. A common arrangement is solar carrying the daytime load, batteries covering the evening, and a generator or a small subscription kept for the worst week of winter when the sun does not appear for days. Use the comparison to see which option deserves the largest share of the budget, then size the rest around it.