# First time electric bill



## begreen (Jul 7, 2015)

We just got our June electric bill. We made almost 1MW of solar power. All that was on it was the basic service charge of  $7.87. No charges in spite of regularly fueling up the car on electrons. Got to love that!


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## drz1050 (Jul 7, 2015)

Basic service is $17 here, before the 0.28/ kwh charge for usage.. gotta love National Greed


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## Babaganoosh (Jul 7, 2015)

What was the cost of solar? Also how long did you calculate to break even?


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## begreen (Jul 7, 2015)

That's a little complicated as we installed in 2 phases, the first 2.9KW installed a few years ago and the second 2.5KW installed last December. The second phase was predicted to pay back in 4.5 yrs but at this rate we are ahead of schedule. Cost is high as only WA state made components are used. That is balanced out by a high incentive payback. I have to head out now but will dig up the costs later.


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## EatenByLimestone (Jul 7, 2015)

drz1050 said:


> Basic service is $17 here, before the 0.28/ kwh charge for usage.. gotta love National Greed




Same service charge and $.236 per kWh.  I wonder if the tax structure is different for Saratoga vs schenectady counties.


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## jebatty (Jul 8, 2015)

Congratulations on that 0 kwh bill. 1 MW in a month for a 5.4 kw system is very good - 185 kwh/kw of system DC rating. In the last 30 days my 12.3 kw system produced 1840 kwh of energy - 150 kwh/kw of DC rating, and that might be the highest 30 day output I've had.

My wife and I are looking forward to an all-electric car in the not too distant future, a big part of the reason for expanding our system.


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## Jerry_NJ (Jul 8, 2015)

May be the new lexicon but 1 MW of power tells me nothing.  Energy is what you are buying/using and it has to have use time included, e.g., get your electric bill in KWH, Kilowatt Hours. I real big time (industry) I suppose it would be discussed in MWH, Megawatt Hours. 

So, begreen, I'd be helped if you can explain, seems others have no problem.  For starters, if you are residential, I can not believe you have a Megawatt solar array (can deliver a megawatt) nor can I believe/understand how you produced or used a Megawatt Hour of energy.  As introduced, I may just be behind, but I think I have a basic understanding of electrical terminology and am guy who has spent some time monitoring electric power consumption starting checking the calibration on the electric meter, and using recording KWH tools..


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## begreen (Jul 8, 2015)

Sorry, I should have said kWh. 986kWh power generated for the month of June which was the billing period.


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## jebatty (Jul 8, 2015)

begreen, no confusion on my part: 1 MW in a month to me meant 1 MWH (1000 kwh) of electricity produced during the monthly billing period). Very good.


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## begreen (Jul 8, 2015)

I think this is helped in part by pointing the second array toward the SW. That reduces clipping time at the peak (inverter is only capable of 4.5kW and widens the bell curve by picking up more afternoon light. In Sept. I will swing the array back to South for the winter. There is much less chance of hitting peak then.


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## Jerry_NJ (Jul 9, 2015)

Thanks, my home, all electric including geothermal heat pump, uses perhaps 500 KWH in the low use period when all hot water is produced on resistive heating.    High usage is 
2,000 KWH February.   So an array like yours could carry half my high month load, and have a surplus several months per year.  Unfortunately, the array produces the high output when the load demand is at its lowest.  My heat pump generated hot water is at its low in the summer when air conditioning is throwing heat away.

Sorry if I am/was a distraction, read the post for some reason I can't now recall, I do not have solar power generation.


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## begreen (Jul 9, 2015)

We have an air to air heat pump. The way I see it works out seasonally is that during the summer one is putting money in the "solar" bank for use in winter. The car charging is icing on the cake.


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## Jerry_NJ (Jul 9, 2015)

Being in the Seattle area an air-to-air hp is the way to go...you don't have much heating below 30 degrees, as I recall... to put a date on when I am recalling I was paying 7/10th of a cent per KWH when I moved from Seattle, graduated from U of W with a BSEE and moved East.  Not sure that was the best idea, but it got me paid through graduate school.. and I had a wife and daughter by the time I graduated from U of W. 

What I also recall, not much sun shine, but recall Sequim seemed to be the sunny spot.  I still have a bother-in-law living there.


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## begreen (Jul 9, 2015)

Sequim is sunnier and drier. Pioneers found cactus growing there when they first arrived. Yes that rate had to be quite a while back. It was 3 cents/kWh when we lived in Seattle 25 yrs ago. Now I think it is 6 cents, but don't hold me to it. We are on PSE which is 10 cents/kWh. The heat pump is great for our extended shoulder seasons, though we heat with wood when it gets below 45F. The hp will kick on sometimes during the night if I get lazy and don't stoke the fire. Nice to have that option.


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## 5654684 (Jul 9, 2015)

I understood what you meant when you said "almost 1MW of solar power", when you defined it as being produced over one month. 

I have been in a few of these discussions and it all falls back to proper electrical terminology.

A Watt is a Watt is a Watt, and always a capital W
A kW is 1000 Watts, or a kilo Watt
A MW is 1000 kW, or a Mega Watt
A mW is a thousandth of a Watt, or a milli Watt

and as always, the qualifier in our systems, is the /h, the measure of power per hour.

There is no KWH, or MwH, or any of that.

That all being said, our household just crossed the 4 MWh barrier today on our solar array.


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## jebatty (Jul 10, 2015)

What about pico, nano and micro? Seriously, terminology is important to make sure we all are talking about the same thing. Our system produced 3.3 MWh for the May-June period, the first two months the full 12.3kW array has been active.


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## Jags (Jul 10, 2015)

I prefer Hella.  Look it up...its real.
"1,000 yottabytes? That's hellabytes."


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## Highbeam (Jul 10, 2015)

Jags said:


> I prefer Hella.  Look it up...its real.
> "1,000 yottabytes? That's hellabytes."



Remember when we used to use those Hella brand lights on the cars/trucks? Had Hella H4s.

We had an exceptionally sunny June in WA this year. Records were set, grass is dead, days are longest and sun is highest in June. This is about as good as it gets for solar production.


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## Jerry_NJ (Jul 10, 2015)

Not sure there is any benefit worrying about upper/lower case, but be sure there is a unit of energy KWH, kwh, KWh....a number determined and agreed, perhaps not here, as all being the same.  I prefer all caps.  In any case one has to multiply watts by time to get energy, what we are generating and buying from the electric company.  The convention, seems not here, is  to use hours... and for household usage scale it up to thousand watts and times hours.  This results in a reasonable 'magnitude" number such as 500 or 1000.  For me as high as 2000.  

As for "There is no KWH, or MwH, or any of that" the statement is patently wrong, time to go back and read some electricity 101 is my suggestion, not discuss it here... and yes you have the right to disagree, if you wonder who is right simply "Google" the terms as see what that answer is.

My only comment to "begreen" who I've "known" and respected over the years, since 2008, is his usage of 1MW (a unit with a power dimension, not energy).  I recognized and accept it as Jargon of this forum, and can forecast that the casual reader may not know what is being said.  The casual reader here intended to mean a reader who has some basic understanding of the dimensions used to measure properties important to discussion in "The Green Room".

Begreen, I graduated from the U of W in 1966, yes we used KWH back then too...   The electric cost for someone heating with oil, as I did, was so low the power company bill us every other month, to make it worth the cost of billing.   Just guessing, but as we didn't have air conditioning my monthly power usage was likely under 200 KWH, or $14 + service charge, bet the service charge then was the real profit center : )  No, I can't testify there was a service charge back then, seem, likely.

I came from Colorado, the Sun Shine State, but loved Seattle.  The Navy brought me to Seattle and my wife and afterward to my undergraduate school.  I loved Seattle, my wife, a native, hated it.. but later she was diagnosed with clinical depression, suppose that had something to do with not dealing well with the rain and clouds.  A professor I had once (or often) looked out the widow and said when some sun shined through, "there's the rain light"... it is getting ready to rain. .


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## BrotherBart (Jul 10, 2015)

Actually the notation is kWh.


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## 5654684 (Jul 10, 2015)

I almost forgot, kudos to you for amazing solar production, begreen!


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## begreen (Jul 11, 2015)

Thanks. As Highbeam noted, this is at least in part due to the fact that we had an amazingly sunny June. A few years back and the results would have been much less satisfying. Such is spring in the NW.


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## woodgeek (Jul 11, 2015)

begreen said:


> Thanks. As Highbeam noted, this is at least in part due to the fact that we had an amazingly sunny June. A few years back and the results would have been much less satisfying. Such is spring in the NW.



I think you mean NWh.


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