# What was your interconnection fee??



## Jeepman401 (Feb 7, 2015)

Been getting serious about putting up a 3000 or 4000watt system to start...then found out about my utlities fee...This is in Willmar, MN. Anyone else from MN that has had to pay this fee please let me know. Also are you charged any "net-metering" fees?
This just seems way out of line from what I've heard so far...


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## Valhalla (Feb 7, 2015)

WOW...


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## Jeepman401 (Feb 8, 2015)

Thats what I thought...no private resident in town has a PV system that is grid-tied. I
 think I know why now.


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## jebatty (Feb 8, 2015)

I'm going to guess you are looking at the wrong application form. What I see for this form is something that may apply to generation over 40kw, or possibly to commercial generation. I seriously doubt that it applies to residential PV and net metering under MN law.


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## peakbagger (Feb 8, 2015)

That does look like a commercial application but unless forced by state regulations, many small utilities do not want small PV and use regulations like this to prevent PV.

I assume you have reviewed this http://www.dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=MN10R&re=0&ee=0

It looks to me like there may be relief from your state legislature but I expect small utilities may conveniently be "forgetting" about their new obligations.


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## Where2 (Feb 8, 2015)

Write to your utility and ask for the "Residential PV Interconnect Agreement Paperwork". Where I live, anything under 10kW has a different set of playing rules. Over 10kW, I need to provide an insurance rider with the local power company as the beneficiary in the event that my gear damages their grid, and some ridiculous fee like that.


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## Jeepman401 (Feb 9, 2015)

Where2 said:


> Write to your utility and ask for the "Residential PV Interconnect Agreement Paperwork". Where I live, anything under 10kW has a different set of playing rules. Over 10kW, I need to provide an insurance rider with the local power company as the beneficiary in the event that my gear damages their grid, and some ridiculous fee like that.



I am going to be working with Paul at MinnSolar LLC. 
This is in the copy of the paper work that was handed to me by the electical engineer at the utlities that I was talking with about solar and getting grid tied with them. So I assumed this was the correct application. The engineer here tried talking me out of persuing Solar.(at least thats how I took it) I should cut back my use or not get grid connected because the application was expensive he said. Maybe I did get the wrong application, I hope so. 
Again I would be the only resident in town that would have solar grid tied, from what the engineer told me. I wonder how much of a learning curve that is going to be for them and me should I go all the way with it.


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## jebatty (Feb 9, 2015)

If you find the $5000 fee is correct, two suggestions, follow one or both: 1) contact your state senator and representative who represent your district and Governor Dayton. Plead your case. MN law is quite favorable to residential solar, and a local utility taking the fee route to block residential solar may get a cool reception. 2) go viral on this, find others who are interested in solar, hit the social media sites and let public rule on this. The point is that you are trying to conserve, something your utility supports through its various rebate programs, and your utility is blocking you (and others) from achieving conservation.


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## mr.fixit (Feb 9, 2015)

Seems like they are really discouraging solar,one way or another. One other way they do is with higher fixed monthly service fees.
If your monthly service fee hasn't gone up,it will. Ours is up to $28 a month,so for me that's $56 a month just for the service fee. My shop is metered separate for tax purposes.

So here,unless you cut the cord and go completely off-grid,a person can never eliminate their electric bill.


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## BrotherBart (Feb 9, 2015)

Why would you want to grid tie a system that can't even power a water heater?


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## begreen (Feb 9, 2015)

Because a water heater is quite intermittent in operation. The sun is more or less continuous. It's the total accumulation that matters. We usually get very sunny summers that make up in terms of watts produced for our grey winter. It helps of course to be in a state with a pro-active grid metering program and not one that is ALEC and Koch controlled. 

And then again some people heat hot water with gas or their boiler.


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## BrotherBart (Feb 9, 2015)

Just talking about the fact that you would not be doing much, if any, co-gen with that small a system. Just satisfying the requirements of the residence.


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## begreen (Feb 9, 2015)

Our background house load in an almost total electric house is about 300W. This is mostly phantom loads. The hot water spikes are short. Right now the heat pump is a longer load. But you are correct, at this time of the year on a cloudy day all we are doing is reducing our electrical bill a bit. In spring I'll have some good graphs of this once we get out of the long rainy spell we're in. During peak producing months with the heat pump off we are typically outproducing the household load.

Still, we only had 2900W installed for the past few years. Net gain still paid us $0.10 per KW generated off the bill every month and $0.54/KW generated once a year. That amounted to an annual check for about $1550. We just added another 2700W. With tax credits and incentives the payback will be less than 6 yrs. Return is about 6%/yr. That beat bonds and most dividends.

One can only put in as much solar as they have room for or that they can budget for. Even if it doesn't carry the house load 100% with net metering it should reduce the bill noticeably. How much varies a lot from state to state.


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## Jeepman401 (Feb 9, 2015)

BrotherBart said:


> Just talking about the fact that you would not be doing much, if any, co-gen with that small a system. Just satisfying the requirements of the residence.


That would be the point of the system to start with, satisfying my residence.
Not everyone owns a huge house, nor do they have huge electric bills. I have been heating with wood for the last 15 years and this year just got a new Blaze King stove and it has made wood heating much easier than before. So with that said I have no heat bill(also have a 15+ year supply of wood), there is no gas line on my property, no meter, no bill. I have used the old wood stove to heat my water for 5 years using a old solar water heater I bought for $100. That has paid for its self long ago. I could see a drop of at least $10 off my electric bill when winter came by that alone.

So having zero heat bills accomplished I am moving to the electric problem, solar seems an obvious choice. The town killed any meaningful wind power with a 25ft hight limit I would have by code here.
I also have a tankless LP water heater for summer use. Again, no meter, no bill there also. Is it possible to go off grid in town? Maybe...but that dang sewer bill has got me stuck. lol


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## Where2 (Feb 9, 2015)

Jeepman401 said:


> Is it possible to go off grid in town? Maybe...but that dang sewer bill has got me stuck. lol


It is possible, in the right town. If you bought a place in the wrong town the most cost effective fix is probably to move. Converting back from sewer to an onsite waste water disposal system is probably not allowed by town regulations. My wife and I bought a place 3/4 of a mile from the center of a town, with only an electric connection. No gas, no sewer, no city water. When we're not there, the electric bill including the first 100kWh runs $10.34 per month. Once I assemble my PV system on the roof, it'll still only cost me $10.34 per month, even when we are there... PV Watts says a 4.6kW system at our new property (45.8°N) will generate 4.3MWh/yr. My 4.4kW system at 26.8°N generated 6MWh the first year, that more than covered the cost of running A/C in South Florida.


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## Jeepman401 (Feb 9, 2015)

begreen said:


> Our background house load in an almost total electric house is about 300W. This is mostly phantom loads. The hot water spikes are short. Right now the heat pump is a longer load. But you are correct, at this time of the year on a cloudy day all we are doing is reducing our electrical bill a bit. In spring I'll have some good graphs of this once we get out of the long rainy spell we're in. During peak producing months with the heat pump off we are typically outproducing the household load.
> 
> Still, we only had 2900W installed for the past few years. Net gain still paid us $0.10 per KW generated off the bill every month and $0.54/KW generated once a year. That amounted to an annual check for about $1550. We just added another 2700W. With tax credits and incentives the payback will be less than 6 yrs. Return is about 6%/yr. That beat bonds and most dividends.
> 
> One can only put in as much solar as they have room for or that they can budget for. Even if it doesn't carry the house load 100% with net metering it should reduce the bill noticeably. How much varies a lot from state to state.





Where2 said:


> It is possible, in the right town. If you bought a place in the wrong town the most cost effective fix is probably to move. Converting back from sewer to an onsite waste water disposal system is probably not allowed by town regulations. My wife and I bought a place 3/4 of a mile from the center of a town, with only an electric connection. No gas, no sewer, no city water. When we're not there, the electric bill including the first 100kWh runs $10.34 per month. Once I assemble my PV system on the roof, it'll still only cost me $10.34 per month, even when we are there... PV Watts says a 4.6kW system at our new property (45.8°N) will generate 4.3MWh/yr. My 4.4kW system at 26.8°N generated 6MWh the first year, that more than covered the cost of running A/C in South Florida.


Yep once in town you are stuck paying to take a #2, but I grew up in the country and having your own sewer and/or well can get very expensive overnight. 
It's kind of funny, the engineer suggested a way around the fee and not grid tie and instead run what I want off solar. I thought for a moment...nah then told him I would rather just not have a bill. I know that they will charge a meter fee, but how much? I have room on the roof for 6kw, so its not like I'm in this to try to take money from the utility. I would be comfortable starting a smaller system to start, at the same time I would be installing power to the garage(new building) and upgrading the fuse panel in the house, so its now or never for the credit anyway.
The utlities is doing a rate hike this June and plan one for the next 3 years, so I will wait alittle while and see what they are doing as far as meter and customer charge and all the other they tack on. Seems there is a trend in MN to raise the all these fees much faster than the rate itself for the power.


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## georgepds (Feb 10, 2015)

BrotherBart said:


> Why would you want to grid tie a system that can't even power a water heater?


1)  Because you can avoid a big battery, and ,
2) if you have net mettering, you can bank the energy you produce in the summer for winter use


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## BrotherBart (Feb 10, 2015)

georgepds said:


> 1)  Because you can avoid a big battery, and ,
> 2) if you have net mettering, you can bank the energy you produce in the summer for winter use



Yeah I just read a piece I hadn't seen before. Just the savings on not having to invest in and maintain batteries is huge.


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## begreen (Feb 10, 2015)

With our common power failures when I first started looking at installing solar I really wanted to have battery backup. Then I started reading about their maintenance, failure rate, short lifespan and cost. Cured me pretty quickly.


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## BrotherBart (Feb 10, 2015)

I have the battery bank but no solar.


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## begreen (Feb 13, 2015)

As more retired battery systems from electric cars become available the possibility of unplugging becomes more attractive. Lithium ion battery packs are lower maintenance.


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## mr.fixit (Feb 13, 2015)

Looks like Tesla is getting in to home scale storage.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ttery-for-emerging-home-energy-storage-market


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## Jeepman401 (Feb 15, 2015)

mr.fixit said:


> Looks like Tesla is getting in to home scale storage.
> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ttery-for-emerging-home-energy-storage-market


So it sounds like this guy is going to hound the utility here in town. Said he's left messages and no one has returned calls. The longer this take the bigger I can afford I am thinking...and with this tesla battery coming out in a few months it sounds it will be interesting. So a 10KWH battery is suppose to cost $1000 then? 
How much will the cost be with all their controls, monitoring etc or will it be just a DC battery a guy could hook up a house inverter to? Can you get 220v to power a welder at times?


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## DBoon (Feb 15, 2015)

Jeepman401 said:


> So a 10KWH battery is suppose to cost $1000 then?


You will be waiting a long time for a 10kWh battery to cost $1k.


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## begreen (Feb 15, 2015)

It may not be that far away at all. Prices are coming down quickly. Tested used 4kW Prius packs are going for about $850 on eBay. New Volt battery 16KW packs can be bought from GM for $2306 or $144.12/KWh, retail. I think the numbers will get even better soon when Tesla's mega battery factory comes online. Musk intends to supply the home grid with these battery packs at a much lower price. So maybe in a few years getting a 10KW pack for $500 will be feasible.
_GM Parts Store site
http://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/07/ev-battery-prices-much-lower-think/ _
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/...old-chevy-volt-battery-into-a-whole-house-ups


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## peakbagger (Feb 15, 2015)

Tesla is going to be leasing battery packs not selling them. They are leasing them with their solar electric leases. Like the Tesla cars, much of the revenue from the product is most likely going to come from other sources. CA has some very generous incentives for grid electric storage and on top of that there is most likely 5 minute capacity payments that they can grab. The battery may be in someone's basement but Tesla can be pulling all sorts of strings generating revenue in addition to what the homeowner is paying,  Unfortunately this means unless you want the strings attached its going to be awhile before you will be able to get a hold of cheap Lithium powerpacks


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## begreen (Feb 15, 2015)

OK, don't rely on Tesla. GM will sell a Volt pack retail now. The point is the price is coming down and will continue to as more large battery packs flood the market.


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## Jeepman401 (Feb 15, 2015)

If they would just throw a little money and brains at it like with military technology we would have probably been there already. But then like you said, we'd have to lease the batteries and equipment from someone wanting to make another empire for themselves.


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## valuman (Feb 17, 2015)

Jeepman401 said:


> If they would just throw a little money and brains at it like with military technology we would have probably been there already. But then like you said, we'd have to lease the batteries and equipment from someone wanting to make another empire for themselves.


A solar lease, or PPA is actually a smart way for many folks to gain the benefits of a grid tied solar electric system without coming up with a big chunk of cash and waiting several years before the system pays for itself. To me a good business model is one where both parties gain from the relationship. Whether the solar lease/PPA model can be parleyed into something that works with battery backup remains to be seen, but Elon and his two cousins, the Rive brothers, are wicked smart with a ton of forward vision. I wouldn't bet against them coming up with a palatable offering.


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## jebatty (Feb 17, 2015)

It is illogical to consider PV (to include storage soon) as an expense in many locations. PV certainly is no more an expense than a furnace in a house situated in a cold climate, or AC in a hot climate. All meet a genuine need. And unlike the furnace and AC, which both depreciate to $0, have maintenance and repair costs, and have energy costs to obtain the benefits, PV provides a return in excess of cost which can be sold for $ and PV costs next to nothing to receive the benefit and the return. Storage is the puzzle piece that we can't quite see where it fits, but soon will be an edge piece which falls right into place.


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## valuman (Feb 18, 2015)

jebatty said:


> It is illogical to consider PV (to include storage soon) as an expense in many locations. PV certainly is no more an expense than a furnace in a house situated in a cold climate, or AC in a hot climate. All meet a genuine need. And unlike the furnace and AC, which both depreciate to $0, have maintenance and repair costs, and have energy costs to obtain the benefits, PV provides a return in excess of cost which can be sold for $ and PV costs next to nothing to receive the benefit and the return. Storage is the puzzle piece that we can't quite see where it fits, but soon will be an edge piece which falls right into place.


I don't disagree with any of this, what I'm saying is that a cash purchase doesn't work for nearly as many people as a lease or ppa will. More than anything else, those instruments are responsible for mainstreaming solar in areas with high electric rates. The next most popular way to go solar is with a loan product that offers monthly payments in the same range as the monthly savings from producing your own electricity.

Storage will happen because it will have to be in place as net metering caps are reached. Without it, the residential solar market will dry up and the industry is not going to sit back and watch that happen.


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## jebatty (Feb 18, 2015)

Lease or ppa are certainly ways to finance PV. Are there any grid utilities now making available lease or ppa?


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## Jeepman401 (Feb 18, 2015)

jebatty said:


> Lease or ppa are certainly ways to finance PV. Are there any grid utilities now making available lease or ppa?


http://www.kpcoop.com/communitysolar/
From their website...I can't see how anyone would think this is a good deal...other than spending money to feel good. This is about 15 miles from me, but a different utility than the one I'm on.

"Q*: What is the cost?  *It is $1,250.00 per panel output. This lease/contract with KPC is good thru the fall of 2039.  The estimated annual output is approximately 480 kWh. The actual amount may vary from month to month, and season to season. The output credit will appear on your electric bill as a line item."


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## valuman (Feb 18, 2015)

Jeepman401 said:


> http://www.kpcoop.com/communitysolar/
> From their website...I can't see how anyone would think this is a good deal...other than spending money to feel good. This is about 15 miles from me, but a different utility than the one I'm on.
> 
> "Q*: What is the cost?  *It is $1,250.00 per panel output. This lease/contract with KPC is good thru the fall of 2039.  The estimated annual output is approximately 480 kWh. The actual amount may vary from month to month, and season to season. The output credit will appear on your electric bill as a line item."


I doubt any of the bigger players are doing residential lease/ppa business in Minnesota. Sorry, I wasn't thinking about where you are when I posted about that as a good option. A good program includes annual production guarantees and a fixed cost on a twenty year agreement.


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## Jeepman401 (Feb 18, 2015)

valuman said:


> I doubt any of the bigger players are doing residential lease/ppa business in Minnesota. Sorry, I wasn't thinking about where you are when I posted about that as a good option. A good program includes annual production guarantees and a fixed cost on a twenty year agreement.


I just thought its kinda funny how solar is finally getting affordable, but then you see a program like that and people will still think its unaffordable and impractical.
 Then when I drive by their test site they have panels angled away from the South...I can't see how they are getting any direct sunlight to those panels this time of year. They set them up like a roof /\ running east to west. Don't understand why you would do that, half of them are shaded right now.


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## valuman (Feb 18, 2015)

Jeepman401 said:


> I just thought its kinda funny how solar is finally getting affordable, but then you see a program like that and people will still think its unaffordable and impractical.
> Then when I drive by their test site they have panels angled away from the South...I can't see how they are getting any direct sunlight to those panels this time of year. They set them up like a roof /\ running east to west. Don't understand why you would do that, half of them are shaded right now.


Seriously? If half of them are facing north, that half of the array is always going to be shaded.


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## Jeepman401 (Feb 18, 2015)

valuman said:


> Seriously? If half of them are facing north, that half of the array is always going to be shaded.


Yep, they have pics on the website...sometime I would like to stop there and ask why they set it up like that. I'll get a pic someday from the highway, but I just can't for the life of me see why a solar installer would do that.


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## Where2 (Feb 19, 2015)

Jeepman401 said:


> ... I just can't for the life of me see why a solar installer would do that.


Where else do you propose to store the backup pallet of panels to replace the ones that go bad? At the wrong tilt, you'll still get some output, just not nearly as much as a panel facing the right tilt.


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## Jeepman401 (Feb 24, 2015)

jebatty said:


> If you find the $5000 fee is correct, two suggestions, follow one or both: 1) contact your state senator and representative who represent your district and Governor Dayton. Plead your case. MN law is quite favorable to residential solar, and a local utility taking the fee route to block residential solar may get a cool reception. 2) go viral on this, find others who are interested in solar, hit the social media sites and let public rule on this. The point is that you are trying to conserve, something your utility supports through its various rebate programs, and your utility is blocking you (and others) from achieving conservation.


Yep the $5000 fee is correct after all. The solar guy is working with them, trying to get them to see that their fee is outrageous. I guess they are just not knowledgeable of solar systems herehere in town or something. The solar guy is confident he can get them to lower the fee because state law is behind Solar right now and they seem to have gone out of the way to make it unaffordable.
A lot of politics going on with the utility in town nowadays. Sat in on one meeting and the new sewer treatment plant they just build doesn't meet standard's for salty water discharge per EPA...seems it will cost tens of millions more to fix that. It just never ends....


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## jebatty (Feb 24, 2015)

There may be a logic to facing panels to the SW on an experimental basis. The grid gets pretty heavy demand in the mid-afternoon to early evening, and extra PV during that time may be worth more to a utility than getting higher production from S facing panels.


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## Jeepman401 (Feb 24, 2015)

jebatty said:


> There may be a logic to facing panels to the SW on an experimental basis. The grid gets pretty heavy demand in the mid-afternoon to early evening, and extra PV during that time may be worth more to a utility than getting higher production from S facing panels.


No, these are set like a roof line, half facing South and the other half facing North.


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## Where2 (Feb 24, 2015)

Jeepman401 said:


> Yep the $5000 fee is correct after all. The solar guy is working with them, trying to get them to see that their fee is outrageous. I guess they are just not knowledgeable of solar systems here in town or something. The solar guy is confident he can get them to lower the fee because state law is behind Solar right now and they seem to have gone out of the way to make it unaffordable.


I'd say your utility is doing a remarkable job at making solar unaffordable! I just checked, and the next PV install I plan to do will cost $50 to interconnect since it is less than 10MW and inverter based. At $50, I consider the fee reasonable since someone has to stop by the house, review the system connections, and swap the meter.


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## valuman (Feb 24, 2015)

Where2 said:


> Where else do you propose to store the backup pallet of panels to replace the ones that go bad? At the wrong tilt, you'll still get some output, just not nearly as much as a panel facing the right tilt.


Seriously? This is not really what you're thinking, right?


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## Jeepman401 (Feb 24, 2015)

Where2 said:


> I'd say your utility is doing a remarkable job at making solar unaffordable! I just checked, and the next PV install I plan to do will cost $50 to interconnect since it is less than 10MW and inverter based. At $50, I consider the fee reasonable since someone has to stop by the house, review the system connections, and swap the meter.


Do you have to pay any other monthly fees once hooked up? Such as a "net metering fee", monitoring fee or anything else other than your usual meter fee?


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## TonyVideo (Feb 24, 2015)

Utilities hate the fact they have to credit you what they sell it to you per kwh. They want to charge more to connect to offset and not make it attractive. It has been a novelty until now. It now is a longterm threat as prices drop. My opinion.


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## Where2 (Feb 25, 2015)

valuman said:


> Seriously? This is not really what you're thinking, right?


No, there may be a group of people who believe a modern set of PV panels will fail before I reach retirement age, but I'm not one of them. I tend to believe the college professor who taught my "Intro to Solar Energy" class in 2011 who said he'd worked on 25+ year old PV systems on islands in the FL Keys (off-grid systems). At 25+ years, a PV panel will still generate power. Even a broken fraction of a PV cell will generate power, that was a lab experiment one evening in class.



Jeepman401 said:


> Do you have to pay any other monthly fees once hooked up? Such as a "net metering fee", monitoring fee or anything else other than your usual meter fee?


At our house in FL, we pay nothing more than the same $7.57/mo base metering fee the guy next door without PV pays. My neighborhood's smart meters call home all the time, including my net meter. For the first ~12 months we had a net meter, the power company had to send someone by to manually read the net meter every month, because the neighborhood smart meter infrastructure was setup for GE i210+ meters. When they replaced my GE with a Landis & Gyr smart meter programmed for net metering, the Landis & Gyr couldn't call home. They've finally updated their infrastructure and I can now see hourly energy tracking data >24 hours old for the last 6+ months. (I had that ability previously when I had the GE i210+).

I'm not seeing any evidence of monthly surcharges for PV system interconnection in the documents from the utility where my next PV install is going to go. Doesn't mean things might not change in the future, but there are plenty of properties with small scale wind setups in the utility coverage region where my next PV setup is going.



TonyVideo said:


> Utilities hate the fact they have to credit you what they sell it to you per kwh. They want to charge more to connect to offset and not make it attractive. It has been a novelty until now. It now is a long term threat as prices drop. My opinion.


Some may feel it is a threat, but the same utility that may consider my PV system a threat still credits me up to $9/mo for 6 months out of the year for the ability to disconnect my A/C compressor unit at their whim to shed 3kW of base load. Still looks to me like my utility appreciates additional generation capacity that works on the sunniest of days. In the middle of summer, I usually can't collect the full $9/mo credit for my A/C disconnect, because my electric use averages less than 400kWh/mo. Ironic, my PV system works against my credit for helping the power company...

Note: My 4.4kW PV system only generates ~60% of the energy our 53 year old all electric home uses. We still bought ~4MWh from my electric company in 2014. My utility continues to add new customers, so they already found a new customer to buy that 6MWh I used to buy.


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## Jeepman401 (Feb 26, 2015)

Just received this email today!

"Good news!  Willmar Municipal Utilities engineer agreed with us on the huge fee cost. I told him all utilities in MN are around $250 and some are even free. I don't know what they are going to change the fee to but he said he will update me next week. He said it may take a couple weeks for it to go thru their commission approval. Well a step in the right direction!"


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## Jeepman401 (Mar 26, 2015)

Jeepman401 said:


> Just received this email today!
> 
> "Good news!  Willmar Municipal Utilities engineer agreed with us on the huge fee cost. I told him all utilities in MN are around $250 and some are even free. I don't know what they are going to change the fee to but he said he will update me next week. He said it may take a couple weeks for it to go thru their commission approval. Well a step in the right direction!"



So we finally heard back from Willmar Utilities about the new interconnection fee..."they changed their policy to $1,000 up front application fee and refund in fee if the application does need that much engineering time/resources."
While still way high, I figure its much better than the $5,000 they originally wanted. Shooting for a May hookup if I can get everything installed and up on the roof. Going to be a busy summer!


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## Where2 (Mar 26, 2015)

Jeepman401 said:


> Shooting for a May hookup if I can get everything installed and up on the roof. Going to be a busy summer!


Yes, indeed it will be a busy summer. I'm still waiting for snow to melt and fortunately my wife just arranged for additional technical assistance around our property where my next install is going. (she has friends who want to help with the PV install so they can attack their own house some day.) On the house in FL, it took me over a week to just get the 102 mounts and 6 rails installed and the decra metal roof reassembled. Looking forward to photos.


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## EatenByLimestone (Mar 27, 2015)

Jeepman401 said:


> So we finally heard back from Willmar Utilities about the new interconnection fee..."they changed their policy to $1,000 up front application fee and refund in fee if the application does need that much engineering time/resources."
> While still way high, I figure its much better than the $5,000 they originally wanted. Shooting for a May hookup if I can get everything installed and up on the roof. Going to be a busy summer!



I wonder how many they pushed off grid with their fees?  If you can buy the volt battery for half of their fee I'd be off grid pretty quickly in that scenario.  Then they would get zero cash flow out of me.


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## peakbagger (Mar 27, 2015)

Dream all you want about buying a battery bank and going off grid but the real world is that most off gird owners dream of the day they can hook up to the grid. While working in VT for a short period I ran into two separate folks who burned their home down due to issues with their off grid systems and several who had to run for weeks on generators when the battery bank failed and they couldn't afford to write a check for replacements or they physically couldn't get the batteries delivered and moved into their homes. There were frequently 4 or 5 year old off grid systems for sale on craigslist from folks who had given up and hooked to the grid.

Even if the installation and technology is perfect the problem in northern climates is that weather patterns can lead to days without sun. Most battery banks are sized for 3 days of minimum usage and most folks start to curtail usage after about 1 day. Here is link to a large system in Berlin NH that a local water department installed. https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/pv/public_systems/abbn135684/legacy/graph/days
Take a look at the output by scrolling back a few months and see how little they generated this winter. I guarantee you that a homeowner would be running the generator  every few days for the last three months. The reality is that off grid power is generally recognized to be in excess of $0.50 a KW when long term maintenance and generator costs are factored in. Many off grid systems are closer to $0.75 per KW. Some folks try to augment with wind and small hydro but small wind is rarely successful and hydro resources in cold climates are very rare.

The other thing not discussed by off gridders is they typically replace their electricity dependency with propane. Many have gas stoves and ovens, sometimes dryers and less frequently refrigerators.

Off grid is great for seasonal homes with low power demands and the option to go home if the battery is dead but even with perfect batteries unless the cost of storage drops by several magnitudes, I don't see it as an option except those on the fringe.  Thus we are stuck working in the system to make grid connected solar fair.


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