Going solar!

[begreen]

Catching up on this Brian. Sounds like you liked the one you installed last Jan. so much that you added a second? Are you heating all of your house now or just area heating? How many sq ft.?

Our design temp is probably even higher. What source is this info from?

 

[lml999]

They put the panels on the roof today. System was making 150 watts when we first turned it on. Looks like it'll be possibly even less all day tomorrow, but the panels will get a good rinse anyway.

Welcome to solar!

Just for fun, check your system output on a night with a full moon and clear sky.

 

[begreen]

Battery backup systems discussion moved to it's own thread here:

Home battery backup systems

Moderator moved from Going Solar! thread to new thread for discussion :ZZZ Total novice here, but I have a few questions. My water heater is rated at 18kw max and I'm trying to see if it were even possible to run it off of a battery bank. Does this means I should get at least an 18kw inverter...

www.hearth.com

 

[jetsam]

This thread had just moved into stage three (moderate derailment) and was about to get to the best part. Now we have to start all over...

 

[begreen]

This thread had just moved into stage three (moderate derailment) and was about to get to the best part. Now we have to start all over...

Nah, it left the train and went on its own track concerning storage, not generation. You declared in the first posting - no batteries for me. They are separate projects and technologies, each deserving room for development and discussion.

 

[jetsam]

Very interesting article.

That IS an interesting article. It reads like one of those script-generated pages they use to park domains and drive google searches to empty pages at the same time.

The weird part is that it oddly toes the line between looking like it's generated by a script and looking like it's written by someone who has English as a second language- but even an English learner wouldn't write stuff like "Circular solar panels round solar panels are unquestionably the best approach to save on electricity price". You can google that idea in any language and see that it's nonsensical.

So I am going to say that maybe this whole site is AI-generated and lightly edited by a person? Some of the photo choices aren't ones that I think an AI would make (for example the round solar panel photo is all right angles, but it IS a round array made up of rectangular panels, though I doubt an AI image sorter could work that out).

 

[Piney]

I just want to see more updates on OP's power production.
This ongrid solar thing interests me academically.
I'll never see the grid in my lifetime but I still like to hear about what people get up to...,

 

[Woodsplitter67]

I went solar in September of 18. it was a great investment. havent paid an electric bill.. im still on a credit. i will use it up this month, but next month ill be at the breakeven point where ill generate as much as i use..

 

[black smoke signals]

Local installer did my solar enlighten panels (March 2019) produced 7.4 Mega watts total 8 months I didn’t oversize my solar panels because of net metering and service fees which are starting to rise. Like most have said they don’t have a electric bill but you need to figure all of your costs (property tax -insurance service fees)this unit saves me 1000 buck a year. Energy companies here don’t like net metering they want to charge us for sending my solar electric that I produce back to the grid at a reduced fee for using there power lines then they resell it to neighboring homes at increased rate . This isn’t fair what the energy companies are doing to offset there loss when coal sales in Wyoming dropped

 

[ABMax24]

Energy companies here don’t like net metering they want to charge us for sending my solar electric that I produce back to the grid at a reduced fee for using there power lines then they resell it to neighboring homes at increased rate . This isn’t fair what the energy companies are doing to offset there loss when coal sales in Wyoming dropped

In reality I think its the feasible option right now. On my electric bill I pay an energy charge, transmission charge and distribution charge when I buy electricity from the grid. When I sell it back to the grid I get only the energy charge back. As much as I wish I got more this system makes sense. Since my solar power is intermittent the power company needs to have the infrastructure in the neighborhood from the power plant anyway. To me it seems fair that the end user of the energy should pay for this infrastructure cost. So it doesn't make sense to charge my neighbor these transmission and distribution fees just to give them back to me, if everyone had solar panels there would be little money left for the power company to build and maintain the system.

The fact is net metering is a subsidy that the public is forced to pay for the benefit of the solar generator. Many jurisdictions are doing away with it because it isn't an economically viable system when a large number of solar generators come online.

Imagine you owned a gas station and the government passed a law saying that anyone could show up to your station with fuel and you had to buy it from them at full retail price. They could show up any-day of the week, even when you didn't need more fuel and offload. How would you pay for your station maintenance and employees never mind take a profit if you bought and sold at the same price. This is what net metering does to power companies.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

Local installer did my solar enlighten panels (March 2019) produced 7.4 Mega watts total 8 months I didn’t oversize my solar panels because of net metering and service fees which are starting to rise. Like most have said they don’t have a electric bill but you need to figure all of your costs (property tax -insurance service fees)this unit saves me 1000 buck a year. Energy companies here don’t like net metering they want to charge us for sending my solar electric that I produce back to the grid at a reduced fee for using there power lines then they resell it to neighboring homes at increased rate . This isn’t fair what the energy companies are doing to offset there loss when coal sales in Wyoming dropped

i disagree with you a bit. the utility companies need to keep up the cost of the infrastructure that is associated with your home and the area you live in. you really think its fair to use there line's and stuff when you dump your extra power into the grid and not expect to recive a fee for your use. I get charged extra fees and im not really excited about it, but i understand. I dont like it at all but i look at what i generated, what i have saved,and for the 10 bucks a month im still way ahead and not stressing over it

 

[Piney]

It seems fair for utilities to buy power at wholesale and sell it at retail. I get government regulation forcing this much upon them but not mandating the prices.
But what keeps me up at night is wondering if some fool politician will interfere in the battery market or ban wood heat or propane.
My family would be in trouble then.
We like flooded batteries. Our current golf cart bank of 8 pieces is 9 years old and replacement is coming in a couple years. I'll be pretty bent if they can't be purchased at that time due to some misguided edict from on high.

 

[CaptSpiff]

.... Energy companies here don’t like net metering they want to charge us for sending my solar electric that I produce back to the grid at a reduced fee for using there power lines then they resell it to neighboring homes at increased rate . This isn’t fair what the energy companies are doing to offset there loss when coal sales in Wyoming dropped

Net metering was legislated in order to promote distributed energy resources (ie solar production) behind the meter. When the Govt no longer deems that desirable, it'll be adjusted. That is happening here in NYS.

Our local Electric Utilities no longer own the Generating Plants. They were "forced" to sell them off over 20 years ago, and now buy the electricity form a "market" run by the NY ISO. My Utility calculates the avg cost for buying power and passes that on to me as a bill line item. It is about 10 cents per kwh. The lines and transformers and cost to keep it all running is charged as a separate line item on my bill. This cost is directly regulated, and is about 9 cents per kwh. The third line item on my bill is various Taxes, which are about 2 cents per kwh. So my total retail rate is about 21 cents per kwh.

When a solar producer makes extra power he sells it into the grid for retail rates, then buys it back after dark for that same retail rate, so his transaction is net zero. But two questions come up:
1. Why is the Utility paying (crediting) the producer at retail power prices when they could easily buy the power at lower wholesale market prices?
2. What about the taxes lost during the re-purchase portion of the transaction?

Don't worry, the Govt makes the Utility whole on any effect to their bottom line, and those tax losses appear to have been made up by (you guessed it) an additional tax line on the bill.

I like solar and I desperately want it on my roof (not a good candidate I'm told). But net metering is on life support and will likely pass on when all the home meters are changed to smart meters and we begin being charged on "time of use" basis.

 

[Where2]

I like solar and I desperately want it on my roof (not a good candidate I'm told). But net metering is on life support and will likely pass on when all the home meters are changed to smart meters and we begin being charged on "time of use" basis.

Don't bet on TOU rates being hinged on smart meters: My utility rolled out smart meters ~10 years ago (my PV array went on the roof back in 2013, I got a different brand of smart meter as a result). We have yet to get TOU rates, and I don't hear much clamoring for TOU rates (especially from businesses). My utility (a subsidiary of Nextera Energy) is rolling out their own PV farms as fast as they can install them... (500+ acres at a time) Their shareholders seem to like the low maintenance, low carbon footprint, high profit margin that PV provides.