Residential Solar

Enough for 6 or so gallons of gasoline.

And that stuff may be soon be extinct thanks to one quick motion of a pen! You'll need that solar array just to be able to keep a car moving

 

Solar helps Texas carry energy load as heatwave puts power grid to test | Environment | The Guardian

Interesting article how Texas has avoided rolling black outs this summer in all that record breaking heat going on .

 

My little corner of NH has been socked in with overcast skies for what seems to be forever. Energy production has suffered, but I'm still way ahead, so shouldn't complain. I would expect October to be much like March, but I'm running about 200 kwh behind - and last march we had the large snowstorm and a 3 day power outage .




Had several days where production was not as much as my usage this month. Usage runs between 5.3 and 10 kwh. Although on the 9th, there was a lot of power tool usage so it jumped to 16.0 kwh consumed. You can see on the 19th, it was actually somewhat sunny by the production jump




And this represents what the "somewhat" sunny statement for October 19 means. (big usage is the clothes drier)


If it had "really" been sunny, there would have been a nice peak like what was on the 5th (and yes, I know, sun angle is reducing the total kwh produced, but there still would have been a nice curve to look at)



It will be interesting to see what November brings. The system was put into production about noontime on November 16, 2022 and production was just under what was consumed (114 versus 119). I could start cutting into my credits from net metering.

 

Our systems became active within 3 days of each other. I couldn’t be happier with the performance so far. I have enough extra production to carry me through until March when I start producing more than I use again. Absolutely love just paying the delivery fee each month.

 

Guy who owns the lot behind me was having trees removed yesterday. Sad to see the trees go, but should see some benefit to the east side array production.








This time of year my west side doesn't do so well (sun angle and position) and the east side grabs the most sun. But, heavily overcast days produce an anomaly and the west side produces better than either of the other two side.

 

I like to keep an eye on the "carry forward" that we have. Been fortunate enough this year to build the carry forward even just a little bit coming into December.
Something on the order of 700 or so kwh banked for the winter.

I was interested to see what my usage with the heat pumps installed would be. So far they don't seem to have put a dent in our normal usage. For the most part we use them when the outside temps are in the 40s or above and my wife uses the single split in her office as much as she wants during the day.

 

So your utility goes by kwhs for the carry forward or am I misunderstanding something?

My utility credits in dollars, so that is what is carries over . Can be a good thing at times such as last summer when electric prices were high. I banked a bunch of $$$. This fall, electric prices dropped, so I am getting more kwh out of those $$$. But it can also bite me later if next summer the price/kwh stays low and the electric prices go high next winter.

 

Yes, the term they use is "net metering".

 

It's interesting to see the differences in how net metering is administered between states. Even some utilities within states have different rules, or the state doesn't even set up net metering regulations (like Texas, last I checked). I know in NH our 3 statewide providers, are governed by rules that the state set up and which are to run thru some time in the 2040's. Whereas Coops and community aggregates are not administered by the states, so their rules are less kind to their customers - if they even allow net metering (they are not regulated by the state).

My town is looking at going to community power, in which everyone is automatically opted in. I'll have to opt out, which irritates me to no end. I can envision them "losing" my opt out choice (it isn't an electronic system, just a post card), which would end up in all kinds of headaches to straighten out as well as my losing money.

 

Good point.
Each state does things differently, so you wind up with a patchwork of people doing things differently for their own needs.
I’ve described my experience in a few places on here so I won’t bother anyone with it again, but someone in my location with different interests and priorities would make different decisions.

 

Maine is a net metering state. We receive kWh credits for any production over usage in the high production months and then use those credits when the monthly production is less than the usage. The credits expire in 1 year so over sizing the array gives no benefit. The last two years our credits ran out in March and April’s production did not cover our usage so we had to pay the going rate of $.25 per kWh for the difference. Otherwise our monthly bill is the minimum for being connected to the grid which just went up this year from $7 to $10.65.

Our 30 year old washer STB this summer and we decided to replace it with the new GE 2 in 1 machine. The dryer is a ventless heatpump. It takes much longer to do laundry because it’s only one machine and the drying time per load is longer, but it works for us because the kids are gone. The monthly electricity usage has been noticeably lower. Now that winter is here, we are no longer venting our warm indoor air to the outside every time we use the dryer. I plugged the vent with foam insulation to keep it from leaking passively. It’s hard to tell but I feel like we are using less wood to heat.

 

DaveGunter For years we haven't used our dryer. Instead, campinspecter uses clothes drying lines in the basement with a dehumidifier running for a couple of hours. In areas of the country where the humidity is much lower than here, you may not even need a dehumidifier. Laundry hung up first thing in the morning is usually dry by evening.

 

Been hearing mention about those 2-in-1's lately in several different forums / social media. I'm not in need of replacement units yet, but their 10 year warranty is about to run out and you know how that goes. Figure at 10 years + 1 day .

 

Yeah, I do my own laundry and I’ll hang clothes in the basement next to the wood stove to dry when it’s convenient, Mrs DG will have none of that for her laundry.

 

I’ve wanted to replace the vented dryer for some time just couldn’t bring myself to replace a working machine. As far as I know the new GE unit is the only 2 in 1 that uses a heat pump for drying, the others all use condensers which don’t produce heat and do a pretty terrible job of drying.

 

For Glasir I’m planning to go off-grid solar/ wind/ generator.

the REC want $2300 to hook up a construction service, another $2300 to hook up a permanent service. Each time would have been an additional $1300-1500 in wiring etc on my part to go from their meter connection to either the camper or the house

If we were doing a permanent service immediately, they’d have charged us the $600 just for the transformer box.

for that price I can put in an off-grid system and be done with the foolishness of them.


For the cost of rural water, I’m looking at a 500 gallon tank for the crawl space since I intend to build it conditioned. That would be another $4500 installation hookup plus $100/ month service fee saved.

 

That will be one heck of an off-grid place.

 

With just slightly over a year of solar under my belt, I thought I would do a comparison.

December of 2022 Versus 2023. It was interesting that I had more production in 2023 (the blue numbers in the pictures). At the same time, there were more snow storms in 2022, so there were 3 zero production days and 2 very low production days (some of the panels were still snow covered).



In 2023 there no zero production days and 3 days with a slight snow cover hampering production (which attests to the plethora of heavily overcast days we have had this season)




Comparing January 2023 with January 2024



This was interesting as the total production was basically equal between the two years (116.7kwh versus 116.9 kwh).




If you study the pictures, which I'm sure you haven't, the energy I've imported this season sky-rocketed compared to last season. There is a simple explanation for that; last season I used the main floor pellet stove exclusively for heating. I had lots of pellets I'd gotten for cheap, and the electric prices were sky high, so I used the cheapest method. I still use the basement pellet stove as that is the only heater down there.

This year, pellet prices have rocketed up, and electric prices have dropped. I had plenty of credited dollars with the electric company from overproduction during the summer. So, it has been cheaper to use the mini-split on the main floor for heat. I did use the P43 for 4-5 days straight when it was frigid and the wind was blowing, and the last couple of mornings have been in the low teens so I've had it on early mornings, but for the most part the P43 has been resting.

The last 3 days have actually been sunny so production is on the rise to around 13kwh per day. Supposed to get another couple of days like that, then back to the winter weather.

 

I have found your series on the solar very interesting. Thanks for keeping us up-to-date.

 

Wish my parents kept better track of their solar production. I know they typically only pay the base connection fee. This January was a month of -15f, snow and ice for them. They told me they got electric bill last week and they could definitely tell the blower on the gas furnace was running a lot and that the panels were under 6" inches of snow.