Our solar results - 4 months

It's been a while since I've visited the forum, but in that time we've been running our PV system for 4 months. It's a 6K system that went into service October 16. Our usage is (hopefully) going to be around 10,000kWh/year, and the PV system should supply a pretty big chunk of it.

Keep in mind that of course we get much less sunlight during the winter months and so these numbers will be on the low end - I expect that when the sun comes up at 5am and sets at 8pm, we're going to see a big jump in output!

APS does differentiate between on and off peak hours. So far we've had an excess of on peak produced and fallen short on the off peak produced for each month - but heck, it's only $3/month for our off-peak usage, so I won't complain!

Oct 16-Nov 15 - produced 274 peak, 91 off-peak, used 120 peak, 302 off peak, excess of 154 peak hours credited.

Nov 16-Dec 15 - produced 334 peak, 160 off-peak, used 102 peak, 304 off peak, excess of 232 peak hours credited.

Dec 16-Jan 15 - produced 388 peak, 138 off-peak, used 81 peak, 286 off peak, excess of 307 peak hours credited.

Jan 16-Feb 15 - produced 480peak, 210 off-peak, used 88 peak, 302 off peak, excess of 392 peak hours credited.

So far we've produced 2075kWh total, and used 1717kWh during that time period. We have 1085 extra on-peak and fell short by 595 off-peak hours.

During the summer I expect to produce more, but we'll also use a lot more peak hours to run the a/c. We keep it pretty warm in the house (82 during peak hours), and hopefully the credit we're building up will offset quite a bit of the peak we'll have to use during the summer.

Our original usage before the solar was 14-15,000kWh/year. We made some changes to conserve as much as we could and it did make a big difference. Even so, our summer usage is likely to be above 1000kWh/month.

Our monthly bill has been right under $20 - $3 is for the electricity, everything else is for the administrative stuff and taxes. In all, we're pretty happy with our system.

 

We spent $37,000 out of pocket - $8000 was for the patio extension and the rest for the solar. APS kicked in $19,000.

You can see pictures here: http://www.lovebugsphotography.com/blog/?s=solar

We used a local company, they took care of everything - all the paperwork, planning, permits, etc. No red tape at all.

 

$29K was after rebate, not tax credit - so more like $26K after credits. Our situation is somewhat complicated as we also have a home-based business. So part of the improvements can be deducted each year as well.

 

I don't think we'll have a surplus. Once we get to the summer months, I think we'll probably fall short by 100-250kWh each month depending upon the heat. The a/c takes a huge chunk of electricity, I'm assuming we'll be making around 1000kwh/month during the summer, but using 1200/month or so.

 

Our a/c is pretty good - our house was built in 2005, so the a/c is a fairly new unit.

The problem is that it gets into the 110's here for long periods of time and any a/c is going to need a lot of juice when it's that hot!

 

We can't have a cooler due to the roof and the HOA.

We did put solar shades on all of our windows - that was part of how we cut the big usage last year. Since the patio extension for the solar, the entire back side of the house is also shaded from the sun.

I think we've done as much as we can to bring usage down to right around what the solar will produce. We were averaging 14-15,000kWh per year. Putting the timer on the thermostat and the window shades and getting a new energy-efficient refrigerator and changing the bulbs throughout the house has brought us down to about 10,000kWh/year.

I don't remember off the top of my head what the SEER was, but I do remember that we looked into replacing it last year - the SEER was high enough that it didn't make sense to do so.

 

It's not really the HOA thing keeping us from getting a cooler. We did look into it - had three different cooler companies come out and they all told us the same thing - with the type roof we have, it's not possible to put a cooler up there. And it wouldn't be efficient to do a ground-mounted one.

We did really want one, and were disappointed to find out it wasn't really possible.

Our HOA did send us a letter saying our modifications were not approved, it was about 1 month after we turned it on. Our solar people got in touch with them and told them it was a solar system and they really couldn't do anything about it. They were very nice about it, as soon as they heard that everything was fine.

The HOA used to be really picky - having people drive around and look for weeds, etc. Now we have enough foreclosures in the neighborhood that they're spending their money on something else - maybe gardeners to pull the weeds in the empty houses or something. I can't really complain too much about them, they haven't been too bad as far as HOAs go.

 

We actually started up October 16. We did look into holding off until after Jan 1, but our solar installers were carrying the rebate for us - so they said unless we could give them the $19,000 to cover it, that we needed to turn it on earlier so they could get reimbursed. We would have preferred to wait, but since it's a small company and we didn't have $19K sitting in the bank, we turned it on.


I have a meeting with a CPA in a couple of weeks to determine how the rebate works with the home office thing...it's not really clear in the IRS brochures about when residential and business use are happening in the same building...