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I think we're going solar

Discussion in 'Environmental Discussion' started by jerrymildred, Feb 5, 2021.

  1. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    A Tale of Two Cities Days
    Quite a contrast between my first two days of full operation. Considering how thick the clouds were all day yesterday ... not bad! Today is starting out in the low 60s, only going to 83º, and should be partly cloudy. No need to charge the car today. It should more than make up for yesterday.
    Screen Shot 2021-05-14 at 7.27.29 AM.png
     
  2. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    Ten days in full service. Looks like I've saved up quite a bit of juice. I think we're ready for some of that rain we need. It's getting mighty dry around here. We had one cloudy day (May 13), several crystal clear ones, and several partly cloudy. This graph is as of 11:15 AM today. I might have to drive my Prime more. LOL!

    Screen Shot 2021-05-22 at 11.26.20 AM.png
     
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  3. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    Either that "Estimated Curtailed Production" for the pre-Net-Metering period, April 22 to May 11, was a very serious underestimate, or you had a very long stretch of substantial cloud cover.

    It is good to see the curtailment era is done.
     
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  4. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    Thanks. Our next electric bill will be weird since they made the change mid cycle. The next two will also be atypical because I'll be gone from mid June through mid July and my wife will also be gone part of that time. So, really, August will be the first opportunity for a routine month. That's supposed to be part of our rainy season. If we have one this year. It doesn't always happen. So far, it's crunchy dry with red flag warnings about outside burning.

    I think the curtailed production estimate was a serious miscalculation. With this amount of daylight and an unclouded day, it puts out over 40 kWh. I was going crazy waiting for that lazy inspector to show up. Day after day of skies that looked like Arizona skies. Then, two days after the NEM went online, heavy clouds. Since then, as you can surmise, we've had some more really bright days and about an equal number of partly to mostly sunny. The clouds don't have as big of a negative impact as I had anticipated.
     
  5. Merkey

    Merkey Active Member

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    How much is the power company paying you for the excess production?
     
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  6. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    I can't find any numbers in writing. All it says is the wholesale price. Two people who should know, said that is three cents per kWh. So it's not economical to buy a lot more capacity than what you can use. Right now, it's hard to tell how it's going to work out since we are getting into the longest daylight hours of the year but the rains haven't started yet. Time will tell how well we judged it. Also, I anticipate more charging the car from home and might even end up with an EV one of these days. I don't know if I allowed enough for that yet or not. Still lots that I won't know for several months as to how well we sized it. If need be, it would be fairly simple to add another panel & inverter or two.

    Another thing I've wondered about is how they will handle the first month's bill since they read the meter on the 25th and I didn't get the net metering going till the 13th. I found a document that says:
    Screen Shot 2021-05-22 at 4.53.07 PM.png

    I interpret that to mean that, since I have produced more energy than I've used since the last meter reading, I should just have to pay the standard monthly fees without having to pay for the kWh I used between the last meter reading and the day the new meter went in. Since the last meter reading, we've produce about 40 kWh more than we've used with a sunny forecast for the next several days. It's rare this time of year to use more than 25 kWh in a day. I hope that's how it works out because, due to the inspector and the permit office dragging their feet, the first payment on the system in June 1.
     
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  7. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    Our first perfectly cloudless day. Once the sun was high enough, it was 4.79 kW continuously. (twenty inverters putting out 1A each at 240VAC = 4.8 kW. I guess they work!!

    We really could use some rain, though.

    I was gone from 6:30- 5:00. Wife was gone much of the day as well. The big consumption before dawn was charging the car which was a little over 6 kWh or nearly half our electricity usage for the day so far. You can also see right where the air conditioner got busy. By August, we'll probably be using about 40 kWh a day and have more clouds.
    Screen Shot 2021-05-24 at 8.09.10 PM.png

    I think they read the meter tomorrow, so we should soon be able to see the next electric bill.
     
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  8. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    First electric bill with net metering! Mission accomplished!!!!

    We turned on the PVs late in the day on April 22. The meter reading was from April 23-May 24. Net metering went on line late in the day on May 11. We made enough excess energy after NEM started to more than cover the pre-NEM days and have 26 kWh left to carry over to the next billing cycle. The total bill is $11.52 for having the service plus 30 cents tax. Over the past 11 months, our average total bill was $95 with five of them being over $115.
    Screen Shot 2021-05-26 at 8.55.13 AM.png
     
  9. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    I just looked at the new electricity prices for Duke Energy (my electricity provider) for 2022.

    the 2021 rate is:
    8.144 cents/kWh energy
    2.811 cents/kWh fuel
    0.251 cents/kWh asset securitization charge
    =11.206 cents/kWh
    (all prices for the 1st 1,000 kWh)
    plus $11.52/month to be a customer
    So, this year, for example, 800 kWh would cost $89.65 plus $11.52

    the 2022 rate is:
    9.337 cents/kWh energy
    3.681 cents/kWh fuel
    0.248 cents/kWh asset securitization charge
    =13.266 cents/kWh
    (all prices for the 1st 1,000 kWh)
    plus $11.52/month to be a customer
    So, next year, for example, 800 kWh would cost $106.13 plus $12.45

    Our bill will go up less than $1.00 since all we've been paying is the service fee.
     
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  10. alanclarkeau

    alanclarkeau Senior Member

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    Wow - super-cheap - I'm close to treble that (in $AU).
     
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  11. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    When we lived in Honduras, it was about 50 cents per kWh when the power was actually on. That's about 71 AU cents. We are still pretty frugal with our electricity.
     
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  12. Merkey

    Merkey Active Member

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  13. Merkey

    Merkey Active Member

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    What would your electric bill be in FL in the hottest months of summer without solar?
     
  14. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    For our little 2-bedroom house which we keep at about 78-79º in summer, it was running about $110-120/month. The new rate would have pushed it over $130. (Winter was anywhere from $67-$120 depending on weather conditions and if my wife's mother is staying with us.)

    Right now, the payment on our equipment is $82/month and then there's the Duke service fee of $11.52.
     
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  15. ETC(SS)

    ETC(SS) The OTHER One Percenter.....

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    Good report!
    I’d like to cash flow a solar system but I’m not deep enough yet.
    Perhaps after a few more early adopters pay for the developmental costs…..and when Solyndra 2.0 gets spooled up. ;)

    I’m probably 2/3 of the way to needing a replacement roof, and my CFO does not dig metal - so I might wait a little bit more and do a 2 in 1 deal.
     
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  16. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    I did the 2 in one so I could get the tax break on the shingles as well. If my rough calculations are correct, I should get all my taxes paid this year back in my return and some left over for next year.

    I always figured the solar wouldn't pay for itself in my lifetime (or remaining time before the nursing home). But with the payments on a sub 1% loan being less than my typical electric bill, and electricity costs only heading in one direction, it came down to "the best time was 10 years ago and the 2nd best time is right now." (Except solar would have been super expensive 10 years ago.)
     
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  17. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    Oops! Too late to edit. The last line was supposed to be, "plus $12.45/month to be a customer."
     
  18. tochatihu

    tochatihu Senior Member

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    A crowd sourced citizen science thing occurs to me. For a variety of reasons (agriculture performance and carbon-trapping among them), local sunlight levels over a variety of scales of time and space are important.

    The pros (so to speak) make sunlight measurements, but perhaps not extensively enough for all potential uses. Beyond this we have @jerrymildred tracking local data, and a potentially large but unknown number of other rooftoppers doing the same. They may provide better regional coverage than commercial solar farms.

    So, with some additional data transfer and processing, real time solar input maps could be produced. They could serve many purposes, but will exist only when things get moved along. So, imagine if rooftoppers were paid some small amount to contribute their data to such a project ...
     
  19. jerrymildred

    jerrymildred Senior Member

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    That's an interesting idea. There would need to be something in the system to account for variations in shade from nearby trees as the sun's angle shifts with the seasons. Here are two perfectly sunny days almost six months apart. In both cases, there are trees in the neighbors' yards that interfere with early morning production. In the summer, the trees are closer, so they shade the panels longer. But then again, the sunlight lasts longer. But then again again, we use lots more electricity in the summer.

    Screen Shot 2021-12-06 at 5.12.56 AM.png Screen Shot 2021-12-06 at 5.17.17 AM.png


    Edit to add: other days, the trees a not much of a factor. LOL! (Note that this was also a day when I charged the Prime twice.
    Screen Shot 2021-12-06 at 5.27.05 AM.png
     
  20. JimboPalmer

    JimboPalmer Tsar of all the Rushers

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    My 24 panels make about 35 kwh in June and 10 kwh now. However, in summer I use a great deal of A/C, so by 7 pm I am back on city power, spring and fall I may make it to 1am, and even now I made past 9 pm last night on batteries.

    If batteries were cheaper, twice as many would help in summer, but now I do not fill what I have. (9 kwh)
     
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