I'm live now. Interestingly, the new meter is the exact model my old meter was, so I don't know why it needed to be swapped. I suspected it would be the same model since I know this particular unit is capable of bidirectionality. Probably just a programming thing, and they must do that offsite somewhere.
To further address oil pan's conspiracy theory, many utilities allow customers to pay more for "green" energy. The utility then needs to build that energy as consumers volunteer to fund it. It wouldn't surprise me if more people add a couple cents per kWh to their bill for solar than those who actually have solar installed on their home.
Here's an example of the problem created when a significant number of people begin backfeeding the grid with their solar. Can you imagine what happens to the grid if 20% of customers were doing this?
You've got production going from 5kw to 0.5kw minute by minute, a 10x change in output constantly. Since the grid must produce exactly the demanded power every milisecond, it becomes a huge problem to smooth these spikes out on a large scale. You'd need batteries to buffer this kind of output, and generators would have to ramp up and down or turn on and off frequently.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JSH
$1250 - $1500 isn't make or break for a solar project. The big thing for me is do I spend $10,000 to eliminate a $65 / month power bill. A 13 year payback isn't very appealing.
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It was very borderline for me too, but I put 4 different companies against each other to bid both my dads project and mine. You'd be surprised how many times they could find another $500 to save on my bid. "Oh, you're referring your dads project, you get that $500 referral credit". All the discounts go out the window though once you start sharing the numbers from other installers. One of the companies pulled their bid, which is a sign that the price is getting favorable to the customer.
The thing that convinced me to go for it was that it does add equity to the house upon sale, this hedges against future price hikes, and hopefully grandfathers me into net-metering so that I can add more production capacity down the road if natural gas prices spike and I switch heating over to electric.