My Solar PV Thread

[jjackstone]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

All materials are sitting in my garage. Here's what I'm having installed tomorrow:

Nameplate output: 6.4 kW
Annual production: 7215 kWh
Silfab 320w panels x20
P320 Power Optimizer x20
Solaredge SE 6000H Inverter
$16,600
-$1,280 ODOE
-$1,920 Energy Trust
-$3,484 Federal tax credit

$9,916 final cost
$1.55/watt

2 weeks later my parents are getting:

Nameplate output: 8.88 kW
Annual production: 11,000 kWh
Hyundai 370W panels x24
Power Optimizer x24
Solaredge SE7600H Inverter
$23,000
-$5,000 ODOE
-$9,000 Energy Trust
-$2,340 Federal tax credit

$6,600 final cost
$0.75/watt

Other than the obvious difference for the size of the systems, is your parent's additional cost savings due to their age?
JJ

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by jjackstone

Other than the obvious difference for the size of the systems, is your parent's additional cost savings due to their age?
JJ

Income, or modesty thereof.

The electrician is here now. The heavy lifting will be completed this afternoon, and electrical completed Monday.

Hopefully I'll be switched on first week of May.


At my parents place, the installer is refunding $500 if we do the 100ft trench to the house. That's what I'll be doing in 2 weekends from now.

[redpoint5]

The install is completed, but PGE still needs to swap out the meter before I can switch on.

I tried switching on to see if it would work with the current meter, but the generated power was counted as consumption.

I think the FlexNet Model 530x meter is capable of bi-direction, but maybe it needs to be programmed first?

[JSH]

Looks good!

You mentioned one of the incentives runs out in the middle of the year. Is that the ODOE rebate? I noticed it says all the money has been allocated as of 15-April. How does the process work? Does your contractor reserve a block of that money in advance or do you have to hope your system gets installed before the money runs out.

I see ODOE is $0.50 per watt with a maximum of 40% or $5,000. Is that 40% of the total installed cost or just the panels?

Energy Trust is $0.30 per watt with a max of $2,400. Any percentage on that one?

I see the Federal Credit is $26% of the cost with no max but expires at the end of 2021.

I might need to look at solar again.

[oil pan 4]

Yeah the new "smart meters" are actually dumb. They count up when they detect current flow.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by JSH

You mentioned one of the incentives runs out in the middle of the year. Is that the ODOE rebate? I noticed it says all the money has been allocated as of 15-April. How does the process work? Does your contractor reserve a block of that money in advance or do you have to hope your system gets installed before the money runs out.

I see ODOE is $0.50 per watt with a maximum of 40% or $5,000. Is that 40% of the total installed cost or just the panels?

Energy Trust is $0.30 per watt with a max of $2,400. Any percentage on that one?

I see the Federal Credit is $26% of the cost with no max but expires at the end of 2021.

I might need to look at solar again.

The ODOE and EnergyTrust incentives are similar in how they are claimed, where a registered "Trade Ally" enters into contract for the project. Then they submit the request for funds from those programs. ODOE released funds in 2 waves, and the "non-income restricted" funds were 100% claimed about 10 minutes after 8:00am on April 15th. Each company was allowed to submit no more than 20 jobs, and my contract stated that the installer would eat the ODOE funds if they couldn't secure them. They got the funds however. I don't think ODOE funds are coming back.

EnergyTrust funding has slowly been getting reduced and I believe those will be phased out entirely at some point in the near future. No percentage, just $0.30/watt up to $2,400.

The Federal tax credit was at 30% but reduced this year to 26%. Next year it drops to 22%, and expires altogether beginning in 2022. The unclaimed portion of the credit can be rolled over many tax years.

In all cases, the credits applly to the cost of the whole system, materials and labor. I'm not sure if permitting fees and such are also included, but I suspect they are since my installer paid all of it. I did nothing but sign the contract, and sign paperwork for the various incentive programs and PGE net metering application. The installer handled submitting all of that.

PGE comes out tomorrow to swap the meter, so my electric bill is dropping to the connection fee of ~$12/mo plus minor taxes.

This weekend I'm running a 100ft trench out at my parent's field and the same solar installer is building their system. The installer is crediting us $500 for doing the trench, and I wanted to rent a trencher anyhow to put in an inground sprinkler system.

Trade Ally list:
https://www.energytrust.org/find-a-c...7317&type=home

Start with finding out if PGE even allows net metering in your area:
https://www.portlandgeneral.com/resi...t-metering-map

Areas are rapidly becoming restricted. My parents address was in the clear at the time we submitted our application, but then PGE required a further level 2 study before accepting the net metering application. Now that I check my parents address, it's in a newly restricted area. Guess we came in just under the wire there.

I'm hoping that we get grandfathered into net metering rather than the program disappearing entirely in the future.

[oil pan 4]

Oooo they are locking down on people being able to own their own generating capacity.
That should tell you all you need to know.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

Oooo they are locking down on people being able to own their own generating capacity.
That should tell you all you need to know.

They are locking down on the potential for intermittently generated electricity to overwhelm current infrastructure, not the ability to generate my own electricity. Why should I get to use the grid as my personal battery for free anyhow?

Sure, they are probably being extremely conservative with their thresholds for restricting new net-metering, but their primary responsibility is to their customers at large, not to a few people that want intertied solar.

If I want to go off-grid, I'm free to do so. It would probably cost 5x more considering I'd need to build for low output in the winter, and sufficient storage. Then in the summer I'd be overproducing by orders of magnitude.

Anyhow, as far as monopolies go, I'd say my utility functions well enough. I called them on Monday and have a guy coming out first thing Wednesday to swap my meter. Not too bad.

[oil pan 4]

If you look at peak load versus base load solar can fill that demand perfectly and "flatten the curve".
If anyone was going to need limit solar installs it would be California, about half of the 2 million solar installs have been done there most of those in the southern half of the state.
So only about 0.5% of homes have solar panels, generate around 1% of electricity used.
I'm pretty sure it's not too much uncontrolled power being dumped onto the grid.

The problem is the power companies will have to change, some have been around for 100 years so they don't want to change.

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by oil pan 4

If you look at peak load versus base load solar can fill that demand perfectly and "flatten the curve".
If anyone was going to need limit solar installs it would be California, about half of the 2 million solar installs have been done there most of those in the southern half of the state.
So only about 0.5% of homes have solar panels, generate around 1% of electricity used.
I'm pretty sure it's not too much uncontrolled power being dumped onto the grid.

The problem is the power companies will have to change, some have been around for 100 years so they don't want to change.

That all makes sense, but then we've got installations like this that max out the available overhead for that subsection of the grid:



or

https://goo.gl/maps/97Q8MngmgbQudiUu8