My Solar PV Thread

[oil pan 4]

I had to provide proof my name was on the house. Otherwise had to pay cash for my solar.

Small areas inside California are nearing max solar capacity even with as few as 5% of homes having solar because everyone pointed their panels in the same direction for maximum overall production and in the middle of the day no one is cooking, charging thor tesla or doing laundry most days of the week so very little of the production is consumed by the home.
There's 2 ways to fix too much solar. Shut'em off which sucks, or have future installs favor morning or evening peak production.
So if the homes with solar are spread out over a wide area and not clumped together and their peak production all doesn't peak at the same time the power grid won't be flooded with too much solar.
Or power companies can get some battery storage capacity, which they really don't want to do.
That's only scratching the surface of problems created by intermittent power generation.
More solutions are possible but I have not seen anyone actually build them.

[redpoint5]

It's not simply a problem of storing excess power, it's generating more capacity than the lines and transformers are capable of safely handling.

Yesterday my system was able to reach peak (clipped) production at 6,000 W while my house was using 250 W. I was throwing 24x more energy into the grid than I needed myself. If a significant amount of homes do this, it's easy to see how infrastructure can become overloaded.

Yesterday I produced 25 kWh, or $2.75 in electricity. My utility bill is going to be somewhere around $12/mo from here on out. Another little perk I noticed is there are some city taxes on the net amount consumed, so with zero net use, I'll pay zero city tax.

Here's a portal to view my stats:

https://monitoringpublic.solaredge.c...2-311e68d5c4ce

[oil pan 4]

Yeah mines going to be around $30 most months because of surcharge and then I will get slammed in January and February since my roof is sloped for optimal summer production and production will fall off a cliff in the middle of winter.
Just have to use the coal furnace more.

[redpoint5]

The way our utility net-meters, I bank overproduction for a year and then true up. Overproduction at true up is not compensated at all, and underproduction is billed at the normal $0.11/kWh rate. I'll make sure I come in right around zero. Might get difficult to do that once I get an EV.

[oil pan 4]

Mine only goes monthly.

[redpoint5]

In 2020, I paid $70 in electricity and $144 in meter fees.
In 2021, I paid $296 in electricity (started mining Ethereum) and $144 in meter fees.
So far in 2022 I'm at break even, but I need to bank excess to get me through winter.

I added a chest freezer which is an extra 774 kWh per year, which really is about 3x more than a modern freezer would consume. I'm going to buy a new one...

Gone is my mining rig (at my parents house), but I added a video surveillance / media repository PC that runs ~100 watts. It's a bit overkill, but it was free.

My solar company found the cause of 1 of my panels not producing... stinkin squirrel


I cut back the branches near my roof, so hopefully that puts an end to critters up there.

[oil pan 4]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

In 2020, I paid $70 in electricity and $144 in meter fees.
In 2021, I paid $296 in electricity (started mining Ethereum) and $144 in meter fees.
So far in 2022 I'm at break even, but I need to bank excess to get me through winter.

I added a chest freezer which is an extra 774 kWh per year, which really is about 3x more than a modern freezer would consume. I'm going to buy a new one...

Gone is my mining rig (at my parents house), but I added a video surveillance / media repository PC that runs ~100 watts. It's a bit overkill, but it was free.

My solar company found the cause of 1 of my panels not producing... stinkin squirrel

Kill zem. Kills zem all.