NGC Solar Powering a home?

[LowRyter]

This is exactly right. There are states in which the "public" utility companies literally own the state legislatures and/or the public utility commissions, and in these states they run rampant over their customers. The only thing worse than a state monopoly is a private monopoly that owns its state regulators.

In Florida, a court recently ruled that it's illegal to go off-grid -- if you're not connected to city water and grid power, you're in violation of some obscure regulations regarding home maintenance and public health issues. There have been prosecutions of off-grid communities elsewhere, sometimes predicated on child endangerment.

This raises questions for rural properties with well water and septic systems, especially when located more than a mile from the nearest electric transmission line. Can a utility company threaten you with jail if you don't pay to run a line in? In some states, where utilities have strong lobbies, the answer may someday be yes.

reminds of the Okla Corporation Commision. 

The feds were investigating bribery and some of the wiretaps were later played on a PBS documentary.  One of the wiretaps was with a Commissioner calling a Gas Company lobbyist (disclosure: I am a stockholder) asking for his "walking around money."  This lead to no indictment to the fellow who was later elected to Congress.   

[sidecarnutz]

I did a small solar installation on the roof my van. 4 100 watt Renogy panels. They feed a 40 amp MPPT controller that charges a pair of 90 amp/hr deep cycle batteries. I got a high efficiency Renogy 500 watt inverter to make 110v available. When I travel the system acts like a perpetual motion machine to run a apartment sized fridge 24/7 AND keep a good charge on the batteries. Enough so they cruise the fridge at night with no problem.
Having a fridge with you traveling is an awesome thing. Keep food, drinks and insulin chilled.
During power outtages, I no longer have to run a generator. I run an extension cord out to the van and let the system run our home fridge.
Call me a happy customer of Renogy's products.

[Testarossa]

Here's my new system, energized yesterday.  2.6kW covers our load nicely (we cook and heat with natural gas).




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The array can be tilted to face the low sun in winter -- that also lets snow falling off the roof pass between the panels and the side of the house.

[Triple Jim]

I did a small solar installation on the roof my van. 4 100 watt Renogy panels.

Very nice.  I put a little 40 watt panel and charge controller on my Dodge van that lets me run small loads like a powered roof vent or a Koolatron type cooler without having to be concerned about running the battery down.  I figure that if I ever get traveling in a motorhome I'll probably put a big system like yours in it.

[Muzz]

Here's my new system, energized yesterday.  2.6kW covers our load nicely (we cook and heat with natural gas).




how to post images online


The array can be tilted to face the low sun in winter -- that also lets snow falling off the roof pass between the panels and the side of the house.

What is the quoted output of each panel? I see 18 panels at 2,6kw which by my reckoning is about 150 watts per panel,

Also, is that a battery pack I see or just an inverter?

[Testarossa]

9 panels, 290w each. 300 vdc at 8.7 amps. That's the inverter. No batteries. I can add batteries later but if I need emergency power now I can tap 250 ah from the van. In bright sun the inverter can give me 1000wac independent of the grid.

[blackcat]

9 panels, 290w each. 300 vdc at 8.7 amps. That's the inverter. No batteries. I can add batteries later but if I need emergency power now I can tap 250 ah from the van. In bright sun the inverter can give me 1000wac independent of the grid.

Did you do the installation?

[Testarossa]

I just dug the holes. Ed Eaton, one of my instructors from Solar Energy International, did the design, welding and construction.

[not-fishing]

More supply is not the answer - it's conservation.

15 years ago I designed and built my house and I was a decent concrete laborer - poor framing carpenter, I installed Geothermeal here in California.  I bet I'm the only one in Folsom, 75,000 people, with geothermal.  During the weeks of 100+ weather my electricity bill is 1/4 of my neighbors well the 2x6 exterior walls, extra insulation, high-e windows and clay tile roof probably helps

I'm just a simple guy and I know that riding my Griso is more fuel efficient than driving my pickup. 

The other interesting point is all those energy saving steps will continue to payoff for at least 50 years -- long after I'm gone.  and the AC compressor works at such low pressure because of the efficiency of the water cooled AC that I bet it lasts the whole 50

[charlie b]

While I applaud thee use of solar or wind at your home I do not think it poor of the power company to pay you the mfg rate for power you put on the line.'

Why?  Everyone puts in solar panels.  Daytime electric use goes down.  But, at sunset power use goes through the roof.  The power company has to have enough generation power to handle the peak load, not the average.  Bottom line is they a HUGE amount of excess power at the times you want them to buy yours.  Not fair.  This is also why some areas used to have dual meters, one for daylight and one for night with different rates for each.

Industrial usage is billed in two parts for that reason, monthly peak usage and total usage.  The peak charge is frequently higher than the total.

Nuclear and steam power plants do not start up and shut down easily.  So, they are full time.  Some power companies are building bunches of gas turbine power plants just for this reason.  They can fire them up at sunset then shut down at sunrise.  But, that means a large investment for them as well.

Bottom line is that homeowner solar costs the power company money, doesn't save them anything, so it makes electric generation for customers more expensive.  You might want to factor into your costs how much energy you buy at night and what will happen when that rate doubles or triples.

Now, if you want to go totally off grid, that is a great thing.  Get a bank of batteries, solar and wind generators, maybe a fuel cell or generator backup and you're ready.

[Testarossa]

I pay a $27 monthly connection fee to the power company to maintain their infrastructure. It's a rural co-op -- that is, the customers own it. They're very happy to have customer-owned solar and wind contributing to their capacity -- it saves them buying expensive power from commercial sources like Black Hills Energy (from whom I buy natural gas, btw).

Some 30 years ago a PG&E engineer demonstrated that solar power located on outlying feeder lines reduced the need to upgrade those feeders as suburbs spread outward, and of course reduced the need to build new generating capacity. At that time the company estimated that local (solar) power coming into their grid was worth more than they were getting in payments from those outlying customers. And when customers own the solar source there is NO capital cost to the utility company -- a very significant saving, especially when interest rates are higher than they are now. The ONLY way that no capital cost, no maintenance cost and no fuel cost is anathema to the utility is if it's allowed to make a profit on those costs -- which is the 19th century business model cooked up by Samuel Insull and his Chicago pol cronies.

That's still the case in most parts of the country with long (expensive) distribution lines. The value of solar to the utility varies very widely, from about 3c to 14c per kWh.  Around here, a rural co-op paying their own retail rate (10.5c here) considers it a bargain.

BTW our electric co-op is now stringing fiberoptic to provide high-speed internet to its remote customers. They'll probably charge $50 a month for that, which is a pretty good index to what it would cost to double up the electric power transmission capacity.

[Sheepdog]

My ex-wife and her husband are completely "off the grid." Solar and wind power only. It required a commitment to less convenience and a number of requirements like batteries and switching hardware. The big payoff for them is that they have completely cut out the utility company and they can live way out in the middle of nowhere (they live in New Mexico). I may install a few panels to reduce my bill, but I expect the utility companies will soon do something to get their market share back...and we all know what that means.

[antmanbee]

Why?  Everyone puts in solar panels.  Daytime electric use goes down.  But, at sunset power use goes through the roof.  The power company has to have enough generation power to handle the peak load, not the average.  Bottom line is they a HUGE amount of excess power at the times you want them to buy yours.  Not fair.  This is also why some areas used to have dual meters, one for daylight and one for night with different rates for each.

Industrial usage is billed in two parts for that reason, monthly peak usage and total usage.  The peak charge is frequently higher than the total.

Nuclear and steam power plants do not start up and shut down easily.  So, they are full time.  Some power companies are building bunches of gas turbine power plants just for this reason.  They can fire them up at sunset then shut down at sunrise.  But, that means a large investment for them as well.

Bottom line is that homeowner solar costs the power company money, doesn't save them anything, so it makes electric generation for customers more expensive.  You might want to factor into your costs how much energy you buy at night and what will happen when that rate doubles or triples.

Now, if you want to go totally off grid, that is a great thing.  Get a bank of batteries, solar and wind generators, maybe a fuel cell or generator backup and you're ready.

The hours of peak load and demand to the electric company are during the day when solar panels are producing. Solar panels help offset this demand and are beneficial to the utility company.

[Testarossa]

The hours of peak load and demand to the electric company are during the day when solar panels are producing. Solar panels help offset this demand and are beneficial to the utility company.

This is a great point, and it's why warehouse facilities and big-box stores across the southwest are putting up rooftop solar as fast as they can.  Time-of-use pricing means cost of power spikes as high as 45c/kWh during peak air-conditioning/refrigeration hours so if they can knock the top off that power load curve everyone benefits.

[John Ulrich]

I took a tour of the Ford River Rouge plant recently.  In addition to Solar they planted Sedum on the roofs.  It grows two inches high and keeps the factories 10 degrees cooler in the summer and 10 degrees in the winter.

[Lannis]

More supply is not the answer - it's conservation.

There's actually a lot of that going on.

TVA, for example has been hiccuping along with deciding on whether to build new capacity.   They'll start a big new plant, then demand will fall and they'll stop construction, cycle after cycle.

An analysis of the "needs" issue indicates that it's not just cycles in the economy, but that people and industries actually ARE using less power per house or per factory in many areas.   More efficient heat pumps, more efficient refrigerators and dryers, more use of clotheslines (that's what we do).

Just from being careful about what we hook up and use, our own personal electric bill has gone from an average of $238/mo in 2005 to $189/mo today - same two people, same all-electric (no gas) house, same insulation, etc, just paying more attention to how we use it ....

Lannis

[GearheadGrrrl]

The most cost effective way to save energy and $$$ is by efficiency improvements- For example, thanks to a power company subsidy, I bought a 10 pack of 100 watt equivalent LED bulbs for less than $10 this spring. Each bulb consumes but 15 watts, for a savings of 85 watts apiece and 850 watts or darn near a kilowatt for the carton of ten. So while solar costs about $3 and change a watt, I can get the same effect with those LED bulbs for around a penny a watt!

Now lets look at utilization- The solar arrays at best produce energy about 20% of the time on average, so that $3 a watt is really about $15 a watt cost, even higher if the grid has no load to absorb it when the sun decides to shine. The less than a buck LED lamps cost all of a quarter or so a watt even if you only use them an hour a day, and they beat the cost of solar even if you only use them a couple minutes a day. BTW, this huge advantage for "conservation energy" over solar extends to other power uses- I did the numbers on my biomass stove and it's conserving energy for far less than the cost of a $100,000+ solar array, and reduces greenhouse gasses more too! Actually had the owner of one of those $100,000+ solar arrays unfriend me when I revealed that "inconvenient truth"!   

[Triple Jim]

The most cost effective way to save energy and $$$ is by efficiency improvements- For example, thanks to a power company subsidy, I bought a 10 pack of 100 watt equivalent LED bulbs for less than $10 this spring. Each bulb consumes but 15 watts, for a savings of 85 watts apiece and 850 watts or darn near a kilowatt for the carton of ten. So while solar costs about $3 and change a watt, I can get the same effect with those LED bulbs for around a penny a watt!

All correct, but unfortunately the big users of electricity are things like water heaters, heat pumps, and refrigerators, and LEDs don't help those.

[Lannis]

All correct, but unfortunately the big users of electricity are things like water heaters, heat pumps, and refrigerators, and LEDs don't help those.

And hair dryers, and electric dryers, and electric stoves.   "Heating" widgets, and not "lighting" widgets, are where the huge loads are.

Although I suppose anything helps.

Lannis

[Triple Jim]

Things like hair dryers and clothes dryers aren't a major part of the monthly total because they're so intermittent.  Heat pumps, water heaters, and refrigerators probably contribute the most to the bill, assuming you have those electric devices.

I bought a "Kill-A-Watt" meter.  It's very interesting to put it in kW-h mode and plug something like a computer or refrigerator into it.  It then totals killowatt-hours until you unplug the load.  For example my shop computer uses 2 killowatt hours per day, or about 20 cents per day, or $6/month on the bill.  I was surprised to find out that my  old 1955 refrigerator uses less than 1/2 of the energy per month as our new one.  You're always  hearing how efficient new refrigerators are compared to old ones, but in this case it's just hype.

[Lannis]

Things like hair dryers and clothes dryers aren't a major part of the monthly total because they're so intermittent. 

BWAHAHAHAHahahaha .... In YOUR house maybe .... (sob) ...... 

Lannis

[Triple Jim]

BWAHAHAHAHahahaha .... In YOUR house maybe .... (sob) ...... 

Ha, you made me chuckle.  There's very little forced air hair drying around here, and only slightly more electric clothes drying.  Except in pollen season, the clothes get hung outside to dry.

[redrider90]

Some information on Sunrun:

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/solar-energy/sunrun.html

Ouch

[Testarossa]

I bought a "Kill-A-Watt" meter.  It's very interesting to put it in kW-h mode and plug something like a computer or refrigerator into it.  It then totals killowatt-hours until you unplug the load.  For example my shop computer uses 2 killowatt hours per day, or about 20 cents per day, or $6/month on the bill.  I was surprised to find out that my  old 1955 refrigerator uses less than 1/2 of the energy per month as our new one.  You're always  hearing how efficient new refrigerators are compared to old ones, but in this case it's just hype.

Before we began the PV project I unearthed the KillaWatt meter and we did a complete inventory. Some real surprises. The fridge uses less than 1kWh daily because it's intermittent: kicks on three or four times per hour (and probably less frequently in the winter). Same for the 230v electric water heater, which appears to pull .75 kWh/day (the meter only measures 120v loads, so 230v appliances have to be guesstimated by subtracting the 120v loads from the known household total). Left plugged in but not turned on, the cable box pulls as much power as the fridge; if left on, the desktop computer/printer/monitor combo pulls 3.4 kWh/day. By putting all the electronics on switched power strips, we worked our daily load down to about 10.5 kWh/day, which theoretically could be covered by a 1.8 kW PV array. So our 2.6 kW system gives us good flexibility.

[Triple Jim]

Before we began the PV project I unearthed the KillaWatt meter and we did a complete inventory. Some real surprises.

Yes, those meters are inexpensive and really do show some surprising things.

[nyITguy]

I've never understood the value of putting in a solar system without a battery bank. I suppose if you're home all day using appliances it would be helpful, but as others have noted here, peak electrical usage is mostly at night, when people are home watching TV, making dinner, taking showers and washing clothes. I'd want to generate my electric capacity during peak sunlight, store it in batteries and use that stored energy when the rates go up at night.


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[Testarossa]

I'd want to generate my electric capacity during peak sunlight, store it in batteries and use that stored energy when the rates go up at night.

Where do rates go up at night?  Most electric use is daytime, when businesses are open -- especially summer afternoons and early evenings when air conditioning loads are highest. Heavy demand = highest prices. Example: PG&E. Summer off-peak is 9:30pm to 8:30am, 21c/kWh. Peak is during the business day: .24c morning and evening, .27c noon to 6pm. Winter off-peak is 20c 9:30pm to 8:30am, peak is 22c 8:30am to 9:30pm.

Similarly, Xcel has these time-of-use rates:
Summer Energy Charge:
On-Peak = $0.19 per kWh (afternoons)
Shoulder = $0.13 per kWh (morning)
Off-Peak = $0.08 per kWh (late night)
Winter Energy Charge:
On-Peak = $0.14 per kWh
Shoulder = $0.10 per kWh
Off-Peak = $0.08 per kWh

So: Use solar to prevent paying peak rates, draw power as necessary during the cheap hours.

[Triple Jim]

Wow, we're not much over 10 cents per kWh here.

[nyITguy]

Where do rates go up at night?  Most electric use is daytime, when businesses are open -- especially summer afternoons and early evenings when air conditioning loads are highest. Heavy demand = highest prices. Example: PG&E. Summer off-peak is 9:30pm to 8:30am, 21c/kWh. Peak is during the business day: .24c morning and evening, .27c noon to 6pm. Winter off-peak is 20c 9:30pm to 8:30am, peak is 22c 8:30am to 9:30pm.

You may be right, I might have misread my bill that shows different day/evening rates. This would be NYSEG in NY state.

[Muzz]

A really interesting thread.

Here in NZ a lot of our power is hydro electric and generation and transmission was government owned.  A former government, in it's infinite wisdom, split of the generating capacity and made it private ownership. However, some generating companies have a lot of hydro while others have been saddled with coal/gas etc which has a lot higher generating costs, giving large variations in cost. The transmission lines are owned by other companies and the retailing by yet other companies. However, some generating companies have their own retail sides as well.

Consumers are now being screwed at every turn, and now usage has got to the point where more generation is on the point of being needed. With our consent laws being an absolute nightmare, no generating company wants to go to the expense and hassle to put in more generating capacity. If people put in solar the buy-back for electricity has dropped out of sight and the lines companies have actually upped the lines charges if you put solar in.

As I see it, we are heading for the perfect storm. Electric cars will become more popular thus creating more demand, and every company involved in the generation and distribution of electricity business are in to greed and burying their heads in the sand. They will need home generation if they want to avoid the cap. ex. of building new generating plants.

As has been said before, battery storage is the sticking point. Already though, the Tesla Powestore 2 is at 125-14 kw, depending on who is stating the capacity.

If they can get battery storage sorted, I would be looking at going off-grid if I could afford the initial outlay.