solar: day 2

[cellio]

Last year we replaced our roof, which unlocked solar panels. (We didn't want to put in panels and then have to lift them to replace the roof. And it turned out that the provider wouldn't have put panels on a roof that old anyway.) Permits and supply chains and inspections and the actual work took a while, but everything was installed and paid for before the tax year ended. It took until last week to get through the utility company's inspection so we could turn it on, and we finally got our "permission to operate" confirmation yesterday morning.

I didn't expect much in the middle of winter, especially on a cloudy day like today, but yesterday when it was sunny we returned more power to the grid than we drew, and today we're doing ok now but it looks like we'll be pulling from the grid overnight. (The battery is getting close to its "do not drop below" point, that being a buffer in case of actual outages.) I have never been so involved in power usage...

The battery has been on since it was installed; we didn't have a power outage during that time, but I assume it would have kicked in if so. 'Tis the season, so I was taken by surprise the first time I got a notification on my phone from my battery saying "National Weather Service says there's a storm coming so I'm charging up to 100%", because of course it does that. This is a whole new world for me. :-)

Comments

[hudebnik]

We installed solar panels about fifteen years ago, but without a battery because that was a bunch of added up-front expense, and we didn't expect to often generate more than we used -- indeed, the company that installed them intentionally aimed for a little under what we use because the cost/benefit calculations change as soon as you exceed what you use (I think in our state the power gets sold back to the utility company at wholesale, rather than retail, rates).

But a week or two ago, as a big snow/ice storm threatened various parts of the eastern US, I read an article explaining that in the event of a power outage, your grid-connected solar panels will automatically shut off to protect power-line workers who need to be able to assume a "dead" line is actually dead. Solar panels with a battery between them and the grid don't have to shut off for this reason.

Then some time in the past week I read a Times article explaining that a bunch of US companies ramped up domestic battery production in response to Biden's EV subsidies, and when Trump killed the subsidies, they were stuck with a lot of battery-factory capacity, so there's a glut of rechargeable batteries on the US market right now. Some of the factories have retooled from car-scale batteries to house-scale batteries or even utility-scale batteries (the ones the size of a tractor trailer).

And yesterday, I got an e-mail from our solar-panel provider (which has changed ownership four times since installation, but still exists) offering free consultations on adding a battery to your existing solar-panel installation. So we're considering that.

I don't think there's room to install any more panels on the roof of the house, but there's room on the separate garage. And where the house panels face southwest, the garage panels would face southeast, so a nice temporal complement. Unfortunately, that would require first wiring the garage for electricity (which we considered doing twenty years ago but didn't because of the expense), and replacing the garage roof, both of which sound like dubious investments for a wood-frame garage older than I am. OTOH, we're richer now than we were twenty years ago....

[cellio]

For me, backup power was the primary motivation and selling any excess back to the grid is purely secondary. (As with yours, our system is sized for our current consumption.) Multi-hour power outages have become more frequent here in recent years and they sure are disruptive, so I wanted to mitigate that. Then last spring after a big storm we were out for two days (and so was cell service), which was way more than disruptive. I had been trying, unsuccessfully, to answer the question: what backup power system can I install now that, later, after we replace the roof, I could hook solar up to? (I was also trying to answer the battery-versus-backup-generator question.) Then we had a dubious roof inspection and the tax credits were going to expire, so it all worked out. (It was an expensive year, but we'd planned for the roof being soon.)

(I think in our state the power gets sold back to the utility company at wholesale, rather than retail, rates).

Here it's credits, one for one. We don't have time-of-day rate variations, so we can basically store excess solar at the grid during the day and pull it back at night. But it's purely credits; we can't sell power to the grid, so you don't want to overshoot much.

And yesterday, I got an e-mail from our solar-panel provider (which has changed ownership four times since installation, but still exists) offering free consultations on adding a battery to your existing solar-panel installation. So we're considering that.

Worth at least getting a bid, since it's a company you already deal with.

I don't think there's room to install any more panels on the roof of the house, but there's room on the separate garage.

We have a detached garage that we also wanted to be able to use for its convenient facings. Aside from the problem of the roof's age, though, we learned that they would have to dig a trench to run the line to the house; they cannot fly the wires or take advantage of the existing underground connection (the garage is already wired). This would have meant replacing most of a patio and might have affected our neighbors (whose house is a sidewalk-width's away from ours). Between that and needing to replace the garage roof, we punted pretty quickly. (We were willing to sign a waiver about the roof -- don't really care if a leak means a car gets dripped on -- but they were not willing.)

[hudebnik]

Yes, they were talking to us about pulling up the concrete between the back door and the garage to run an electric line. Fortunately, that's only about six feet, and our "back patio" wouldn't be much of a loss if they had to dig up and re-pour some of it.

[armiphlage]

Wow! I hope to do the same when we replace our roof.

[hlinspjalda]

Woohoo!!! Mazal tov!!!

We have been ghosted, and Mr. Fixer is livid.

[cellio]

Oh that stinks! I am so sorry.

Was it the people we referred you to? If so, I'd want to know that before referring anyone else to them!

[hlinspjalda]

No, the people you referred us to were very timely about telling us they were sorry that they were already overbooked.

This is some other concern we were directed to by the people your people directed us to. At least, I think that's how it happened. I was completely out of the loop for all this, and I'm rather sorry about that because I am beginning to fear Mr. Fixer got played.

[cellio]

Oh sorry, we didn't get the memo that our people were too busy to take new customers. I knew they were very busy (one part of our work got done on December 31...), when I referred you to them I didn't yet know how busy.

Did you folks put money down, or is the main effect of the ghosting that you did not get an installation in time for the tax benefits? Aggravating either way of course, but the one where you spend money and get nothing is of course more aggravating. :-(

[minoanmiss]

Awesome!

[cellio]

Days 3 and 4 were low-sunlight days (snowing). Oh well; we do what we can. The panels worked hard to kick out a bit over a kilowatt hour today!