A newbies DIY solar install

[Oaktree]

Ive run numbers on solar and wind, cause i hate paying utility companies. Problem is i live in an area served by hydroelectric, and we only pay about $0.065/kwh. So the rates are cheap. But then they add line maint and meter charges. So unless i totally ditch the utility power, i would never produce enough power to break even.

Yeah, that's where they get you. My actual electricity is slightly under 9¢/ kWh, but all the other fees come to twice the cost of the power itself.

Unfortunately, where we're situated, we really don't get all that much sun 4 months out of the year, so solar's payback would probably exceed my lifetime at this point.

 

[jk96]

I guess I have to ask, what do some of you with considerably higher electric bills do that uses so much electricity?

2200 to 3700 kWh per month with an average of about 2,800 per month. 4500 sq/ft home. 100% electric. HRV, whole house humidifier, 3 kids and usually 3 loads of laundry a day. Heated dog house until this winter (lost our 2 Mastiffs the last 2 years). Fans going in all rooms all night, etc etc. Lots of lighting. Counted 42 lights living room and loft alone lighting everything up. Timber Frame home with 26ft ceilings so takes a bunch. 2 refrigerators, 2 deep freeze. All adds up quick.

 

[beowulf]

I forgot to mention something in my last post here. I said we were saving about $4,000 a year with solar. But our on-the-grid bills (total of two meters) prior to solar were much less than they would have been if we had everything on one meter. This is because the perKW hour rates increase the more you use - lowest use, lowest rate, higher use, higher rate. So with two meters we never reached the highest (i.e., most costly tier) on either meter - or rarely did.

 

[grsthegreat]

Holy cow….. in the dead of winter our elect bill could hit $250. Thats due in part to 6 heated water troughs, heated storage/garden shed, heated tack rooms, among other junk. For maybe 8 months out of the year it barely reaches $90. And ill admit we waste electricity. Im slowly swapping over to led lighting, as the incandescents fail. But they actually dont seem to save much $ per month on the bills….weird.

our yearly elect hill is about $2,400 ish. totally manageable financially, and considering how long and cold winters here are, really not unexpected. But if it was ever upwards of seeing a savings of $4k, that would be another matter. Looking at my past bill, were being charged about $700/ year for service availability … ie meter, emergency repair fees, etc as were an electrical cooperative. So the most i could ever save, and still keep my utility provider for backup, would be about $1,700 per year. It would take a major long time to get my investment back on solar or wind.

if i lived in the desert, with lots of sunlight, that would be a different matter

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I converted almost all lighting to LED and never noticed a difference in my usage. Hvac, hot water, electric dryer accounts for the big usage

 

[LD1]

2200 to 3700 kWh per month with an average of about 2,800 per month. 4500 sq/ft home. 100% electric. HRV, whole house humidifier, 3 kids and usually 3 loads of laundry a day. Heated dog house until this winter (lost our 2 Mastiffs the last 2 years). Fans going in all rooms all night, etc etc. Lots of lighting. Counted 42 lights living room and loft alone lighting everything up. Timber Frame home with 26ft ceilings so takes a bunch. 2 refrigerators, 2 deep freeze. All adds up quick.

Yup. It adds up quick.

Two kids, each with a TV in their room...plus either our bedroom TV going or the living room. Two side by side fridge/freezers and one upright freezer, electric (geothermal) heat and AC. Electric dryer, 20 loads of laundry a week, toaster, microwave, stove, etc for cooking, electric water heater and 4 in the house taking showers a day. 3600gph goldfish pond pump, various lights and electronic chargers, I don't think our bedroom ceiling fan ever shuts off, etc etc

Even when it was just the wife and I before the kids were born....our lowest usage months in spring and fall (not much heat or AC) only ever got down to 800ish kWh a month for an all electric house.

Having natural gas for water heater, stove, and heat cut out the three biggest energy users right there for the average house

 

[LD1]

Holy cow….. in the dead of winter our elect bill could hit $250. Thats due in part to 6 heated water troughs, heated storage/garden shed, heated tack rooms, among other junk. For maybe 8 months out of the year it barely reaches $90. And ill admit we waste electricity. Im slowly swapping over to led lighting, as the incandescents fail. But they actually dont seem to save much $ per month on the bills….weird.

our yearly elect hill is about $2,400 ish. totally manageable financially, and considering how long and cold winters here are, really not unexpected. But if it was ever upwards of seeing a savings of $4k, that would be another matter. Looking at my past bill, were being charged about $700/ year for service availability … ie meter, emergency repair fees, etc as were an electrical cooperative. So the most i could ever save, and still keep my utility provider for backup, would be about $1,700 per year. It would take a major long time to get my investment back on solar or wind.

if i lived in the desert, with lots of sunlight, that would be a different matter

Sounds about like my situation.

Just not enough usage and manageable enough yearly cost that one just cannot justify solar.

 

[bmaverick]

I converted almost all lighting to LED and never noticed a difference in my usage. Hvac, hot water, electric dryer accounts for the big usage

Not all LED lighting systems are equal for energy savings.

True LED savings is when the LEDs work better with AC power direct vs. AC converted to DC LED use with heat losses. It's a marketing ploy to say that the LED bulb only uses 9W to 12W of power, but the converter (ballast-like) can use up to 40W. Thus the savings is almost nothing.

So, before changing to LEDs, ensure what you are installing first.

 

[cqaigy2]

Not all LED lighting systems are equal for energy savings.

True LED savings is when the LEDs work better with AC power direct vs. AC converted to DC LED use with heat losses. It's a marketing ploy to say that the LED bulb only uses 9W to 12W of power, but the converter (ballast-like) can use up to 40W. Thus the savings is almost nothing.

So, before changing to LEDs, ensure what you are installing first.

That's interesting. So basically LEDs are DC devices, though i'd imagine pulsed DC would work fine, so in the US, going from 120v down to whatever the LED will use, something like 3.2 volts. I wondered about those ballast on the LED fluorescent tube replacements, saw a youtube video where a guy named Andy living in Australia, took one of the LED replacement tubes apart and figured out he could remove the ballast completely, with a little rewiring of the light fixture. It reduced the load by 40 watts. So basically the ballast does nothing for the LED light tube, but sits there and eats 40 watts of power, when the light is turned on.

 

[grsthegreat]

You know, as many of the leds ive installed thru the years of being an electrician, i never actually placed my amprobe on the circuit to verify power usage. Truly i have no idea how much of a drop in power it has.
i guess when im bored im going to have to test this.

 

[bmaverick]

You know, as many of the leds ive installed thru the years of being an electrician, i never actually placed my amprobe on the circuit to verify power usage. Truly i have no idea how much of a drop in power it has.
i guess when im bored im going to have to test this.

Yes, and test more than one type of LED brand as well.

I've had some luck with a brand sold out my way called Con-Edison (aka Consumer Edison). These don't heat up, stay cool and are spec'ed to the power company requirements for energy savings.

While in Menards over the weekend, I took a few LED products over to a wall plug and tried them. 2 out of 8 ran cool to the touch. I would never guessed it would be that badly unbiased. But, cheaply made China products is the name of the game. Even name brands ran hot or warm.

 

[newbury]

Yes, and test more than one type of LED brand as well.
<snip>

Do you know of any on line site that reports on LED brands and actual power usage?

 

[bmaverick]

Do you know of any on line site that reports on LED brands and actual power usage?

Not really. There are so many off brands and products in the LED realm that it's overwhelming to find anything relative. I've not looked myself.

 

[jk96]

My December bill is in.

For the month of December my panels produced 2,100 kWh. My estimates prior to install for December was 2,180. I ended up using a total of 2,761 kWh for the month before solar so I was billed for 581 kWh after solar. Here's a breakdown of my Jan electric bill

581 kwh usage x .117 = $67.97
daily usage fee of 31 days x 1.25 = 38.75
energy usage discount - (-$10.88)
Total electric bill = $95.84

Our solar reduced our bill for December by $245.70 (2,100*.117)


Here's a graph showing our daily production in kWh
2022-01-05


This graph shows our total daily kWh usage. Anything below the zero line we produced more than used for the day, anything above we used more than produced.
2022-01-05 (2)

My only unknown at this point is exactly how much credit per kWh I will receive on overproduction for the month. I should see a slight overproduction beginning in March. I'm also not sure if any overproduction credits can be used toward my daily usage fee on my bill or if I will be charged for that regardless. If my overproduction credits can be used toward the daily usage fee as well then I should build up enough credits in the summer to completely wipe out my electric bill. If not I should only have the $38.75 monthly bill starting in March. I should have enough credits built up over the summer to cover my Dec/Jan/Feb usage next winter.

 

[kenmbz]

LED stated usage (ex. 9W) is total usage for when plugged in.
take three 9W bulbs and you can see on the package the difference in lumens per bulb etc.
When you consider a 100 watt incandescent vs. a 9W LED and the amount of time it is on, the usage is tiny compared to HVAC, fridge etc.
Event the high watt LEDs say they only save you a few $ per year per bulb.


I saw one that said usage of 3hr/day 7 days/week for 6 years, yielded $71 "average" savings, so it does pay off, but not like some of the adverts claim (read the fine print to see what they consider "usage")

 

[cqaigy2]

LED stated usage (ex. 9W) is total usage for when plugged in.
take three 9W bulbs and you can see on the package the difference in lumens per bulb etc.
When you consider a 100 watt incandescent vs. a 9W LED and the amount of time it is on, the usage is tiny compared to HVAC, fridge etc.
Event the high watt LEDs say they only save you a few $ per year per bulb.


I saw one that said usage of 3hr/day 7 days/week for 6 years, yielded $71 "average" savings, so it does pay off, but not like some of the adverts claim (read the fine print to see what they consider "usage")

I wonder how that computes to businesses that have their lights on for much longer periods, at least before covid, now im thinking it's shifted to homes and apartments. I know the power usage where i work, dropped considerably after putting in lower power usage lighting, that was a savings in dollar output.

 

[jk96]

Jan update......Probably won't post another until end of the year as a recap but so far so good. My Jan estimate was 2510. Actual production was 2,528 kWh reducing my bill by $295 for the month at our 11.7 cent/kWh rate.

 

[jk96]

Panels were really producing today. The combination of full sun and cool temps to keep the panels and inverters cool had them just above max rating. My inverters were showing 25.2 kW at peak sun today. Total panel rating is 24.9. (60 panels x 410 watts). Putting about 135 kWh to the grid per day now on a cloudless day.

 

[ponytug]

Congratulations! That's great, and quite early in the year.

All the best,

Peter

 

[beowulf]

I recall being told that before you consider solar - in order to have it correctly sized and not oversized for your usage - you should first do everything else to reduce your energy usage. This is because they (at least in my case) sized the solar set up based on the last twelve months of energy usage. I suppose they mean put in LED bulbs, clean filters, maybe switch out energy efficient appliances, and more. We had already done most of that - and we were not about to buy a new refrigerator or spend too much that way. So far, it seems the sizing was correct - we did have a $151 Tru-Up bill at the last anniversary of our installation - but our daughter and SIL are living with us while they build a home here - and were not here for that twelve-month billing stint which they used to size the solar installation. They live in a separate building so more AC, lights and such. Very happy we went solar - as mentioned before here - saving about $4,000 a year and likely more now that rates have increased.

You should also tell them if you are contemplating adding something that will use a lot of electricity - pool, hot tub, AC - so they can figure that in as well.