# Went Solar Today



## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

Solar City came out and installed 29 panels on the garage. They finished in the late afternoon and it is a "June gloom" day. He fired it up to try it out and ~1,350 watts were coming out. Capacity is 6kW. Unforetunately, we can't start using it until Edison comes out for inspection and that could take 45+ days. Ridiculous!


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## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

WOW, 6KW is some serious power. What kind of investment are you talking about.


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## GaryR (Feb 6, 2010)

Congrats. Costs a mint, but it'll get paid off a lot sooner than that monthly bill.  

GaryR


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## saintyohann (Jan 2, 2008)

I've been trying to get solar installed since I got an electric car in September. No one seems interested in taking my money, they all seem to only want to do leases instead of purchases.


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

Posted By Treeman on 24 May 2012 08:50 PM 
WOW, 6KW is some serious power. What kind of investment are you talking about. 

Inverter is rated for 6kW. But we didn't max it out with panels so expect about 5kW. Was $22K including the roofing work.

Leasing is actually the way to go, if you pay it all up front. It is actually cheaper than buying, they take care of it, and in 20 years, they redo the roof as original (Spanish tile) or give it to you. It's rated at 85% of the new efficiency in 20 years. But, when you lease you also get a performance guarentee and if it doesn't meet that guarentee, they pay for the difference.


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## wigginsn (Jan 9, 2008)

Good for you. 

Do you have contract arrangements to export back to the grid that are reasonable? Most utilities here will give you less than half rate for reverse power. Thats one of the main reasons I'm not looking seriously at for our new house. 

Cheers 
Neil


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

Posted By wigginsn on 25 May 2012 02:27 AM 
Good for you. 

Do you have contract arrangements to export back to the grid that are reasonable? Most utilities here will give you less than half rate for reverse power. Thats one of the main reasons I'm not looking seriously at for our new house. 

Cheers 
Neil 


The way it works is that you trade kilowatt hours for kilowatt hours. None of the systems are self sufficient and all are meant as a 
"crutch" to the utility system.

For example, if we consume 10 KW per day and the system produces 5 KW, we pay Edison for the other 5kW. The Edison rates are based on 5 tiers with each tier becoming progressively more expensive. The idea of the solar is that it supplements the grid so that you never get into the two or three most expensive tiers.

If for some reason you produce more kW than you use (say you go on vacation), yes the grid buys that energy from you, but basically a bit lower than the lowest tier rate.

Regarding capacity, each of the panels is rated for 235 watts and we have 29 panels (6,815 watts) if things ran at full capacity under ideal conditions. The inverter is rated to 6kW. But that never happens and Linda said according to the paperwork we should expect about 5.5kW.


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## jimtyp (Jan 2, 2008)

Never mind, saw your answer above.


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## Cougar Rock Rail (Jan 2, 2008)

So what is the payback period where it starts making sense dollar wise?


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

Posted By Cougar Rock Rail on 25 May 2012 04:23 PM 
So what is the payback period where it starts making sense dollar wise? 

Linda said she thinks it pays for itself in 8-10 years. I seem to recall the guy indicating that it was 11 years to pay itself off.

Because we are paying up front (after final County inspection), we have no ongoing fees through Solar City as you would on another plan where you pay it off over time. That is based on the historic rate hikes and future rate hikes could be even greater, meaning that it pays itself off sooner.


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

Very interesting--bravo to you for taking this step.

I've always wondered why it isn't easier to add supplementary power generation--wind, solar etc. Just lowering the burden on the grid would do everybody good






Convert all those incandescent train bulbs to LEDs!


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

They were trimming out the roof today and it is nice and clear, so I did a quick check of the system.

At 12:20 PM, the system was putting out 5,666 watts. But the best part is that you get to watch your power meter _*run backwards*_ as the system dumps excess power into the grid. That power is later replaced by Edison watt-for-watt.


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## wigginsn (Jan 9, 2008)

Posted By toddalin on 29 May 2012 01:40 PM 
But the best part is that you get to watch your power meter _*run backwards*_ as the system dumps excess power into the grid. That power is later replaced by Edison watt-for-watt.

I think I could watch that for hours! 

One more Q Todd - somewhat technical but I think you'll get it from what I know of your background.. Is your converter capable of providing reactive power export, and does Edison care about this? 

The main point being is able to provide voltage support if/when smart controls are rolled out to consumer meters. I'm trying to get a handle on where you guys are at in the US with small scale distributed generation vs 'sales and theory articles' I read in industry rags. 

Cheers
Neil


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## GaryR (Feb 6, 2010)

Lot of things depend on the regulations in your area. Like the meter running backwards. Many areas require 2 meters, one going , one coming. 
Most if not all small installations like this do not react to grid load conditions. They only turn off when grid power fails. Large energy farms are likely a different story. 

GaryR


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

Gary is correct in that it needs to receive power from the grid to operate. However, there are those that know how to change the wiring a bit to power just the house if there was an extended blackout.

We recently received one of the new "controversial power meters" that is in radio contact with Edison. These are new and were probably made with solar in mind.


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## wigginsn (Jan 9, 2008)

Yes, as far as I know large farms amost exclusively use 4 quadrant converters, I have been involved in two wind farms that were capable of fully controlled importing and exporting Watts and VAR's - I can't imagine solar farms will be any different.


I've sort of answered my own Q by a bit of google.. Edison have looked at it on larger scale plant within their distribution system, and it looks like on pg 7 of the link that the smaller inverters like yours are "grid passive and VAR neutral" by design. 


http://www.ieee.org/organizations/pes/meetings/td2010/slides/td2010p-000317.pdf*SCE - Solar PV Inverters Volt/VAR Controls linkhttp://www.ieee.org/organizations/pes/meetings/td2010/slides/td2010p-000317.pdf **
*

Sorry to derail the thread - just curious on whether active voltage control of the local grid was being built into current installations.


Cheers

Neil


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

We have an Aurora PVI-6000

Aurora 6,000 Watt Inverter


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## RickV (May 25, 2012)

Wow - two of my hobbies in the one place: trains and solar PV!

We too have gone solar, initially with a 6kW Aurora inverter with 6.12kW of panels and then a year later we swapped it out for an Aurora 10kW 3-phase inverter with an additional 3.23kW of panels. Fortunately for us here in Queensland, Australia we have some healthy rebates to assist in getting setup and paid off.

We get a rebate from the federal government for the installation of the system which meant all up the whole thing cost $31,500 instead of about $46,000. Secondly we get a net Feed-In-Tariff of 44c per kWh from our state government which is also supplemented with an additional 6c per kWh from our utility company for all electricity that is surplus to our needs. We are currently paying 23c per kWh to import from the Grid. So in the end it should take us about 5 years in total to pay it off.

Currently we are generating about 10% more than our total consumption which when combined with our natural gas usage makes us nearly energy neutral which is a good feeling indeed.

I had given some thought to a stand alone solar system to run the garden layout however it was cheaper and easier just to install a new power outlet there instead.

So congrats in going solar, yet another obsession to add to the list (yes watching your outputs can become very addictive). Oh and I would recommend that you check out www.pvoutput.org as there are a growing number of systems from the US and around the world that upload their daily outputs there for comparison by all. It's great for checking if your system is working well.
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## krs (Feb 29, 2008)

Posted By RickV on 01 Jun 2012 01:17 AM Fortunately for us here in Queensland, Australia we have some healthy rebates to assist in getting setup and paid off.We get a rebate from the federal government for the installation of the system which meant all up the whole thing cost $31,500 instead of about $46,000. Secondly we get a net Feed-In-Tariff of 44c per kWh from our state government which is also supplemented with an additional 6c per kWh from our utility company for all electricity that is surplus to our needs. We are currently paying 23c per kWh to import from the Grid. So in the end it should take us about 5 years in total to pay it off.




Wow - You sure have some healthy electricity rates, that sure makes the payback period to go solar pretty short.

In Quebec we pay about 8 cents/kWh, cheaper to heat here with electricity rather than oil. Payback for solar even with the lower equipment prices in North Ameica, would be closer to 30 years I would think.

Most of the electricity here is hydro-generated, preet environmentally friendly.


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

My question is in regards to this Solar City. 

What is their history? 

How long in business? 

What does the contract say about them going bankrupt? 

You paid everything up front, but are you going to loose it all if they go bankrupt?


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

The State of California also offers rebates and incentives. But under our "lease" these all go to Solar City, which is why they can offer the programs that they do.

However, even under these conditions, the lease still worked out cheaper than buying the equipment (with the rebates) and having it installed, and again, they are responsible to ensure it all works and they provide a performance guarentee (i.e., you are guarenteed so many kilowatt hours per year even in the event of a nuclear winter) that you don't get if you buy. They also guarentee the roofing work, and I keep my classic Corvettes in that garage.

Say something goes down and we can't get a part. If we own, we are SOL until the part comes in under warrentee. Under our program, Solar City pays us for that time under the guarentee if we haven't met the performance quota.

Around here, Solar City is the Big Dog, and the County inspector, who has now been out to the house a few times, is very pleased with their operations and touts them over their competitors. If they ever did go out of business, we still have the equipment and it is really no different than buying, except that we paid a bit less and would loose our performance guarentee.


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

None of the systems are self sufficient and all are meant as a "crutch" to the utility system.Interesting... none are self-sufficient, but the current thinking wants to run the country off of it. Neat trick. Like the feeding of the 5000 with five loaves and two fishes.


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

One Nebraska hail storm would wipe that out. I had a roof replacement last year and one the year before that, due to bad hail storms.


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## TonyWalsham (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By toddalin on 01 Jun 2012 11:20 AM 

SNIP.

Around here, Solar City is the Big Dog, and the County inspector, who has now been out to the house a few times, is very pleased with their operations and touts them over their competitors. 

SNIP

My Reply.
Now I would be very worried about that.
Surely State or County inspectors should be impartial. Not touting for one company over another.


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## toddalin (Jan 4, 2008)

Posted By TonyWalsham on 01 Jun 2012 08:25 PM 
Posted By toddalin on 01 Jun 2012 11:20 AM 

SNIP.

Around here, Solar City is the Big Dog, and the County inspector, who has now been out to the house a few times, is very pleased with their operations and touts them over their competitors. 

SNIP

My Reply.
Now I would be very worried about that.
Surely State or County inspectors should be impartial. Not touting for one company over another.


The inspectors know what and who works and what and who doesn't. It just so happens that the inspector is a garden railroader







and is only too happy to talk after seeing our front yard. I believe he is coming to our next club meeting.


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