patrick.net

How big is the solar system and how much did it cost?
I want my retirement home to be self sufficient like that. I also want to generate enough of my own electricity so that I can waste it if I want to.
Also i used to be an electrical engineer that designed and built power plants.

Wow you showed them! Now if you could just get rid of all the other rubes who rely on the power grid for power to live their lives and run their businesses and your victory will be complete.

ohomen171 says

struggled with monthly electricity bills from Pacific Gas and Electric averaging between $300 and $600+ per month

WOW! Our 3/2 in the East Bay has a PG&E bill of $100 - $150 per month.What kind of house do you live in?

Not expecting a cogent answer.

Not expecting an answer at all.

$600 bill in Pacifica? What the fuck are you doing there? Welding? Growing MJ? Running an electric sauna?

Definitely not AC - nobody has that in Pacifica.

Probably would have been cheaper to downsize houses instead of solar. It's unfathomable in my area to receive a $600+ electric bill in a month. Even if combined with gas. Do you even use A/C out there in CA much of the time? I could run my AC at 62, dehumidifier in the basement (basically a AC window unit electric usage wise) leave all lights on, tvs (10) and run the pool pump on its highest setting and not come close to $600.

And if it's just two people, you and Elena, that's an insane amount of usage in any area of the country. Natural gas is dirt cheap. I'm sure electric is expensive in CA, but not $600+ per month unless you're in a 3k plus square foot home, which means take the equity and run to a cheaper place if you've got that big of a house and only two people living there. Too late now, as you likely paid for a $40k solar array and wiring that won't pay for itself until 7-10 years down the road.

Enriching the solar homos is always the way to go though.

ohomen171 says

#pacificgasandelectricrobbingthepublic For years, Elena and I have struggled with monthly electricity bills from Pacific Gas and Electric averaging between $300 and $600+ per month. We installed a solar power system. It was turned on. Our current monthly electricity bill arrived. It was $29.89. HOW SWEET IT IS!!!

Not to rain on your parade, but here is the reality. Your bill is so low because you signed on to a program called Net Energy Metering 2.0, and you are currently being billed only monthly meter charges for 11 months of your True-up year, then on the twelfth month you will be billed the monthly meter charge PLUS non-bypassable charges which have accrued, plus any Energy charges which have accrued.
Under NEM 2.0 the customer pays NBCs (currently roughly $0.045/kWh) for all energy consumed from the grid. This means any energy you pull when your PV is not producing, you’ll be charged NBCs for (which are not payable by any credits that your PV system is able to generate due to overproduction and banking in the True-up year account system.) Now for your energy charges: say your system produced 12,000 kWh over the True-up year, and your house consumed 15,000 kWh over that same 12 month period, you will now be on the hook to pay charges for those 3,000 kWh at this time.

YMMV with this dependent upon how you calculated your production vs. use and wether or not you have any storage so as to produce when your PV is not and avoid any NBCs.

Missed your comment CCP while drafting the one after yours. A bill of $600 would have to be a 4-5k square foot house, maybe bigger if you're not using AC. I cannot fathom a bill that high.

I have an old AC condenser and this last week or so it runs 80% of the time. Not efficient at all. Never have gotten over $300 on electric with a pool pump, deep freezer, 2 fridges, a beer fridge (outside), crappy AC and 3 kids that will play 3 Xboxes on 3 tvs 1 hour a day or so. Wife leaves the tvs on in the bedroom and living room 24/7 regardless of watching them. Then factor in all the auxiliary stuff. Wifi points 3, modem, computers for 5, iPads for 4, battery backup, fans, etc.. $600 if a fuck ton of electric usage regardless of rates.

One of the most notable reductions in energy I've noticed is the halogen lights a lot of people have. I've had bad luck getting the LED variety, but you'r talking 100W versus 15W for just two wall sconces in my bathroom, that occasionally get left on for hours by accident. I've got motion sensor switches with automatic shutoff with no motion. Lighting is more than people realize. Even those twisty bulbs are still 15W roughly. 15W is the highest wattage bulb in my entire house. Inside or out. Every bulb is probably averaging 8-9W. ~30% reduction from the "old" efficient bulbs.

Other than AC, the biggest energy user in a house is a clothes dryer. Granted, a dryer does not run all day.

HeadSet says

Other than AC, the biggest energy user in a house is a clothes dryer. Granted, a dryer does not run all day.

If replacing a dryer - get a gas-powered one. While you still can. The fucks might ban them.

ohomen171 says

Today Is A Day Of Incredible Triumph. We Handed Pacific Gas And Electric A Resounding Defeat!

Have you looked into propane as a secondary power source?

HeadSet says

Other than AC, the biggest energy user in a house is a clothes dryer. Granted, a dryer does not run all day.

Another one is pool pump. Must run that fucker for several hours per day - no way around it.

HeadSet says

the biggest energy user in a house is a clothes dryer.

An electric water heater is an energy gobbler, too. Had one in my Dallas condo for 24 years. Finally started just turning it off until about an hour before I needed it. After about three years, the safety pop-off spring got weak and started letting water out at temperature. Cost $60 to replace it, which I figured was much less than the current I'd saved. Inevitably the lower coil goes out due to corrosion, leaving only the top one for heating, so you have to be really fast if you don't want to run out of hot water during a shower. The first time it went out, a new heater cost me $600. A couple of year before I sold my home, a new heater priced at over $1,000 including installation, so I just lived with it and revealed it as one of the problems needing attention when I sold the unit in 2005.

FuckCCP89 says

$600 bill in Pacifica? What the fuck are you doing there? Welding? Growing MJ? Running an electric sauna?

Mining bitcoin???

WookieMan says

Do you even use A/C out there in CA much of the time?

Not where he lives.

NDrLoR says

HeadSet says

the biggest energy user in a house is a clothes dryer.

An electric water heater is an energy gobbler, too. Had one in my Dallas condo for 24 years. Finally started just turning it off until about an hour before I needed it. After about three years, the safety pop-off spring got weak and started letting water out at temperature. Cost $60 to replace it, which I figured was much less than the current I'd saved. Inevitably the lower coil goes out due to corrosion, leaving only the top one for heating, so you have to be really fast if you don't want to run out of hot water during a shower. The first time it went out, a new heater cost me $600. A couple of year before I sold my home, a new heater priced at over $1,000 including installation, so I just lived with it and revealed it as one of the problems needing attention when I sold the unit in 2005.

Electric water heater coils are cheap and easy to replace even by yourself.

FuckCCP89 says

Another one is pool pump. Must run that fucker for several hours per day - no way around it.

That's why my retirement home will have a plunge pool. Keep it small, it's only going to be for 2 people and we will use it a lot.

More drive by propaganda.

No details on how much electric he's using or any specs on his system.
Someone that would spend the kind of money to get the results he's talking about. Would be bragging like the guy that fucked every hot Nun in a Convent.

zzyzzx says

A couple of year before I sold my home, a new heater priced at over $1,000 including installation, so I just lived with it and revealed it as one of the problems needing attention when I sold the unit in 2005.

You may want to consider a flash heater when time to replace. In my next house I plan to have just cold water pipes to fixtures, with just an at-place flash heater for hot water.

With cower-in-place, work-from-home, and ever-increasing prices, my electric bill has jumped from about $45/month 2 years ago to $110/month now. Here in Sunnyvale we have time-of-use and a "clean energy" generation system that makes the bill complicated. Anyway, I'm going through about 11 kWh per day and paying a total overall of about 31¢/kWh. From the bill, the "generation" seems to be well under half the cost.

My biggest question about getting solar is, if I got a system that produced 100% of my needs (and probably overproduce during the high-cost times because I don't have A/C), how close to $0 would my bill actually drop? Between hidden fees, the difference between generation and transmission and distribution, and that lovely "Power Charge Indifference Adjustment" ($16 on my last bill), how much could I actually expect to save? I get the nagging suspicion that I'll splurge for a system that makes a small surplus of electricity and, after all that, my bill will essentially drop from $110/month to $75/month because of all the stuff not covered. The benefits of a $10k solar installation can't be calculated when I really have no idea the actual expected savings.

Question about upgrading in the future: If I had such a system that met my current needs, is it cheap to later upgrade to accommodate an electric car or an A/C system? Or would I just be looking at essentially paying all the costs over again to, say, double the system output?

Why on earth does it make any sense to put solar panels on hundreds of slanted roofs throughout a neighborhood instead of, say, putting all those panels on a single flat roof of the local supermarket?

SunnyvaleCA says

Why on earth does it make any sense to put solar panels on hundreds of slanted roofs throughout a neighborhood instead of, say, putting all those panels on a single flat roof of the local supermarket?

You've found the answer. Solar doesn't work financially in almost any case. It's a feel good or promotional thing. A Target or Walmart could easily power their stores with solar. Why don't they? I know some do to a small extent, but it's usually token panels as a promotional feel good thing. 50+ freezer and open air fridges are way more than they can keep up with.

The biggest cost savings would be in lighting and insulation with regards to electric. Solar simply cannot keep up. Raining days here in IL. Smoke from fires in CA. There are very few places solar makes sense. Camping, sure. A house where it takes a decade to pay off or actually save monthly, no. Unless it's a forever house. Which it never is. And even then the tech will be outdated or damaged in 10 years.

Ultimately it is capitalism. If you could get electric cheaper with panels, utilities will just lower rates because less people need them and panels will seem too expensive at some point. Panel rates will have to spike and utilities will just trail the demand and raise rates again. Rinse and repeat. Supply and demand.

HeadSet says

In my next house I plan to have just cold water pipes to fixtures,

You have that now. Just turn off the water heater.