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Brentbba

Former Golfer
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Mar 27, 2003
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Location
OC, CA
Has anyone else here installed solar panels on their roof?

We just got permission to 'operate' yesterday so I'll be very interested to see how much my bill really drops. Based on a review of my last year's bills, the payback for the system is 5.5 years. Not bad at all IMHO. I had my system over engineered a little. Both bids said 12 panels would be enough, so I had 14 installed. System inverter has an internet based monitoring system with a phone app so I can see how much my system is producing. Will probably be a cool toy for a little while before I stop checking! :)
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I have. I did mine about 2.5 years ago. We are on NEM 1 which means we "sell" at a very favorable rate during the day and "buy" at much lower rates at night. I think you might be in NEM2 which is similar but might not be as favorable from a sell high/buy low standpoint but that would have been factored into the size of your array. We have an EV as well. I haven't had an electric bill since we installed it. Assuming you too are now on time of use (rather than the tiered rate) you will do the same.

What all of this means is that you will find you bank enough credits during the day that you almost certainly won't pay for kWh consumed at night even though you will consume more total kWh than you generate. This is due to selling to the grid a a higher rate than you buy back at night. With the typical credits reduce your use days, you likely will get the connection fees also offset to truly zero the bill. One thing to remember is that the solar itself only offsets consumption charges, not connection fees and the likes.

To actually get paid to generate you have to generate more raw kWh than you consume and you get paid at the paltry wholesale rate of $0.04/kWh. Typically, there is a large gap between banking enough credits to offset the kWh charges and actually over generating enough that you start to get paid that small amount per kWh.

If you want to accelerate the payback and are in the market for a car, leasing an EV gets very attractive. You get 3 years of no vehicle maintenance, no gasoline costs, and no electricity which can make getting around very affordable. I like to think it lets me blow more cash on my cruiser and I wear it out a lot less since I am not commuting in it.

Frank
 
I'd have to go back and check the Net Metering agreement. I know my generation just goes into a bucket for my use alone. There will still be the standard connection fees, nuclear decommissioning fees, etc. that won't get offset at all as I understand it. I'm not sure on the cost differentials between generation and usage day vs night. It's been awhile since I read through all the details. All I can tell you on day one is that I've generated 791 watts so far this morning.

Original NEM agreements, that no longer exist, actually paid you back for any excess generation over consumption. That's long gone.
 
Are you sure about the payback? You should be on a TOU plan which is how you zero the bill with a smaller array than you would otherwise need. I would probably need 20% more generation to generate more raw kWh than I consume so I never get there. However, if you do, you should get the wholesale rate for that regardless of plan. That rate is small, 4 cents/ kWh but that's the rate as I understand it.

Given San Diego's reduced use days where you will over generate during peak periods, you should still get credit which could erase the connection fees.

Frank
 
I do recall the $.04 rate. There are certain regulatory fees that can't be erased as I understand it, even if I over generate, and I should with 14 panels. Usage analysis said I only needed 12.
 
I also went with two extra panels. I knew the EV was going to use some kWh's but didn't know how much. It turned out to work well. I might even be able to run a second EV and keep the bill at zero.

I think we banked like 3 reduced use days and an EV credit which offset the connection fees. While the solar generation does not apply to connection fees, any other credits like reduce use rewards and the likes do apply to the total balance and thus offset connection fees. In fact we carried over a negative balance since the credits were greater than the fees. So I guess some more good news is that credits roll over from year to year if there aren't enough charges to use them entirely.

If you over generate say for example, 100kW at the end of your yearly period you'll get a whopping 4 bucks that will apply to the bill total and thus the fees.

Frank
 
I learned more about solar from @elripster posts than I have from any salesman.
 
I learned a lot well after I had the system. The sales folks didn't really do a good job explaining it to me.
 
Explaining the bill or what would happen regarding the system itself.
 
Who did you use and what do you think of the install/product/quality?

My system was spec'd at 18 panels for about 80% production due to some shadowing from trees and less than ideal roof exposure. I also went with 2 additional panels upping it to 20 (anticipating additional usage.) I'm averaging low 8's to mid 9's daily (with a couple days over 10KWh) this time of year.

I know I could get the number higher if I cut down a couple of eucalyptus trees but I'm going to see how much better production I get during summer with the longer days and higher sun angle.
 
I used Genesis CA out of Oceanside. They did a super clean install and were great to work with. Both they and the other bidder spec'd 12 panels for 100% production so I went with 14. I too get some tree shading, especially here in the winter. I'd only been producing a couple of days so no difference in the December bill. We'll see when January comes in.

I'm averaging the same production as you right now with the 14 panels I've got. I'm pretty much done for today and produced 10.82 KWh.
 
i installed my system in june and after 6-months I'm using just a little more than i am generating. i was going to do it myself, but the material/install prices have come down so much it was not worth my time/effort. i'm actually surprised your payback is 5.5-years. mine is about 3.5-yrs.

as @elripster pointed out, there is no point to generating more power than you use as the payback at the wholesale rate is pennies. the key is to keep your usage in the tier 1 rate, but it is also nice to be able to use AC, heat, etc. freely and i find myself doing that a lot. so, a system sized a little bigger than you need is nice to have if you have gone to the effort to install.

watch your inverters for while on the app/desktop. i had two go out and would not have know otherwise, and it is nice to see performance. i also moved two panels because another area of the roof was performing better and this did not show in the calculations.
 
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