Solar Panels for my home

Wow, only 10 kWh per day, 300 kWh per month. I have about the same sq footage including the basement with only 3 people all working and I thought we were doing good only using 600 kWh per month. I think we have about the same climate as you do here in northern Utah.

 

That is 200 kWh per person per month. You are ahead of the curve -- congrats. Our homes are examples of what some effort at conservation accomplishes.

 

For starters, we don't have a well

Mostly we do two things:
Put effort into avoiding waste
Place efficiency as a top priority when we buy something that uses energy

Beyond that, my wife is pretty normal and I am a bit not. We average out.
I have been learning about conservation for years and it has taken us that long to whittle away the waste. It is my habit and hobby (peculiarity ?) to ask myself if an energy using activity can be done another way with similar convenience and less energy. And while I am pretty lazy overall, I don't shy away from a little manual labor. It is true that I oppose in principal the rut of simply asking where the button to push is located. I think about the process. I'm not sure how much difference it makes but in general a bunch of little things* add up.

Off-grid homes are a real eye opener. I highly recommend reading their blogs since they have learned to optimize to whatever they deem important. It is not at all unusual to read of electricity budgets in the 50 kWh a month range.

*Examples:
1. When it came time to replace our refrigerator I wanted to buy one without an in-door cool water and ice dispenser. It was easy to decide on ice trays in the freezer but we drink a lot of cold water in the summer. Eventually we settled on a large thermos on the counter with a push top to dispense the water. In the morning I fill it up with water and ice and it lasts throughout the day.

2. I was staring at our stovetop burners one day and realized that our pans are too small to capture the larger flame radius. I keep that in mind when it comes time to purchase new ones, and I ask my wife to use a burner that matches in size when possible.

3. We minimize use of energized clothes dryers, and use a line instead. In the beginning it was a chore but over time we have learned to use hangars in a manner that is as convenient (perhaps more so) than a dryer.

There are many more, but it takes me time to remember them because each one quickly becomes a habit.

 

Sounds like you have all the low hanging fruit.
I suppose one of the higher cost items listed was converting away from the heating oil setup?
Without knowing more details, have you considered a ‘deeper’ renovation?
I know that can come with a higher cost. However it may be cheaper than enough PV panels to offset the amount of energy a renovation would save.

How much does 800 gallons of heating oil a year cost?

 

Yeah, if my wife can tolerate lifestyle of off grid preppers, I have no problem getting rid of all the things electric... except a laptop and internet connection for my work. LOL Oh, I also need to be able to plug in our PRIME. BTW, does your 10 kWh per day include plugging in your PRIME? That would leave you only 3.8kWh per day for your daily life at home? Again, I have no idea, how you do it.

We have tried most of what you are suggesting and beyond

*Examples:
1. refrigerator without an in-door cool water and ice dispenser... we went further by selecting the most energy efficient model with the freezer on the bottom

2. efficient use of stovetop burners... in fact we have recently replaced our old electric range with extremely energy efficient IH burners

3. use of cloth lines... been there done that but only when weather is nice that's 3 month out of year in NE.

In addition: When our dishwasher broke, we went without and did not replace it, did the same with microwave oven. Not electric, but we even tried to forego oil burning furnaces by using ONLY wood burning stove for heating in one winter. But in the end of our experiments, none of them showed substantial reduction in energy usage or cost. Maybe 10% at best.

Heating cost is huge in our northern climate. I guess, you should know that living in MN. I went to college in MN, and experienced there the coldest temperature in my entire life, -40. Our house is mainly heated by oil burning furnaces supplemented with a wood burning stove. Since we have no natural gas line, propane is the only other option, which can be cleaner and bit more efficient but more expensive than oil. I would not even dream converting to electric heat knowing how inefficient heat pump in our PRIME was during dead of winter. Major renovation is one possibility, but if I think of inconvenience of living in temporary housing which is not very plausible for our current lifestyle anyway and major cost involved, I would much rather save money now and built a retirement home somewhere bit warmer with passive solar design. So for now, whatever I do to improve our current energy crisis situation has to be a quick return of investment. Sigh...

 

In the summer I use under 50kwhr a month and I’m not even off grid

 

Yes, it includes the electricity used by our Prime and LEAF. Neither gets plugged in every day though.
The LEAF is used for 350-400 miles a month which works out to about 75 kWh a month
The Prime gets 10 - 12 full charges a month which works out to about 68 kWh a month

Combined, ~ 143 kWh a month for the cars, or about 4.7 kWh a day average

Writing about this reminds me how much I want our refrigerator to die. It is a 2 kWh a day relic that will be replaced by a 300 kWh per year appliance. When completed the home without cars will average about 4 kWh a day.

 

That leaves 5.3kWh a day average for your daily life. I am sure we go through that in a flush. Literally... in our bathroom. Well pump running...

 

Well done !!!

My paper calculations always suggest 50 kWh a month per home as a reasonable minimum but I have never gotten to those consumption levels. And now that I have inexpensive PV my motivation (and my wife's patience) are inadequate. Nowadays I put most of my effort and cursing into the boiler used for DHW and radiant heating. I hate that thing.

 

If a move to a retirement home is in your future, I would do exactly what you are doing now. Save where you can, gather ideas and plan out the new home.

Do you have any energy monitoring set up? A good one may cost a bit now, but could tell you where all this energy is going.

We end up with an average of 1000kWh/month of use. Part of this reason is our house is 100% electric as that is the only source of power that can be 100% renewable.
No natural gas, or oil, no automotive gasoline.
Part of the plan for our house was to be as efficient as possible, and then produce the power we need with solar.
Efficiency should come first, then solar. In our case we produce about 1500kWh/month. Our original energy models were way off
Being able to build in an area without the need for that inefficient well pump or heating system will go a long ways.

 

That's exactly what I was just browsing. WHOLE-HOUSE ENERGY MONITORING SYSTEMS

Any good recommendation on the model to install? Preferably DIYable, but since my electrical knowledge is limited, I may have to hire a qualified electrician if it has to connect directly to the main panel.

 

Our Montana well-pump had to bring water up from 800'. I often thought, "hmmmm - windmill?" Got vetoed.

no ice maker? Ok - but ... Meanwhile, the Madison Avenue advertisers are telling the public we need one of these bad boys;



Fridge with TV, internet connection, Wi-Fi capable over the top power hog. So now what - you get to continually upgrade your CPU, GUI, & so your fridge doesn't get a virus, make sure your AV program is up to date. Please kill me.

 

There are a number of options. The one I use is EGauge. However, it isn't cheap and the setup can be challenging. It is very precise though and gives great records. eGauge | Energy Metering Systems
On the other end of the scale is a Watt-meter you can simply plug into a 115 outlet. Unfortunately that will do nothing for any 220V appliances or any hard wired devices.

The best choice depends on how many, and what type of devices you want to measure.

 

Thanks. I will look into it. Yes, I do have a few Kill-A-Watt meter, and have used to measure individual appliances that connect to 110v, though trying to connect it behind refrigerator and monitoring it was a challenge.

 

You can buy an inductance meter with a display for < $20.
If the ring can be opened manually, you could move it from breaker to breaker as you see fit without having to disconnect any wires -- just turn off the main switch to the panel before you do anything else.

The reading will be in Amps or Ahrs. You can get a pretty good estimate of power (or energy, respectively) by multiplying by either 120 or 240 volts as the breaker dictates.

 

Thanks for the info. I think I will need appliance level detection feature if I am going to monitor whole-house level. It is not a real-time but I can check our daily use from our utility company site without paying any extra. Without identifying when and what appliance is using how much electricity, I will not be able to save energy usage. I am interested in this model. The Sense Home Energy Monitor

 

Right, one breaker at a time. Larger appliances have their own breakers

 

Solar company never advertised that panels can generate what they are rated. They just say the whole system approximately generates this amount of electricity per year.

Yesterday I had the 6.5Kw system installed and ran shortly. It was sunny afternoon with direct sunshine, and inverter show about 5.5kw, that is before counting the inverter loss.

 

hmmm, how can you achieve that. When I was on vacation, I turned everything I could off. I unplugged printers, TV's, echo's, xobx. Only refrigerator, router, phone, and one LED bulb sometimes on. The refrigerator is a Samsung one which is supposed to be energy efficient. It still used 8kwh/day. If we stay at home, it would be 10kwh/day minimum without charging the car, using the dryer, oven etc.