Electric Rates (where you live)

Solar lease companies told us to take a hike. The lease itself is $100 and my electric bill doesn't get that high even with the car. I haven't done the math on purchasing solar on my own but I'm afraid the payback period might stretch to my children since our usage is so low.

 

Interesting... there are other arrangements like PPA. I don't know all the details.

I've spoken to the REC Solar guys at Costco a few times. My usage is so low (I almost never even pass tier 1) that they said it wouldn't be worth it unless I was into tier 3. Solarcity is the name that people seem to best know.

Regarding the last statement, yeah. It bugs me whenever I keep seeing folks on MyNissanLeaf talking about how much less it costs to "fuel" a Leaf than any other car, including a Prius. Err... not exactly if you live in a ripoff electricity area and are looking at the marginal rates of adding a BEV/PHEV. Those folks making the statement on MNL live in cheap electricity areas.

 

My electricity was averaging $100/month so $1200 per year. Its early days so I don't know how well the predicted savings will pan out but it should get me down to less than $400 for the year. Being retired I have some money in CDs so a $800 savings in a year on a $12,000 investment is much better than 1.5% on the CD.

 

We got a ton of business equipment in our home office but the 36 panels rated @ 225 watts do great at offsetting their power use. Due to non-ideal directions of our roof gables, the system is rated @ 7.1kWh's AC. We still have capacity on one of our 2 DC/AC inverters to add 4 more panels - should we ever add a 2nd plugin. I only charge @ home every other time - because our company has installed several L1 charging stalls. Its pretty ideal ( knock on wood ).

 

My location is not ideal due to some shading impairment. But six panels for a starter system were mounted on the rails this afternoon, just barely ahead of the coming wet spell. I need another half-day of work on the AC branch circuit, then a dry day to plug the panel connections into the microinverters. This metal roof is not walkable when wet.

I'd like to expand to >5kW next year.

 

Probably why plugins don't sell as well in the east coast. The electricity is cleaner than average though.

 

It works! It is nice to see the house meter turning backwards, even if just part time.

The weather is not good, but it has hit the full 1.3kW AC output during sun breaks. There are still some communication problems from the microinverters to the monitoring gateway.

Signage is not done & ready for inspection, so it is not ready for the official production meter. (The meter added to the water heater last month has been temporarily shifted to the PV.) The holiday will cause additional delay.

 

Congrats. Every green/renewable bit counts and you already have two big green milestones - your Prius and your new PV Solar.

 

I have a solar panel too. It is only for off-grid gaming with my 3DS and PSP for now.

Like others in NY area, I pay about 25 cents per kWh. If I include the unavoidable charges iy comes out to 30+ cents.

 

Here in Central NY I'm paying about 12.5¢ per kWh. But... I pay about 1¢ per kWh more to have all use be on a 100% Green Plan. (They add an equivalent amount of electric from Wind, Solar, or non invasive water power for every kWh I use.) This time of year I am also making more electric on my roof (4200w system) than I use so all I am paying for the moment is the line fees, etc. (About $16 per month). I will be given credits I can use on months where I use more than I produce... (Net metering)

 

PGE's E-6 TOU saves me over E-1 (non-TOU), but i need to avoid charging at Peak times (weekday 2-9pm), ~0.30 a kwh from May-Oct. supposedly this rate plan will be overhauled with an EV-A/B plan at some point (i doubt it will lead to lower total cost)

 

Its not important but I believe you mean E9a not E6. E6 the peak rates are 1pm to 7pm, E9a the peak rates are 2pm to 9pm. http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-6.pdf http://www.pge.com/tariffs/tm2/pdf/ELEC_SCHEDS_E-9.pdf E9a has the peak rate at 1 hour longer during the hot time of the day but I has a lower rate midnight to 7am when you would probably charge the battery.

 

It won't. I ran a few calculations and the numbers come up almost the same with either plan. I was really surprised at the results, little to no change in costs at all.

I suspect the real reason for the change is for PG&E to get rid of E9-B, specifically. People with BEV's and a second meter have been enjoying an extra baseline of 5-6 cents per kWh. I'm sure they will be plenty angry at the change since it costs up to $2000 for a second meter and a couple years to recoup the installation.

 

Call back and tell them you now have an EV and will charge it in the afternoon unless there is a rate plan that encourages shifting to night charging.

Mike

 

meant E-9A (not E6). typical usage ~350kwh before PiP, and savings over E-1 greater in winter period vs. summer. i would expect some savings if you can shift chging to off/part peak times, as the E-9 rates are supposed to be for EV owners (although they didn't actually check for E-9A)

 

They asked what kind of car I had, but they didn't do any verification beyond that.

 

We're on PG&E as well. Prior to putting Solar on the roof and switching to E6-TOU, we were paying an average of about 25 to 28 cents a kWh, depending upon our usage for the month (anywhere from 750 kWh up to 1200 kWh). We were always in Tiers 4 & 5 on a regular basis. Now that we have Solar and switched to E6-TOU, we have basically been staying in tier 1. The only time we got out of tier 1 and into tiers 2 or 3 was during the winter when Solar production is at it's lowest, which was expected. Last month I actually was a net generator for the first time.

 

WEll done

PG&E really hammers it's customers after tier II. Put another way, PV and/or conservation are easy choices for those kWh that cost over 30 cents !

 

Conservation is the first thing people should do before investing in Solar. Immediate returns for little to no cost. Got an electric dryer? Replace it with a gas one. We did this 3 years ago. Electric bill dropped by over $100 per month, gas bill only went up about $20 a month. Dryer paid for itself within less than a year.

 

I replaced the electric dryer (most of the year, anyway) with a clothesline. I haven't computed it's ROI, but it is pretty good even after I include the cost of hangars

Conservation is the cat's meow. This is a very good website for those starting out.
My electric bill this month is $15.53. No fancy PV or shenanigans. Just diligent and rational conservation. At this point though, I have reached diminishing returns. If I drop my current consumption 50%, I save $5.27 a month.