Work was started on Monday, building a patio extension. Now that the basic foundation is up, the racks for the panels have been installed and the panels are going up tomorrow. It's going to be a 6K system, 10,000 kWh/year or so production. For more information and photos, visit my blog at www.lovebugsphotography.com/blog
Funny, when I look up at the night sky to admire our solar system I don't see your patio. Thanks for the pictures. Keep adding as progress continues.
ha. That's what I was thinking at first too. How does our solar system look from Omicron Persei 8 anyways?
FYI The link above is wrong. This is the correct link The Latest from Lovebugs - photography in Phoenix and Surprise, Arizona
oh, I see what happened. pyccku, when you pasted in the link, you overwrote the http:// that's sitting in the text field. Make sure that little guy is at the front of your link (unless you've already got the http:// in the link that you're going to paste into the text field).
Got the link fixed...and the system is up and ready to go! They put up the panels on Friday and this coming week we'll have the city inspection and APS (local power company) inspection. The hope is that it would cover nearly 100% of our usage. We were averaging 14-15,000 kWh/year, but with some changes we made to our consumption (CFC lights, programmable thermostat, solar window screens, Energy Star refrigerator) we should be right around 10,000 kWh/year. This system will likely make just under 10K kWh, so we're in the ballpark. I was pleasantly surprised that in the Aug-Sept building period, we went from 2700kWh in 2007 to 1500kWh in 2008! The big change was the programmable thermostat, I think. On the rate plan we're on, off-peak is 5 cents per kWh, on-peak is 15 cents. The total cost of the system was around $57,000. APS paid $18,000 for it. We'll get $3000 back (at least, likely more) on taxes. We paid $37,000 for the system, of which $8000 was the cost to build the patio extension. So the solar part was $29,000. We figure that if the rates for electricity don't go up at all, we'll come out ahead within 10 years (probably sooner, with the property value of the patio added). APS has an 8% hike scheduled and wants to amend it to 10% - so I don't think it will take long to make back our money! Using findsolar.com's calculators, they say with the increased property value included, 1-8 years to recoup the investment. W/O property value, 6-10 years. Our current electric bill was $167/month on the equalizer plan. The payment on the HEL for the system is $302/month. It's a 15-yr loan, but we hope to have it paid off within three. Then the system will be giving us power for a good 25-40 years after that.
Brilliant. Great to see that you're up and running. You lot were the ones that couldn't do the swamp cooler, right? Great to see that you're able to cut your consumption by about a third before putting up the system.
Yep, we are the ones without the swamp cooler. We still would have loved to have one, but it's just not an option for us. The programmable thermostat made all the difference for us, I think. We have it set to go up to 86 after we leave and it cools down to 82 right before we come home. So the hottest part of the day, the a/c doesn't run so much. I'm kind of glad this system will be up for the cooler months first - give us some time to earn some excess kWh to put towards the summer months!
No doubt. The cooler temps will help with the efficiency too. Our biggest pig is our Jurrasic period refridgerator. Switching to a new, energy star equivalent would save us 50 kWh/mo, or 1/6 to 1/10 of our monthly electric bill.
Yeah, the bloody thing uses about 95 kWh/month. A modern energy star one uses about 45 kWh/mo. It's probably our next big expenditure. I think our current one dates from the late '70's or early '80's.
