I think we're going solar

The roof is looking good. Did you have to remove the existing old singles in order to install a new layer of shingles? Where I have lived, the code allows two layers of singles. I have done re-single jobs twice, once in our previous house and once in our current house. Both times after talking to several roofers and getting quotes, I decided to go over the existing shingles. The roof underlayment and decking for both cases were intact and needed no repair. This saved the cost and time of installation mostly labor for the removal of old shingles and the total cost was way less than half of what would have cost if I went with a roofer suggesting removal of old singles.

I don't remember what the cost was on our previous house being more than 20 years ago, but the recent roof job on our current house was only $2200 total. It was a two-men job and they finished in less than two days. Of course, our roof is a relatively small ~750sf very simple gable roof with no dormer or complicated structures and a not too steep 4/12 pitch. So, the installation was breath.

 

Yeah, contractor job costs are always a mystery to me. I really hate any contractor job, but when I have to have someone do the job, I always get at least three quotes. In most cases, presumably the same job, depending on the contractor bidding on it offers vastly different quotes.

One time I had a replacement window contractor gave us an estimate. After some measurements, we sat at a table and he gave us an initial offer of ~$20,000 for our 4Br 2.5baths colonial house. I think it had a total of close to 20 windows including a large bay window in the living room. The price was way higher than our budget, so we immediately turned it down. Within a second, he gave another offer for the same job for $15K. We still declined the offer. But without doing any negotiations, his offer came down to $8,000, at which point, we stopped. When he can offer the same job for 60% off, there must be something wrong with the way he is making an estimate. We became very suspicious of the contractor and stopped the conversation.

 

Sorry for not reading the whole thread, so may have been answered...

Can you just subtract your feeding into the grid from what you take out of it?
We (Dutch) can, but it ends Jan 1st 2023. (I have a net useage of MINUS 1000-1500kWh for which I get paid about $0.10/kWh.).

 

This varies considerably by state. I have 'net metering' that works as you describe, except that I don't get paid for surplus, but only get to bank it for a year. Any not used by then goes free to the local utility (owned by local government in my community), so there is incentive to not build large enough for make a surplus.

Apparently Jerry's state will pay him for surplus. Some other states still charge incoming energy at retail rates, but pay either surplus or even outgoing energy at lower wholesale rates.

There are probably other methods too ...

 

I just saw this articale & thought od @jerrymildred and others. This could happen if @alanclarkeau went solar.

Australians could be charged for exporting energy from rooftop solar panels to the grid | Solar power | The Guardian

 

I will be disconnected if I ever put electricity back into the grid, and a Generac inverter does a good job of preventing that. Basing that on demand at the utility is going to require a more subtle control.

 

A suggestion on how electric companies may handle solar customers in our state come from how the gas company charges customers.

I am hooked up to Natural gas. We use natural gas from November to March in our area.
Our only gas appliance is our furnace + a gas fireplace which is never used.
We are charged $22.70 per month in the summer for a gas hookup/transmission fee even though our monthly gas usage =0
This cost is called gas hookup/transmission fee + taxes.

I wonder if eventually electric companies won't begin charging a Electric Utility Hookup/transmission fee each month even if no electricity is used?

I don't agree with these fees but unfortunately the gas company could care less what I agree with.

 

Many electric companies already have such fees.

 

Here in Nevada that's the way it works. We get charged monthly for just being hooked up to the grid. The bill has varied from $3 to $13 a month depending on how the politicians feel like helping residents get through the Covid financial problems from month to month. It's supposed to settle between $16 and $19 a month once everybody gets vaccinated and back to work. We also only get to "bank" the excess energy produced for a year and then it becomes the property of Nevada Energy. No money changes hands.

 

Dutch government wants everybody to disconnect from the natural gas hookup (in the 50's the biggest natural gas field yet was found in the Netherlands, so every government since has been throwing around money like water, in large contrast with e.g. Norway, where the oil benefits are put into a separate fund for future generations). Now we have small earthquakes in the area of the gasfield which costs only a fraction of what was gained to earthquake-proof the houses and fix the ones already damaged, but the government is painfully slow in doing this...

Next to us is Germany, where they want everyone to get a natural gasconnection because it is way better/cleaner than the oil used for heating or the electricity from 'lignite'. (They closed all their nuclear powerplants after Fukushima)

Makes sense, right?

But if you want to stop using gas, they charge you for dismantling the connection.

Some Dutch numbers:
kWh price: about $0.27/kWh
Surplus price: depending on the company between 8 and 15ct/kWh
Banking your surplus for the next year: not possible. Banking your surplus within the year, only for 2021 and 2022. After this we will likely just receive 10ct/kWh put back into the grid and pay 27ct/kWh. So it will be a sport to do the launrdy and charge our (future) electric car while the sun is shining.
Gas is about 1$ per m^3. (is roughly 1$ per 10cuft)

Fixed cost for gas and electricity: 5$/month (gas) + 5$/month (elec) + 500$ minus 400$ government grant = 340$

Standard connection: single phase 35 or 40A fused 230V~(9Kw) or three phase 3x25A 230V~ (17kW). Bigger connections (3x35A, 3x63, 3x80A etc) are much, much more expensive (3x35A is already 800-1000$ a year in fixed cost).

Belgium is somewhat strange: you PAY the electricity company a kind of penalty for the size of your solar inverter. So 10kWp of solarpanels with a 3kW inverter costs the same as 2500Wp solarpanels with a 3kW inverter where you will obviously put a lot more energy back with the first setup.

 

I'm already SOLAR - but in a small way - 1500watt unit from 10 years ago. But I'm on a Govt guaranteed buy-back till 2028 as long as I don't upgrade systems.

There's been a lot of angst about the proposal - 2 million household system owners - and a lot of Commercial owners are up in arms. And out of our small population, Govt won't ignore that number of complainants. Hopefully.

Oh, yes, and the installation industry - will fall on its face - more complainants.

 

I should have kept the bill but when our water system switched from a private system to the county one I got a bill once dated April 1 with a charge for zero usage. It struck me as a bad joke but I had to pay it anyway.