Solar Panels for my home

You are still missing some very big items. With a refrigerator and separate freezer, multiple lights on timers, laptop as PVR, etc, my house uses under 2.5kWh/day when I put it into travel hibernation.

Go to your breaker panel and look for other things. Turn off all heating and cooling, water heater, laundry, range, etc., and try again.

 

Some of the most energy efficient refrigerators average 1kWh/day rated.
HVAC and water heating tend to be the biggest draws in a house. An 8kWh/day fridge is a killer though.

 

My water heater uses gas, but I am sure it would draw a little bit electricity. But yes, 8kWh/day is with HAVC off.

 

I will try this next time when I have a vacation. 8kWh sounds too high just for refrigerator and router/modem/phone. I guess AC/heater/laundry draw power even if I am not using them.

 

Start by measuring the Samsung then figure out where the remainder is going

In my home e.g., the fridge/freezer consumes 60 kWh a month
I estimate that my wi-fi network consumes about 35 watts, so 21 kWh a month
I estimate 6 kWh a month on lighting
Total 100 kWh a month

So a good 1/3 of my non-car home consumption is hidden, probably on crap I could not care less about. It is a problem for us all, to one degree or another. My experience is that it is really hard to track down all uses but the more you know, the more you can do something about.

 

Less -- about 300 kWh a year.
I bought one for our old home; I just with I could have brought with us to the home we now rent.

 

My solar system was turned on for 2 weeks, 6.5kw system, most of the days it generates 45-47kWh. I think it is on track to generate 10k yearly.

 

We just had our 4.3 kWh system turned on by PG&E at the beginning of May.

So far in May it has generated over 700 kWh, which is easily outpacing our usage.

Enough excess capacity to fit a Prime into the mix .

 

generally, between short winter days & long summer days there will typically be a ½ to 2 times as much difference / swing between summer / winter generation .... not just 2 kWh's.

.

 

4.3kw system should generate about 7000kWh a year. Don't you need more? I assume you would charge Prime daily, that's close to 2000 kWh a year. Unless you don't use AC a lot during summer, 7000kWh may be a little short IMO.

I live in Sacramento and used 7000+ kWh last year without Prime, and I only set AC to 80F. Now I can set it to 78F with the 6.5kw solar system.

 

Yes the system was projected to generate 10k kWh a year. During winter it would be around 400kWh a month, but now it should reach 1300kWh per month.

 

How big is your house?

Our annual usage was 7.3 kWh last year for a 3000 square foot house (2 story).

While we don’t keep it like an ice box in the summer (particularly while pg&e would gouge you on “spare the air” days), it will be maintained at a more liveable level.

If we need to add a panel or 2 later on, we have the room to do so:



But our 2010 keeps on running, so I’ll get to see what our overage is, then plan accordingly .

 

My system is 3.78 kW and will generate ~ 7 MWh a year. It easily covers my electricity for home and cars, but is not enough for heating in Colorado unless the home is tight with an HRV

 

My house is 4800 sqft 2 story, I used less than 8000 kWh last year as I was on vacation for 2 weeks early July. I also set AC to 80F, and change to whole house fan once it reached 79F outside. Otherwise, my usage would be easily doubled.

Now the solar system should generates 10k~11k kWh. That should cover our usage with Prime, and possibly a Model 3 in future.

 

When saying "should generate', always be clear about location, because available solar capability varies enormously by location. In my Puget Sound / Western Washington climate, a system your size will produce closer to 4000 kWh/year.

You do disclose your location later in the same post, but it is missing from your profile.

 

Sorry I saw his in in Fairfield California so I thought 4kw system should generate about 7000kWh a year. Will add location in my profile.

Yes solar system in central valley California is pretty efficient, just behind AZ/NM, and my average cost of electricity is $0.25/hWh now. It was $0.15 just 5 years ago, thanks to PG&E. So moving to solar is the best move for me. Just hope PG&E won't change their policy. They already added $10/month grid access fee for solar system. I can only see they would increase the price for solar system further.

 

PG&E’s continual price increases is the reason for the solar purchase for us.

They have the $10 month fee for the privilege of being connected to their wonderful grid.

If we didn’t get some of the morning marine layer we’d have slightly higher production, but I’ll take what we generate .

 

We are happy with our move to solar. Installed and went live last week of June last year. So far lifetime production is 10.5 megawatt-hours. This is in Central Valley CA. We have 4 arrays totaling 33 panels each with its own microinverter. Luckily no PG&E (except gas) here.





iPad ?

 

What is your solar system size

 

Never did quite understand all of this, but according to all my papers it’s a PV system (kW) 9.570


iPad ?