What are you paying for electricity (price per kWh)?

Thanks for that insight. I did a little bit of digging. Our utility now Versant Power get 100% of the supply from NB Power.

According to Wikipedia,

NB Power operates 13 generating stations with a total installed capacity of 3,513 MW as of 2013.[40][41] The generation fleet uses a variety of energy sources: heavy fuel oil (972 MW), water (889 MW), uranium (660 MW), diesel (525 MW), and coal (467 MW).[41][42] As of 2020, NB Power's grid includes 355 MW of wind energy.[43]

So, I guess, the sources are not as clean as our state overall mix is. Still not sure why the 90% increase?

BTW, I am subscribing to community solar for 100% of my electricity supply.

 

Here is a seriously outdated Versant Power fuel mix disclosure:


Natural gas was the largest item back then, and was spiking last fall when they may have been adjusting this year's rates. But prices have settled down since.

Here is a newer New Brunswick chart:


I also see that Canadian currency averaged stronger against the U.S. dollar last year than the previous year, so your supplier might have some currency losses to make up. But those don't seem enough to account for the size of your price hike.

 

I wonder if the Canadian carbon tax is contributing to the increases.


iPhone ?

 

I am not sure where you got the information, but Versant was not our public utility until 2020.

Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
Canadian utility, ENMAX of Calgary, Alberta bought the former Emera Maine territory now trades as Versant Power. The Emera Maine was created through the merger of Bangor Hydro (acquired in 2002) and Maine Public Service (acquired in 2010).

 

I just checked to see if any competitive electricity providers (CEPs) I can choose as my electricity supplier have a better rate than the standard offer of PUC. There are a few plans that are lower, but many are higher than the PUC rate. I don't know what is the energy mix for each of those suppliers, but overall, the PUC standard offering rate I am getting now is just as competitive as the rest of the suppliers. My previous experience with non-PUC suppliers was not a good one, but I may look into changing the supplier if that is something I can do with my community solar subscription.
Electricity Supply | Maine Office of Public Advocate

 

At those prices I'd just bite the bullet and disconnect from the grid, but solar is a lot more reliable and plentiful here. If our PUC approves the massive "solar tax" later this month it's going to drive a lot of early adopters off grid. I don't think it will be long before California mandates that you connect to the grid where it's available and pay your dues to their campaign donors. Nothing like the police power of the state when it's used to coerce you into participating in public corruption.

 

Google sent me here:
https://www.versantpower.com/media/44120/bangor-hydro-district-disclosure-label-jun-2015.pdf

I'm seeing that ENMAX acquired Versant in 2020. But I'm also now seeing XOOM claiming Versant:

Fixed & Variable Rate Plans for Residential Electric & Gas | XOOM Energy


My experience with serial buyouts and mergers of other service providers has been unpleasant more often than not. If this provider is being traded this often, it seems that someone is getting milked.

Here is a very recent XOOM fuel mix disclosure:



Recent rate increase articles for Versant and another supplier:
Rate increase will raise average Versant Power bills by $30 a month next year - Portland Press Herald
Costly electricity supply will add $30 to average home’s monthly CMP bill in 2022 - Portland Press Herald

Note the chart showing decreases for 2020 and 2021, but reversed with a vengeance for this year.

 

I would love to go off-grid, sooner than later. But in our local where the sun is at a premium during the long winter months, there is no way an average size house with a modern lifestyle family can store enough electricity even with a massive overage of the battery bank. The only way I may be able to go off-grid would be with drastic lifestyle changes like going without many of the modern conveniences plus a specially designed and built super-efficient tiny house.

No, XOOM is one of the licensed competitive electricity providers (CEPs) approved in Maine. It is not a part of Versant. It is listed in the link I posted on #85.

Agreed. We have seen three different names for our public utility company in the last 15 years. Although the changes were mostly seamless, I do not like the fact that our energy has to be imported across the border. I hope mega solar projects popping all over the state will take the foothold. I am also optimistic about the wind energy project in our state. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Maine

 

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Ours was 0.14 / kW last month. It varies during the year between 0.11 and 0.21 / kW from memory, depending on usage and time of year. 0.21 / kW was unusual though and I've forgotten why it was so high that month.
Not the best rates, but not the worst, either.
I've also be watching the costs of solar. What I'm currently thinking as a way to get started is a pedestal configuration with double sided solar panels that also catch the reflected energy from underneath the panels.
The pedestal makes it a lot easier to adjust the panels to follow the suns path seasonally, which is more important in the northern areas.
Solar farms are another option to weigh the cost / benefit of joining up.

 

Do make sure that the additional cost of a seasonally adjustable mounting assembly, doesn't exceed the cost of simply adding more fixed-angle capacity. As PV equipment gets cheaper, the dollar return of making adjustable mounts shrinks or even goes negative.

Note also that for fixed angle mounts, 'ideal' tilt angle is a function of not just latitude, but also year-round weather patterns. For net-metering customers at high latitudes with cloudy winters, there is little value in chasing winter production, so the tilt angle should be biased towards maximizing output during the longer, clearer days of summer. "Best" tilt angle for a given location can be determined from historic solar data collected and kept by NREL. Here is a sample chart I produced for the closest they had near me, at the time I built mine:


i have a 5:12 pitch roof. By mounting the panels parallel to the roof, the loss compared to "best" angle is only 3%, not worth the cost of tilting them.

Off-grid customers have very different considerations than on-grid net-metering customers, and will end up with different answers.

 

Thanks fuzzy1 ! My roof is 9:15 and in summer it gets near dead on sun all day as the gable ends are north / south and the rafters are east / west. I'm more interested in starting out with a small installation that I can manually adjust tilt angle to compare seasonal output. Double sided panels are still kinda expensive and the (pedestal easiest) or (pergola - for more backyard shelter) are my two main ideas, currently. I'm not looking for any of the commercially available mounts, good god no.

 

Here is the current NREL PVWatts calculator:
PVWatts Calculator

This has been significantly updated since I first used it, so ought to give better climate-aware estimates for more locations. It gives not just annual estimates, but also monthly estimates, so you could put in different angles according to your adjustment plan and see what that does for specific months.

 

Very good points!
In addition, in our case, we went with a steeper install.
We wanted to maximize our winter production when solar production is lower. We did this at the cost of some summer production when we had a surplus anyway.

While we aren’t off-grid, we are down to a negative balance (where we owe money) only 2 months each year.

 

January 2021: $0.1962/kWh
January 2022: $0.2607/kWh

From my own bills: Electricity up 33% from 2021, natural gas up 20%, gasoline up 41%, groceries up 20%.

From the government: Inflation "only" 5.8%.

 

$0.11/kWh in Chicago.

 

Just signed up with a CEP (competitive electric provider) offering a $0.098/kWh supply rate fixed for 8 mo. This compared to the PUC standard offer of $0.117/kWh would mean ~$18 saving per month for our 1000kWh usage. Now my new electricity rate will be $0.232/kWh instead of $0.253/kWh with all fees and tax.

 

On my 10 square roof with one southwest corner (less than a square yard) shaded by a huge tree) I can get almost a 9kW array on the roof according to the calculator. Again (sorry for those that already read this above),
in summer I get almost dead on sun all day long on the roof from an hour or two after sunrise and similar before sunset. The calculator shows monthly estimates acquired from 8 miles south of my location, 3 months producing over 1000 kW and 3 months producing ~ 200 kW. The other 6 months were close to this homes monthly electrical usage.
I'm just now realizing the height of a pedestal would need to be close to 30' to take advantage of the winter optimal tilt angle, plus the reduced daylight hours in early spring, late fall and winter. would have on the panels production capabilities, not to mention snow blockage of panels 26 - 41 ft off the ground. Getting an idea since I just cleaned around a ~ft of snow off 3 cars and a driveway and it wasn't the (light) fluffy powder type either.

I've got to wonder about claims from many installer companies saying an array can produce surprisingly good production even in norther winter, edit: unless the stationary mounted array is facing south.

 

I don’t clear the snow, it tends to clear by itself in fairly short order. Especially when the panels are optimized for winter angles.
I haven’t seen any installers claim good production in winter. However, I suppose that depends a lot on how cloudy it is during the winter in your region.
December is our second cloudiest month, thus solar production tends to suffer. On the other hand, we had a February a couple years ago that was remarkably sunny. The solar production that month compared favorably with summer months.

 

We just got our panels last April, so I haven't seen a full year yet. But since winter here in FL is usually drier than summer, our December production wasn't a lot lower than summertime. But due to the shorter daylight, a perfect winter day is only about 31 kWh while a perfect summer day is more like 42.