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

With a 9kW array installed on the homes roof for around $28.k estimated, I would break even (summer + and winter - ) on our ( yearly electric bill witch is about 2/3's of our utility bill ). And the initial installation payoff estimate is 20 + years.

 

Wow! I thought our 15+ years was a long payback period. 20+ years for payback is a killer. What happens if you have to move. Or equipment damaged by a storm, or political change shut down the net metering? We had an analysis done. It came back that we would need a 12kW array to cover our annual usage, but that is only possible with net metering credit from summer carrying over for the winter. For a $35K upfront cost (before tax credit), our payback period is ~15 years. Even with full 26% tax credit, it is still 10 years payback period. I don't even know if I will be living in this house 10 years from now.

 

Length of time you are spending in your house is a consideration.
We plan to live where we are for a minimum of 30 years.
The way I look at it, we prepaid for for 10 years of electricity, and get another 25 years for free.
On top of that, we locked in the price for 35 years.

For us, it is also an investment in our nieces future, which is priceless.

 

It's too bad that there aren't more people that think in terms of future possibilities instead of the here and now.
I can no longer continue to be forward thinking anymore than I've already committed to. I wish I could. I still hope that one of these fine days I'll be in a position to install a sizable solar array and have a good idea of the cost / benefit ratio over the expected life of the install. Hence my current thoughts of starting off on a smaller scale with solar, hopefully to reduce some of the initial expense and possible mistakes in calculations over time.

 

It's hard to predict the payback time because you can't predict the rate at which electricity prices will rise. Ours have gone up about 15% since we bought this place 7 years ago.

With its wind speed rating, it's unlikely that our equipment will be damaged by any storms that don't also destroy the house. But if that happens, it's insured.

Shutting down net metering is a real possibility. There are identical bills in both state houses here that would do that. I'm told that existing systems would be grandfathered in for something like 10 years, but I don't know who would maintain it since the installers will almost certainly all be out of business. It's to be hoped that legislators will see (and care) that for the electric companies to be able to buy electricity from their customers at wholesale in the daytime and sell it back to them at retail at night is just plain theft.

 

My plan is similar to yours. I can't afford to pay $35K upfront cost or take a 20+ years loan on a full 12kW net-metered solar panel installation that I don't know if it pays off while I am still living at this house. I am far more amenable to installing a small 1-2kW solar system with an inverter and battery bank to produce/store 3-6kWh/day of electricity. That represents 10-20% of our normal daily electricity use. Naturally, there will be a large seasonal swing in production, but if I can get 6kWh/day average produced and stored, then I can use that electricity for always-on appliances like our refrigerators and freezer or use it for daily changing of my PP (that's if I am driving the car daily which is not the case right now.)

I still have not done detailed cost analyses, but if 10-20% electricity production/storage is used to estimate 10-20% saving on the electric bill, then it is ~$25-$50 monthly. If I can DIY the installation, the panel and inverter kit should be ~$4K. As the price of both panel and battery continues to drop, soon the payback period may be short enough for me to start the project.

As much as I am concerned about the future of humankind, it seems I am far less optimistic about the final outcome than you are. My view is that while I and you and probably your nices will be long gone before this "final" outcome arrives on the earth, what a small number of fortunate and considerate people with resources is doing now will have very little impact.

The electricity rate has been very stable for our region that is until this year. For the last 10+ years, it has not changed much overall. There has been up and down from month to month changes, but the average cost/kWh has been far more stable than gas price or general inflation. The thing is that it is not always going up, it can come down sometimes.

With all fees, taxes, premiums, rebates, and discounts applied, here is our real electricity cost/kWh for the last 5 years. I don't know yet how much it changes in 2022, but with community solar credit starting soon and switching the electricity supplier, I am hoping to minimize the increase this year.

2021 Average cost/kWh $0.18851
2020 Average cost/kWh $0.19098
2019 Average cost/kWh $0.19160
2018 Average cost/kWh $0.18372
2017 Average cost/kWh $0.17822

 

While that is true, for our calculations we used zero increase over 35 years. Obviously, this is not realistic, but it errs on the side of being conservative.
With each increase, our payback period becomes shorter and our period of free electricity longer.
Even without any rebates, net metering or other incentives, our price was $0.115 cents/kWh. That was the retail price we were paying 5 years ago. So we basically locked in the price that day for the next 35 years. With every increase it becomes a better and better deal.

 

Ours is almost comical. Montana hydro power 100%. Between 7am-10am & between 5pm-8pm Monday thru Friday .... our co-op rapes everybody for 88¢/kwh here in the great NW. All other hours? Just 6¢ & 7¢/kwh depending on if you stay below 2,000 and 3,000kWh ... unless you hit 4,000kWh .... then it's back to 88¢. this structure came about to deter cryptocurrency mining. in any event this odd scheme can work well for charging a couple plug-ins.kwh So - after it's all said and done with delivery charge, a few unavoidable kWh'se of the high demand fees & taxes? We are averaging paying 11¢/kwh

 

We did the same.

About the same price for us, too. Ours is locked for 20 years and then it's free when the loan ends except the connection fee. Assuming those criminal anti net metering bills don't go through.

 

Your quote is a bit expensive IMO, I installed my 4kW 3yrs ago at $11k, after tax deduction it was roughly $8k that my payback time is 6-7yrs.
Shop around, I used yelp and went for a local imstaller.

 

How much do you pay for the grid charge? $10/mo. plus other charges here. Did you get any tax credit or rebate from the state? Nothing here.

They should look at what recently happened in Nevada when they think about shutting down NEM. New solar installations went to zero and solar contractors pulled out of the state. They fired the head of PUC and brought back NEM.

They want more battery installations. I haven't looked at that much but I think they're expensive, don't provide a lot of power, have a shorter lifetime than my solar system does, and has a fire risk to the home. Why don't the power companies invest in batteries to store excess power during the day?

Residential solar makes so much sense when you're talking about reducing CO2 emissions. The homeowner makes the investment and is responsible for the maintenance. Panels are installed on existing rooftops so no land is taken out of service. Construction of new power plants is minimized. Power flows from your home to your neighbors so not much of the power grid is used. Promotes EVs because they work together to provide low cost charging.

 

We were paying a $11.83/month connection fee. This month they made it so the minimum bill is $30 no matter how little you use. I'm OK with that since I'm using the grid as a big battery.

Tax? What tax? We live in Florida. There is no state income tax.

The same would happen here except they'd have to fire the senators, congressmen, and governor. There are identical bills in the house and the senate right now. According to the most recent Mason Dixon poll, 84% of Floridians are agains the bill. Florida is kind of free & easy with constitutional amendments. I don't really expect the bill to pass, but if it does, there would almost for sure soon be an amendment to reinstate net metering, the over ruling the representatives who are not representing the people.
Florida lawmakers aim to cut solar power energy buybacks by 75%

If the bill passes and gets signed, I may investigate getting enough battery to run me 24 hours of basic needs (lights, refrigerator, microwave). The bad part is that my inverters would need to be replaced since they aren't the kind that will interface with a battery controller from what I've been told. I'll just have to wait & see.

 

Look again. Your inverters will work with a battery system, including in off-grid mode, if I'm correctly remembering the datasheet of the model you listed before installation. Even my older models will with a firmware update, as I learned when reading about yours.

Mains wiring architecture is likely a different matter, that might require major rework. Mine definitely will.

 

You're probably right. I just haven't investigated it yet. I haven't needed to yet, and there are too many other things going on now.

My breaker panel is really packed. If I do go that route, that's probably going to tigger an upgrade to a bigger panel.

 

They make breakers now where two fit into the same panel slot. https://www.lowes.com/pd/Square-D-QO-20-Amp-1-Pole-Tandem-Circuit-Breaker/3129465

 

They've actually had those 2in1 breakers for over a decade now.
.

 

I don't think he'd need to change much of anything on the main panel itself. But the mains path between panel and service entrance most likely needs to be redone with added hardware, unless he was lucky and his particular solar architecture already did most of that. Mine solar system has a different architecture that did none of the changes needed to add a Powerwall or equivalent.

 

Thanks but I already have a few tandems, although they are Cutler-Hammer. I am a former industrial electrician. But you can't put 10 pounds of wire in a 5 pound box. I can barely get the cover on as it is now that there are big old vampire taps for the wires from the solar panels. And the panel looks like the original from 1973 when the house was built. The new one will be Square D QO when I get around to it, though. That's always been my preferred brand.

 

time for a subpanel?
we put a 100amp breaker in the main, & ran the 100 amps off the 200 main (#6 wire pull) into the basement for central air/heat, the jacuzzi, & basement lights.

 

I put my 240V charging receptacle and my water heater in a small sub panel.