Long time no update...

I am not happy with myself for letting this blog wither. So I want to go back to my original assumption that the solar panels would pay for themselves in 6+ years. I have been taking a credit of $1,666.69 cents for the energy I'm saving each year (I could write a volume on how I came up with this figure). I am also deducting the SREC's I receive each quarter. I generate 8 per year, usually 1 in Q1 and Q4 and 3 in Q2 and Q3. The SREC's are paid out with a 6-month delay. The solar installation became cash positive in November of 2017 which is about 6 years and 4 months - so right on schedule. (I don't deduct the electrical bill savings until December...) If I could have done it again, I'd have gotten a larger installation! So I've generated nearly 60MWh of electricity at this point. I'd like to point at that I do not have micro inverters and I do have a shading issue with my neighbors trees. They keep infringing more and more every year. So, one thing I didn't anticipate is a second electric car. So here's some data:

year	cost/year (cents)	avg. cost/kWh	kWh used/year	comments
2006	$2,326.27	18.75	11431
2007	$2,545.94	18.20	14022
2008	$2,101.25	19.19	10853
2009	$2,115.46	19.05	11331
2010	$1,796.56	16.61	10818
2011	$1,430.24	16.61	8637	Solar installed in July
2012	$510.41	16.91	3489
2013	$1,498.40	16.69	9066	1st EV received in January
2014	$1,251.95	19.23	7068	2nd EV received in September
2015	$1,794.55	24.18	8523
2016	$2,025.27	23.80	8816
2017	$1,087.75	21.64	4672	meter broken for 3+ months free electricity!
2018	$1,732.35	22.20	7430

It is a lot of data. Notes: I wasn't always quick to move to a competitive electrical supplier. There have been improvements like moving from incandescent bulbs to CFL's to LED's. A very efficient A/C unit was installed in January of 2018... So, the entire project has been a success...watch this space:

Looking back...

Here's some raw data comparing the first 10 months of 2012 against the average monthly bills from 2006-2010. I had slightly less than 6 months of solar in 2011 so I've just excluded it completely. In 2007 I had the highest yearly amount ($2545.94) and 2010 the lowest ($1796.56). 2008 had the highest electrical rate (19.19) and 2007 the lowest (16.61).

We had a very dry spring until May which was very rainy. Once spring sprung I built up a huge war chest of credit which was sucked dry in the summer.

Month	2012 amount	2006-2010 average amount
January	$64.76	$128.13
February	$69.56	$128.08
March	$6.43	$127.42
April	$0	$134.44
May	$0	$118.27
June	$0	$159.59
July	$1.94	$267.94
August	$135.52	$322.17
September	$35.82	$262.50
October	$43.02	$212.72

Spring has definitely SPRUNG!!!

It has been a long time since I checked in so it is time for an update. This has been an interesting ride - getting the solar panels installed in the middle of the summer - watching the days getting shorter and shorter and shorter and my monthly production go down down down.

The winter was not very harsh at all - we barely had any snow covering the panels. But when it did snow, you knew when the sun came out because there was a loud crash on the deck. Fortunately I knew to move the deck furniture to the shed to prevent damage. This video from New Jersey
shows snow cascading down solar panels. My roof is steeper than this one and it has two full flights to drop.

February and March were very sunny with little precipitation as the month-by-month graph shows. But the amazing thing was the once we got out of the winter doldrums and the days started getting longer, I started producing more energy than I was using. You can literally see the production going up by the day on the monthly graph. Sure there are cloudy and rainy days (even a few days with snow in there at the very beginning. But the trend was clear...

Then the amazing happened...my electric bill came...and I was floored. It will not always be this good once the two dehumidifiers and the air conditioner and the two refrigerators all start running, but it was still amazing to see...My electric bill for last year at this time was $100.78. And for last month was still a whopping $69.56...but this month it was a mere $6.43.

I might add that my first SREC check arrived in early February and of course I will be requesting my tax credit of 30% of the system cost and the state tax credit of $1,000. So one day this will be all paid off!

Mother said there'd be days like this...

On August 28th, hurricane Irene hit as is notable by the worst day yet! Fortunately no damage was done. We did lose power but I'm not quite sure if it was overnight or not as I was away. The next week the remnants of tropical storm Lee impacted performance quite a bit as well.

Installation Complete!

Tomorrow is the electrical inspection but the system has been running since Friday. The original installation had a hitch at the end and the inverter was blowing fuses left and right. They finally narrowed the problem down to the lightening arrestor.

All of the
panels are in place as well as the inverter, new meter and web-base monitor.

The data monitor requires a password to access, so you'll have to take my word for it. We've had rain every day (but the first day) since the system was installed! Where is the sun?

Installation begins...

[above the DC->AC inverter]


The installer and I designed an 8.1kW DC photovoltaic system. After all the paperwork was completed they finally started work on July 14th starting on the roof and in the basement working their way towards each other...First the railing go up - they are mounted down to the rafters with a heavy duty attachment capable of withstanding a category 3 tornado.

The 2 day install turned into a 4 day install (note: day 4 is tomorrow). And the day the panels went up was a bit brutal outside - but none of the expected thunderstorms materialized.

The next and final hurdle will be getting the town electrical inspector on the premises...

[above - 1 pallet of panels]

[above - the mounting hardware for the rails which the panels attach to]

[above - installing the mounting hardware]

[above - installing the panels]

How we got where we are today

I've been tracking the state of alternative fuel cars pretty heavily since October 2010 but the big earthquake in Japan in March 2011 really put things in perspective for me. That week before the full story (will there ever be a full story) on the status of the nuclear plants which were affected by the tsunami was known I thought "geez, what can I do to wean us off nuclear energy". So I decided to look into what the state of solar was since I don't see dumping my multiple computers, refigerators, mobile phones, etc. any time soon.

I looked online at some of the national solar installers (www.1bog.org and www.solarcity.com) - typed in my address and electrical usage, etc. and was pleased to find that my house was well suited for a solar system. And I was even more pleased to learn about all of the federal and state incentives which make the project more affordable.

I called a number of local installers as well as the two national ones above and set about distilling the competing proposals into something which I could understand. In the end nothing was compelling me one way or the other so I asked a friend who recently had panels installed and he recommended a particular brand and panel due to their high efficiency. I went back to the installers to see who could supply such a system and that was that.

For me if the system is going to be operable for 20 years it makes sense to go with the most efficient one (within reason). Besides I didn't know if I was getting a "Hyundai" or a "Cadillac" (no offense intended). I calculated the payback to be linear even though the up-front cost was higher. So thank you Tom for the good advice.



[above - my roof before work begins]