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Solar Power?

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I like your home solar report EX396,I was wondering if you don't mind posting what part of the country you live in?
As it seems like you are happy with your set-up.

I have a younger brother who did a solar study for a class project when he was attending Syracuse University.
HUD paid him a grant to investigate if solar would work in the New York City area.
His conclusion was that there is to much fallout from pollution to be worth while.

I live in upstate NY,where the air is pretty clear of pollution,however we have a fair amount of cloudy days.
Yet there are a few solar companies promoting their systems in my area,& I'm doing my own evaluations on the best way to go.
 
I live in Southern California. The on-line calculators suggest that I will get the equivalent of 5.5-6 "full sun hours" per day. It's a sinusoidal waveform where they calculate the area under the curve. Sunrise today for me was 617am, sunset is 548pm. That's 11hrs 31 minutes, but obviously much of that time is well below peak power generation.

System kW size X system efficiency X full sun hours per day X 365.25 is your projected annual generation.

My system is SMA Sunny Boy. Made in the USA.
 
EX396 said:
It is possible that your installer saved a few bucks and put in 12Kw worth of panels and sold you a 10kw Inverter knowing that 90+% of the time your system won't be generating 10kw, but when those panels are over 83% efficient your inverter is being taxed and will not last as long as it should.
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I think that my installer is a good guy and not a corner cutter. My system is a 19.44kWh system and I believe that I have two 10kWh inverters but I will investigate that.
EX396 said:
Especially those that aren't made in the USA. Looks like yours aren't USA Union Made...I am surprised. ;)
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I asked about American made and he told me that the other stuff was better quality. From what I have found my whole system is as good as it gets with good power out of the panels and 98% efficiency out of the inverters. I forget the efficiency on the panels but it is high for what they do. I'm thinking 16% on them and believe it or not it is at the upper end. There are more efficient higher output panels but the return for investment is not so good on them as they cost too much. My calculations here are based on 4.5 hours/day production figures. I wish we had Arizona skies here but we don't. Right now I'm doing 80kWh on a clear day and nearly nothing on a day when it rains all day.
 
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ABFer said:
I think that my installer is a good guy and not a corner cutter. My system is a 19.44kWh system and I believe that I have two 10kWh inverters but I will investigate that.
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As long as your inverters aren't working harder than they are designed to, you should be good. A 10kWh inverter is going to put off a fair amount of heat when dealing with that much current.

ABFer said:
I asked about American made and he told me that the other stuff was better quality. From what I have found my whole system is as good as it gets with good power out of the panels and 98% efficiency out of the inverters.
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My American made inverter is 97% at 240v and 96.3% at 220V, so yours is a bit more efficient, but not enough so for me to send my money overseas. I buy American when I can justify the price:quality ratio in my mind. I just thought Chevy driving, Harley-riding, Union-workers' calculators were a bit more skewed than mine. Maybe my stereotype is wrong.
 
Sorry about the video I posted,now that I've taken the time to review it I see it is just an ad to buy plans.
When I first saw it on the net, I thought it may be something constructive that we could all build ourselves.
My excuse is that I should have found the time to review it before posting it here.
Oh well even though I'm in my 70's I can still learn from my mistakes.
 
Apostolic said:
Sorry about the video I posted,now that I've taken the time to review it I see it is just an ad to buy plans.
When I first saw it on the net, I thought it may be something constructive that we could all build ourselves.
My excuse is that I should have found the time to review it before posting it here.
Oh well even though I'm in my 70's I can still learn from my mistakes.
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You're a nice guy so I didn't want to say anything but it looked like a hoax to me. Now if you were a mean old bastard I'd have been all over you for it.
 
March has been a pretty good month we had four rainy days that were pretty near worthless, four cloudy days that were ummm mediocre at best but the tally is 2087kWh for the month. That amounts to $251 worth of electricity. I still can't get the electric company to apply my production from the garage to the house account. There are two services, two meters and two separate accounts. :idunno:
 
ABFer said:
March has been a pretty good month we had four rainy days that were pretty near worthless, four cloudy days that were ummm mediocre at best but the tally is 2087kWh for the month. That amounts to $251 worth of electricity. I still can't get the electric company to apply my production from the garage to the house account. There are two services, two meters and two separate accounts. :idunno:
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So do you get a check or just credit if you produce more than you consume?
 
joes bar and grill said:
So do you get a check or just credit if you produce more than you consume?
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I know you weren't directing the question to me, but if you are considering a system for yourself it's important to know that my answer, ABFers answer and somebody with another utility company will have different answerd.

I am an Edison customer. I have the option of getting a check at the end of my 12 month billing cycle or a credit to the next billing cycle.

Credits are applied dollar for dollar.

Check is based on a kWh rate that fluctuates daily.

When my 12 month cycle was up I had an excess of 2285kWh generated. I could get a credit towards future bills of about $500 or a check for $64.28.
 
EX396 said:
I know you weren't directing the question to me, but if you are considering a system for yourself it's important to know that my answer, ABFers answer and somebody with another utility company will have different answerd.

I am an Edison customer. I have the option of getting a check at the end of my 12 month billing cycle or a credit to the next billing cycle.

Credits are applied dollar for dollar.

Check is based on a kWh rate that fluctuates daily.

When my 12 month cycle was up I had an excess of 2285kWh generated. I could get a credit towards future bills of about $500 or a check for $64.28.
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i'd choose the credit, especially in a/c weather.
 
My production is not as great as I was led to believe it would be but it is still making electricity and the jury is still out on it. It took me months to get my billing straightened out because I have two accounts, one for the house and another for the garage where the panels are mounted. My electric company apparently ends their fiscal year in May and I have a $325 credit for which I can either take a check or transfer it to the house account. I transferred half of it to the house account and left the rest over on the garage because I have a $17/month or so fee just for having the account and it will eat away at that balance.

Right now I am making over 2 megs/month, which amounts to $240+ worth of electricity. My loan costs me about $150/month. Thus far for the year I have produced about $1135 worth of electricity or about $220/month average, which is what I figured for.
 
Wish I had those rates ABFer. I am making about 1.2 MWh per month in the summer and our energy after the first 792kWh is almost 32 cents per kWh. 2megs a month would cost me over $500/mo in the summer.
 
EX396 said:
I know you weren't directing the question to me, but if you are considering a system for yourself it's important to know that my answer, ABFers answer and somebody with another utility company will have different answerd.

I am an Edison customer. I have the option of getting a check at the end of my 12 month billing cycle or a credit to the next billing cycle.

Credits are applied dollar for dollar.

Check is based on a kWh rate that fluctuates daily.

When my 12 month cycle was up I had an excess of 2285kWh generated. I could get a credit towards future bills of about $500 or a check for $64.28.
Click to expand...
Actually it was addressed to ABFer , only because we live in the same geographical area and would be more accurate for me.
 
EX396 said:
Wish I had those rates ABFer. I am making about 1.2 MWh per month in the summer and our energy after the first 792kWh is almost 32 cents per kWh. 2megs a month would cost me over $500/mo in the summer.
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I am in one of the lower priced electricity areas but I don't think that our big cities even have rates like that. At $.1207/kWh it's almost not practical here to install an array unless you have electric heat, which we do. Natural gas is the cheapest way to heat so if that is available and you aren't afraid of the explosion it is the way to go. If one is on oil or propane they might want to crunch some numbers and switch to electric heat and solar power but I did not research that so I do not know if it is viable or not. My last house has oil heat $$$ but my electric bill rarely, if ever, hit $100 for a month.
 
My neighbors are paying $500-800/mo for electricity in the summer. About $150/winter. Water is about $100-120/month.

Furnace, stove, water heater, clothes dryers are all natural gas....that's cheap around here ($25-30/mo summer and maybe $50/mo winter).

I don't use the heater or the AC in Spring. Fall sometimes calls for AC.
 
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