Thinkin' of goin' solar..

Doing the math.

In order to demonstrate the advantage of solar I'm putting on my house, I will compare the cost of lighting up a 60 watt light bulb with solar compared to PG&E electric company.

My current tier 1 rate is 16 cents a kWh.
My cost for installing solar is $2.55 a watt.
I will need 60 watts of solar for a cost of $153 to light my 60 watt bulb.
This will light the bulb for 5 hours a day, 365 days a year for 25 years. (life of the warranty)

The 60 watt bulb will use 60 watts in an hour, 300 watts for a 5 hour day, 109.5 kwh a year and 2,737 kwh over 25 years.  That costs $438 to PG&E and doesn't even count for the inflation rise over those 25 years..

Clearly; paying up front for solar now, more than offsets what it will cost to use PG&E over the life of the panel. 

So, where is the break-even point; the point where I have paid PG&E the same cost as I paid for my 60 watts of solar to light the bulb?

I paid $153 for the solar.  At 16 cents a kWh, I could buy 956 kWh of electricity from PG&E.  At 109.5kWh a year to light the 60 watt bulb, I could run the bulb for  8.75 years and break even.  That is IF PG&E doesn't raise it's rates. 

I've done signed the contract;
5.5kWh of solar on the roof, installed w/all permits and PG&E coordination.  25 year material warranty and 10 year labor.  Cost $2.33 a watt.  All I gotta do is approve each stage of construction and write the checks.  To fund this, I got Chase to give me a new credit card with a 'Transfer Balance' of $13,000 to my checking account with zero interest until August of 2016, 14 months from now.  Minimum payments each month are $25 with the balloon in 14 months or I pay 13% interest starting from that date.  I set this up this way so I can extend out the payments until I get my tax refund back with the federal solar credit.  My fed tax return, with the credit should pay off the credit card debt.  That will be around April or so. 

I'm told the permits from El Dorado county should be approved next week some time, then construction to begin as soon as I say.  I have a little house painting to do where the panels will be making it difficult later.  After I do that, I'm sure before the end of next week, the install should take 2 days. 

Then we gotta wait for the county to come out and sign off on the construction.  Finally, PG&E comes out and reprograms my smart meter for two-way electric flow; called net metering.  I should be on solar by the end of July at the latest. 

Pretty sweet to have worked out a credit card company to float me the money for $25 a month, then pay off the solar install with my tax refund and credit.  Otherwise, I would have taken the funds out of my tax deferred 401K and pay 20% in fed income tax on it.

I'll be taking photos of the work as they install and post 'em up here.

In the meantime; here are the plans;

Please do keep us updated, Jerry. Here in Daly City/SF my PG&E bill is very minimal (approx $100-140 gas/electric). But I'm moving to a much warmer area where an A/C would be necessary during the hot summer months and I dont know how much my electric bill would be over there. We were really considering going solar.  The solar company (SolarCity) however, was supposed to call us when they were building our house but never did. Now, I'll just have to wait it out and see if it might be worth it in our case and do some more homework.

My electric bill is $125 for last year under the averaging program with PG&E.  The solar installation is costing $12,800 or so.  For me to see a return of $125 a month, with uncapped electric energy price increases, I'd have to put the same $12,800 in something that pays out over 7.5% year after year for 25 years to break even. 

If my solar design was on your roof, it would be about 10% less efficient. (Based on latitude, elevation and weather/fog) 

If you want a referral to an honest guy who won't pressure you and willing to work up a plan for your place, PM me and I'll pass his contact info along to you.   I was really impressed by how there was zero pressure and also how knowledgeable the guy was on the products his company reps as well as those that are their competition. 

Solar makes sense if you can get the price down to $2.50 or so a watt installed.  It will be a long term investment, so that precludes that you will be living in the house long enough to recover the capital investment.  I don't know how solar would affect home selling, but I would not count on recovering the capital, so figure at least 8 years to make it worth your time. 

Well, my solar is on the roof and making me FREE electricity!  Woo Hooo!!

You can view my generation for today here;

http://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id=43187&sid=39456&dt=20150727&gs=0&m=0

Just find the 'live' button to refresh the data every 15 minutes or so, then the 'prev day' button to see yesterday, the day before that, etc...

The graph has explanation under it for the various colors, etc. 




 

Thats awesome, Jerry. I kinda sidelined my plans for solar until next year. I have too many things on my plate right now fixing the old house before I put it on the market. I'll definitely hit you up for some pointers when that time comes.

SMART METER 2nd RF channel

I've spent a lot of time on solar forums lately.  I've learned a lot.  One thing I've learned is that the PG&E SMART meter radios the readings back to PG&E for billing.  They use a zigbee radio protocol.  This means the radio communicates to the closest SMART meter, most likely your neighbor, then from your neighbor's meter it's relayed along to other meters until it's close enough to upload to a main radio site. 

Along with this radio in the meter, is a second radio channel.  I found out that I can get a Gateway that will connect to my meter via the zigbee radio channel 2 on the SMART meter to my cable modem via ethernet. From there, I can store this data on a 3rd party server and use it with a free solar web site that graphs the data.  This gives me my power usage as well as a raw 'To the Grid' reading as the meter counts backwards. 

My SolarEdge inverter does the same thing; it has a zigbee slave radio built into it that communicates to a Gateway that takes the radio signal and with an ethernet cable, connects to my cable modem and uploads to the same web site that I have my SMART meter go to.  Now with my load and my generation, I can keep track of my solar electric bank account.  That's what 'Net Metering' does; takes excess solar electricity and banks it until I need it later when I can't generate enough solar to run my house.  Like after dark, in winter, etc. 

To access your second radio channel on YOUR smart meter, you need a Gateway.  I used this one from Amazon;
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AII248U?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00

To turn on your 2nd radio channel on your smart meter, log onto your PG&E account on line.
Scroll down to 'Additional Services'
Click on 'Stream My Data'

From there you can activate your 2nd radio channel using the MAC address of the Gateway as well as an 'Install Code' that is provided on the bottom of the Gateway along with the MAC address.  You need the Gateway on hand obviously first.  Takes about 10 minutes for the meter to pair up with the Gateway.  Once it does, the Gateway manufacturer has a website you can then view your data from anywhere, or a local http address to see it off your local network in your house. 

If all this 2nd radio channel stuff is new to you, here's a good read from Pg&E that explains it pretty well.  It's also known as HAN radio.  You might be familiar with HAN as it's used in SMART thermostats and SMART outlets in some folks' homes where they can install a wifi/internet device like a thermostat or outlet and control it from their smart phone. 

16 Panels I have 15 and do real well as well. even though my system isn't in a southern position. It is more east. During the late spring and summer months we we make enough to carry the short winter months.  The wife pays the bills but I think 20.00 in the winter time is close to what we pay.

SMART METER 2nd RF channel

I've spent a lot of time on solar forums lately.  I've learned a lot.  One thing I've learned is that the PG&E SMART meter radios the readings back to PG&E for billing.  They use a zigbee radio protocol.  This means the radio communicates to the closest SMART meter, most likely your neighbor, then from your neighbor's meter it's relayed along to other meters until it's close enough to upload to a main radio site. 

Along with this radio in the meter, is a second radio channel.  I found out that I can get a Gateway that will connect to my meter via the zigbee radio channel 2 on the SMART meter to my cable modem via ethernet. From there, I can store this data on a 3rd party server and use it with a free solar web site that graphs the data.  This gives me my power usage as well as a raw 'To the Grid' reading as the meter counts backwards. 

My SolarEdge inverter does the same thing; it has a zigbee slave radio built into it that communicates to a Gateway that takes the radio signal and with an ethernet cable, connects to my cable modem and uploads to the same web site that I have my SMART meter go to.  Now with my load and my generation, I can keep track of my solar electric bank account.  That's what 'Net Metering' does; takes excess solar electricity and banks it until I need it later when I can't generate enough solar to run my house.  Like after dark, in winter, etc. 

To access your second radio channel on YOUR smart meter, you need a Gateway.  I used this one from Amazon;
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AII248U?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00

To turn on your 2nd radio channel on your smart meter, log onto your PG&E account on line.
Scroll down to 'Additional Services'
Click on 'Stream My Data'

From there you can activate your 2nd radio channel using the MAC address of the Gateway as well as an 'Install Code' that is provided on the bottom of the Gateway along with the MAC address.  You need the Gateway on hand obviously first.  Takes about 10 minutes for the meter to pair up with the Gateway.  Once it does, the Gateway manufacturer has a website you can then view your data from anywhere, or a local http address to see it off your local network in your house. 

If all this 2nd radio channel stuff is new to you, here's a good read from Pg&E that explains it pretty well.  It's also known as HAN radio.  You might be familiar with HAN as it's used in SMART thermostats and SMART outlets in some folks' homes where they can install a wifi/internet device like a thermostat or outlet and control it from their smart phone.

I paid not to have a smart meter. Because of the direction mine faces I went with 15 Micro inverters. So each panel can be controlled independently. It seems every situation has their own solutions the said I should use 14 panels so I added one more just because, and I'm glad I did.   

Why didn't you want a smart meter? 

I'm learning stuff new every day and should blog it here before I forget!  Ha!

Yesterday I learned that if your roof needs to be repaired before installing the solar panels, the cost to do so is considered part of the solar project and is eligible to be included in the budget for calculating the federal tax credit of 30%. 

Need your roof fixed and thinking of going solar?  Well, do it in the same tax year and you'll be able to knock 30% off the roofing charges.

There is no cap on the amount you want to claim.  I wonder if I built a HOUSE and put solar on the roof if I could claim the whole dang house as part of the solar project??

I'm learning stuff new every day and should blog it here before I forget!  Ha!

Yesterday I learned that if your roof needs to be repaired before installing the solar panels, the cost to do so is considered part of the solar project and is eligible to be included in the budget for calculating the federal tax credit of 30%. 

Need your roof fixed and thinking of going solar?  Well, do it in the same tax year and you'll be able to knock 30% off the roofing charges.

There is no cap on the amount you want to claim.  I wonder if I built a HOUSE and put solar on the roof if I could claim the whole dang house as part of the solar project??

Great tip Jerrry!  I was planning to expand my electrical panel sometime in the future then found out I could get a 30% tax credit if I did it along with the solar installation. Cha-Ching!!

Thanks Jerry for doing all that research and posting. You just saved us many hours of research. I definitely owe you a few pilnys. We want to go solar. One question:  In case of disaster and the pg&e grid is down;can i still feed my house with electricity?

Jack; there are some types of inverters that have an emergency 15 amp electrical outlet that would allow you to pull power straight off your panels with PG&E off line.  However, the sun must be shining!!

For a disaster, nothing is going to beat a generator for price, reliability, load capacity, time-of-use, etc.  I've outfitted my generator to run on propane and have a 100 pound propane tank I keep on hand.  The beauty of propane is that it doesn't get old and stale like gasoline.  No carb to gum up, the oil stays cleaner too.  Propane cost me $1.00 a gallon last week to fill up.  The retro fit kit for my generator to work on propane was about $300.  My generator will run on propane, natural gas and gasoline. 

This is a great thread is wish I saw it 2 months ago. Basically all the research I have done I could have got in this thread. Solar makes sense for me also buy not rent. I'm re-roofing prior to I stalling the system and my roofer is going to set all of my stand offs in the roofing. I'm going to install the panels on a snapnrack system myself. Payback without considering PGE rate hikes is just under 5 years. 

Keys:
- make sure a roofer looks at your roof prior to letting solar be installed so much more expensive if you need a new roof in 5 years.
- Cal fire setback 36" from ridge on 3 sides of gable roof and 2 sides of hip.

Great info Jerry thanks.