Since the end of August I’ve pulled only 100 watts from the grid. I do that as my “zero base” as a way to make sure my solar inverters don’t err and put power onto the grid. 100 watts X 24 hours = 2.4 kWh daily. That is all Ive pulled from the grid since the solar upgrade I did in August. That’s even with charging my EV at home, plus running my A/C a bit to cool my 2,300 sq ft home in the still warm days in Alabama.
Maybe you should do the same, especially living in the desert. Your dry air will give you a better throughout (the humidity in my air does a slight filtering of the sunlight). Solar is horrible to implement at the utility level. But it works fine at the home level if you live in the southern half of the U.S. and have some space on your land or roof facing the equator with no shade.
I told my wife I didn’t want to just fuss about Brandon raising our energy costs. I told her that our retirement planning is worth preserving and taking our energy needs into our own hands and doing what we can to provide as much of our energy as we can.
Since the end of August I’ve pulled only 100 watts from the grid. I do that as my “zero base” as a way to make sure my solar inverters don’t err and put power onto the grid. 100 watts X 24 hours = 2.4 kWh daily. That is all Ive pulled from the grid since the solar upgrade I did in August. That’s even with charging my EV at home, plus running my A/C a bit to cool my 2,300 sq ft home in the still warm days in Alabama.
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Sounds like a voice of wisdom.
People told me I was crazy putting 12KW on my roof for a cost of about $50k but the government had a 30% rebate and I had a lot of food storage in the freezers and wanted to protect it. Well now the solar has paid for itself and saving me a lot.
I think solar is pretty good for home use, not so much for the grid though. A good part of my cost is in the batteries. I have a 3000+sqft house so the A/C can be pretty expensive and if I use the main a/c plant the battery will only last a few days without sunshine to recharge. If however I use the mini splits instead of the larger system I can keep the most important rooms in the house comfortable winter or summer and have the battery last for weeks instead of days without sunshine.
I have a NG gas and a gasoline generator if there is no sunshine for extended periods. I’m also working on a Lister style diesel generator that just sips fuel. 4 hours of the 16kw ng generator and about the same time on the 15kw Lister will give me two days of battery operation.
Spending a lot of money for solar was not something my wife wanted to do when I did it, now however it seems like a wise thing to have done even to her. I’m afraid it will get much worse before it gets better. Even in Kentucky with only 12kw of PV’s on the roof I seldom have anything more than the minimum electric bill.
We have a house in Florida, getting pounded by Ivan right now that has only 9kw of PV on the roof. The 9kw gives us much more power down there than the 12kw here (Ky) because there is so much sunshine. With a pool pump and pool heater we need every little bit we make. I do not however have battery backup down there. I’m hoping the PV’s survive the storm, we’re in Cape Coral and getting the worst of it. I expect I will have to go down tomorrow and start the clean up. I do have a portable generator so at least I will have hot water for showers, lights and refrigeration, no A/C though.