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About the cloudy weather. Where I live we don't get much cloudy weather on days of extreme temps. But even in cloudy weather and light rain I usually get more solar power than I need to not have to pull from the grid (at least until we bought an EV, which adds to the power demand, but for now we'll forget about the power demand for charging an EV).

The reason cloudy and light rain weather isn't as detrimental as you'd think, at least for us, is because that's when temps tend to be mild. So yes, on those day I'm not getting as much free solar power coming in as I do on sunny days, but on cloudy days I need only a little power anyway. That's because almost always (thought not entirely always) whenever it's blazing hot and I have to run the A/C a lot, it's a sunny day. The same for usually when it's freezing cold and I have to run the heat a lot, it was a bright and sunny day earlier in the day to give me a lot of free solar power to charge my home batteries (to power the home through the night, which is the time of day the heat has to run the most in the winter).

Most of the time, not all of the time, that we have cloudy or rainy days I still get most or all of the power I need to not have to pull from the grid because the temps are mild and my variable speed heat pump doesn't have to work as hard anyway. Combine that with the fact that my hybrid water heater has a cold air byproduct that, during the warm 7 or 8 months of the year I direct into an air receiver of my home HVAC. Therefore, when my wife and I take a shower or run the dishwasher (using hot water) and the hot water heater has to run to heat the water tank, it produces free cold air that my variable air handler brings into the HVAC. Thus, my home's variable speed heat pump doesn't have to work as hard for those 2 to 3 hours per day to make cold air (though the free cold air from the water heater isn't enough to cool the entire home, but it helps make my home heat pump not have to work quite as hard). When winter comes I flip a wye lever on the duct coming from the water heater and the cold air byproduct is directed into the attic (because I don't want that cold air going into the HVAC during the months I'm trying to warm the house).

Also combine the feature of my variable speed heat pump allowing me to set it to reduce the humidity in the home (which is a heavenly feature here in Alabama) and my wife and I are as comfortable with it set to 72F (with low humidity) as we used to be with it set to 69F (with high humidity). Thus, the variable speed heat pump doesn't have to work as much to keep the home cool, thus the home consumes less power, thus it's easier for the free solar power to usually win the battle of providing all the power we need.

Then we charge the EV more on days we have free solar power and less on days we don't. That doesn't always keep us from having to pull power from the grid to charge the EV. But it helps us get most of our miles free with solar throughout the year, even in the winter (when I get less solar and my home is using more power in the night to keep the house warm, thus I'm using a lot of battery power).

If we come home with the EV having at least 120 miles of charge (my wife's requested limit to handle whatever random chores she has the next day), we plug the EV into an outlet that's intermittently powered (only when my home solar batteries are charged more than enough to power the home through the night without pulling from the grid). That guarantees us that whatever power is used to charge the EV is free, but it doesn't guarantee us a charge. But if we come home with less than 120 miles of range left, or if we plan to drive a lot the next day, we plug it into an outlet that's constantly powered. That outlet guarantees us a fully charged EV for the next morning, but doesn't guarantee that the power to charge it is free.

How we work it: on sunny days the EV is charged to 80% (the recommended top unless you're about to head out on a trip) and it has a range of about 230 miles. Since we average driving it 40 to 50 miles per day, we usually have 3 days that we plug it into the intermittent charger hoping for a free power sunny day to top it off at 80% again to keep the free miles going. If we have bad weather for 3 days in a row (or if on one of the days we did an unusually large amount of driving), we'll reach the point where we come home with the EV with less than 120 miles of range left and plug it into the constantly powered outlet to definitely get a charge whether or not the power is free.

End result: We've put 20K miles on the EV in the 9 months since we upgraded the solar system (2 months after we bought the EV). Count about 14K of those miles as charged at home (the rest by road chargers on long trips). That added a little over 4,400 total kWh to my power use over the past 9 months. Yet, in the past 9 power bills I've pulled a total 3,740 kWh from the grid (for all of the power consumed at home, including charging the EV). My inverters say I consumed 15,400 kWh during those 9 months (pulling only a portion of that from the grid). And that's with fall, winter, and spring months. I've yet to see how well summer months (the best time of the year for solar) works with the upgraded solar system. I'm thinking the average across the year after summer months are included in the math, will be that over 80% of our power is free from solar.

About the Dims' stupid energy policies making the grid unreliable. The grid doesn't go down much here in Alabama. But every now and then it does. Yet my lights don't even flicker because my home is almost always powered by solar (or batteries) anyway. The only way I realize that the grid is down is because my solar app notifies me, a few of my electric clocks get reset, and my internet goes down for a few minutes (my cable modem and a couple of clocks can't handle the split second loss of power as my inverters switch over to hard core emergency mode, but in a minute my cable modem is rebooted and my internet is back up, assuming the internet cable isn't down too). When that happens, my wife and I do a little power conservation (i.e. don't get in the hot tub, maybe adjust the house temp a little) but for the most part live our lives like normal as though the grid is up.

Where are “all the details”?

Thanks for the info- We will likely eventually have to do something similar- it looks like you have quite a thorough setup there- probably beyond our comprehension to implement ourselves- but with more basic setup- we could really reduce our dependence on grid it seems, even if cloudy most of the time- every bit will help

IMHO, I'd be skeptical about getting solar and such without first diving deep into your regular power consumption habits, the average daily peak solar hours in your zip code for each month in each season, how much power consumption you do per day each month, how much of that is in the daytime and how much is at night, etc.

Only after doing that much research and more can you start talking to solar installers and have enough info to make sure you're not being scammed. I had a few try to pull the wool over my eyes and called them out on it. I eventually found a guy that was straight up with me and hired him.

Just look at the Junction Boys with Bear Bryant (then at Texas A&M).

And yet those players worshipped Bear. And when Bear died the only ring he was wearing, despite all those Natties, was the ring given to him by The Junction Boys.

A different time.

My wife was an Aggie, as is my brother in law and a friend I’ve had since 1980 or so.

I’m well aware of Paul “Bear” Bryant, and the Junction Boys - we (my wife and I) watched the movie, and there was a show on ESPN about them, too.

Yes, it certainly was a different time, what, 90 some odd years ago?

"It’s not like they spend all day with the helmet on and do real work..."

Do they come with "Air Fresheners" too?

thanks for the advice- it’s all new to me- but the way things are headed- higher electric prices once they get everyone over onto all electric everything- something is gonna have to change- the writing is on the wall