Posted on 04/07/2023 7:44:57 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
For me that's:
1. Get inverter(s) with the zero output option (sometimes called "no report"). Basically you can choose to not put power onto the grid. I don't put power onto the grid but I'm recently applying for the option to do so because the regulations in my state for selling power to the grid don't let the utility control my inverters and such. And the monthly fee is now lower. Plus, with the zero output feature, if the grid power goes down you're not required to automatically shut off power to your home (the idea being to not harm linemen working on downed power lines). In the few times grid power goes out here I still have power to the house because my inverter won't put power to the grid when the grid is down even when it powers my house. If, however, my utility or state changes the regulations so that selling power to the grid means they have control of the inverters or charge a large fee, I can quit selling power to the grid with a few presses on the control panel and not have to buy and install new inverters. Basically, the "zero output" feature keeps the ball in my court, not the power utility's court.
2. In your financial calculations to determine if the costs are worth it, pretend there's no grid buyback to help you make a little money selling power to the grid. If regulations in your area are relaxed for a while so that putting power onto the grid is do-able, count it as extra gravy on top and not something your financial plan for solar requires for it to pay for itself. But if regulations change in the future and you want to turn off the grid buyback, make sure before you buy that you'll be able to afford your solar equipment without the grid buyback money so that the power utility/state doesn't have you buy the gonads financially.
3. I paid for mine with a HELOC home loan with a low interest rate (hmmm...maybe interest rates have gone up too much now to be worth it). As the HELOC is paid down the payments on it go down too. But as power rates go up every year my savings goes up. So next year it'll cost me less money (lower HELOC payments) to save more money (avoiding higher power bills). Then the next year it'll cost even less to save even more, etc. Once I realized that I was hooked on the financial plan as long as I made sure solar was good in my area.
4a. Use this avg daily peak solar hours tool for your zip code to see the average peak solar hours per day and how it varies each month for your area. Compare that with your power consumption each month from the past year's worth of solar bills. Divide the monthly power consumption in kWh by 30 to get daily, then by the avg daily peak hours from the website to get total kW needed in solar to get through the day w/o pulling from the grid. Multiply that by 1.1 to assume it works only 90% to spec (nothing works as advertised) to get the total kW needed. Multiple that by 1000 to get it in watts. Then look up solar panel prices (say 330W per panel) and divide the W per panel by the total watts needed for the day to see how many panels you need. Also take into account things like if you can position the panels pointing south, if on your roof the angle of your roof (steep pitch is good for winter, which is when you need it most). Also account for things like roof style: if you have shingles that have to be replaced every 10 years and get 25-year warranty solar panels, then replacing your roof in 10 years means paying extra to temporarily remove and re-install the panels. I have a metal roof so it works well for me.
4b. Repeat step 4a above for each month. See if there are such giant swings throughout the year that it's probably not worth accounting for. For example, in my area February is a horrible month for solar coming in vs power needed to keep the house warm in my all-electric house. So it provided 66% of the power we needed, when the average for the year is over 80%. So I'll accept that on the month of February I can produce only 2/3rds of what I need -- I'll have to buy a 1/3rd of the power from the grid. But if I can produce almost all of the power I need 10 or so months out of the year then it's feasible to make it work like that and I count it as a win overall for the year. So step 4b is not about trying to win all the battles the entire year, but enough of the battles to win the overall war on energy needs/costs for the year. If you don't like the numbers after that, ditch the idea altogether.
5. Consider doing it in stages. I did a Phase I in May 2021 to produce over half of what I needed without an EV even though my long plan was to produce 80% including charging an EV. I had solar for a year and studied the telemetry (my inverters have a nice export of throughput in 5-minute candles that I import into a TSQL database and run a bunch of aggregate queries on). I had predicted it would produce 50% to 60% of all the power we needed and it turned out to be 58% across the year. So I implemented Phase II which was buy an EV, double the solar, double the inverter capacity, and triple the home storage. Doing that in stages allowed me to try it part way before going all in. But that means from day one with the Phase I portion I had to do it in a way that could be expanded on later without removing old parts. So pick your locations for your panels in a prime location but also in a way where you leave room for more if you upgrade. Same for where you hang your inverter so you have room for a 2nd one. And pick an inverter that works in parallel with a 2nd inverter so the two work as one double unit.
6. For charging your EV, consider two outlets/circuits for the EVSE charger. I have one 240V NEMA 14-50 outlet that's constantly powered and one that's intermittently powered. So when we come home with the EV with more than enough charge in it for the next day's driving, we plug it into the intermittent outlet. That means it may or may not get charged some depending on if our home solar batteries are charged more than enough to power the home without pulling from the grid. (My inverters have a "smart load" feature to power a separate electrical panel intermittently when my home solar batteries are charged at least X percent.) But if we come home needing a charge for the next day then we plug it into the constantly powered outlet knowing that might result in pulling some of the power from the grid. (If we need the EV charged we need it even if it's not free that night.) This one technique of charging the EV with intermittent power when we don't really need it (but we'll take the charge if it's free power and get 2 or 3 days ahead on charge in case it rains later) makes the efficiency of charging the EV with solar power work amazingly well. But this is because we average 30 to 40 miles of driving each day in an EV that has 230 miles when charged to 80%, but our lower limit is about 120 miles to be ready for whatever random chores need to be done the next day. That's 110 miles of leeway in the charge (3 days) to allow us to have a good sunny day for charging for free before we decide to charge it with grid power. And the smart load feature makes that happen automatically without us having to watch the weather and such. Think of the smart load feature as making the solar combined with EV work together better than the sum of its parts.
They are cool toys, if you need a niche commuter vehicle have fun...
If you actually need a general purpose car that you can not only go to and from the corner store, but go across country without waisting hours every couple hundred miles to refuel, electric ain’t gonna cut it.
However, if all you need is a limited range commuter vehicle, have at it.
Be patient—the prices are going to keep falling.
The used vehicle market on these is going to have great bargains in a couple of years.
>>>They put a generator in the trunk.<<<
Mazda has done this. They have an EV with a small range in the low 100s miles. But it has a gas powered generator to extend the range. It’s like the best of both worlds. And since the battery pack is relatively small compared to other EVs, it doesn’t take as long to charge. It’s the CX-5.
Thank you for the great advice. It will take a while for me to digest the info. I didn’t think about the pros on zero output option, makes sense to retain control. Not in it to make money from utilities, just want to have more control over electric sourcing. There is a neighbor on the next block currently having solar panels installed right now, so I’ll get more information from him and his situation. He’s got huge panels getting added, looks about 2ft by 6ft or larger each, maybe 13 so far on 4 roofs. I plan to upgrade my main and submain electric panels this or next year and am thinking of doing solar at same time.
4 gallons of gas has more energy then the whole battery pack of a electric Ford F-150 pickup.
An electric vehicle is a electric bomb. Could go off anytime while parked in your garage or driving along. WHOOSH!
The battery fails and the insurance company will write it off. You are still paying on that vehicle and now need to buy another. Soon the insurance companies will not insure.
My inverters (two Sol-Ark 12kW Indoor, but what I'm about to type applies even if it's just one inverter before I upgraded) allows up to 3 electrical panels to be used for 3 purpose. I already told you about the intermittent panel powered with the Smart Load feature. The other 2 panels are the "main panel" and the "critical load panel". The critical load panel is powered when the grid is down and my inverters switch into emergency power mode. In emergency power mode, the main panel is not powered. Because my two inverters can act like a whole house generator (providing 16kW continuous AC power when the grid is down), I have almost all circuits in the critical load panel. Truthfully in a grid down situation I can't have every appliance in the house running at the same time (max 16kW, if just one inverter it'd be 8kW). But my wife and I'd have the option to choose what to turn on. And things like the hot tub can keep running enough to keep the water warm (so the pipes in the hot tub don't freeze in the winter), even if we don't get in the hot tub while the grid is down and power the jets. One of my two 240V outlets I charge the EV with is in the critical load panel, so if grid is down for a week like it was for some people near here after the April 2011 tornado, I still have power to charge my EV.
I might buy a diesel-electric hybrid. Straight battery, no.
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