Solar PV - Save Money & Shrink Carbon Footprint
 

We have been driving EV's for 3 1/2 years, and we are now using a heat pump for most of heating our house, as well. We got a solar PV system installed yesterday, and it should soon be generating a large amount electricity, to offset our use. The system is Sunpower 327 watt panels (about 20% efficient), and it is warranted for 25 years. The system will pay for itself in just over 5 years, with all the incentives, and in less than 10 years without them.

It is a 10kW system on the AC output, and the estimated annual output is just under 13MWh.

We have expensive electricity here in Massachusetts - we pay between 18¢ and 22¢ total per kWh (both generation and distribution costs); and we also have chosen to pay another 2.4¢ / kWh to support renewable generation. Even with these costs, driving our two EV's (Bolt EV and e-Golf) cost us only about 4.5¢ / mile.

Here's the roof panels, on our reconstructed roof (which is still in process):

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And the equipment in the basement:

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I am really looking forward to our reduced electric bill, and our reduced carbon footprint.

My brother and I have done all the construction - we stripped the old shingles, demolished the old hip roof framing, used the old rafters to double the floor joists, framed the new 12 pitch gable roof, installed new shingles. We will do windows and siding and wiring and insulation, new stairs, extend the chimney, and new finishes.

Congratulations on your new array! It looks great.
EV's and solar go together so well. How do you like the Bolt!
When do you get to fire up the array?

Thanks! I am not sure how long the system will have to sit - it can take a while. Eversource (used to be called NStar) is notorious for being slow.

We love our Bolt EV, and we also have an e-Golf 35.8kWh, which is the best driver's EV I know of.

The power co-op here just says not to hook up solar until you get the co-gen meter installed unless you just want to test it out for a few minutes so your not having to buy a bunch of power that your are actually producing.

Our new net meter was installed April 4th, and we "turned on" the system today! Of course, it is quite cloudy, and is snowing now, so we'll see how it goes tomorrow.

It does not matter very exciting time!:thumbup:
It is amazing how much power you can make on a cloudy day.

Woohoo, congrats Neil!

We had our first full day of production - it started a bit slow because of heavy cloud cover, but by 10:30 or so the sun came out, and we hit 55.3kWh for the day!

Wow, that's some major roof - PV area. Very nice looking install. Impressive!
I think the solar install industry might be starting to get their act together..

I could have used some PV on my roof this winter.
We had one billing cycle that cost us about $500 (25 cents per kwh). We burned some oil too..
The good old days of 11 cents per are long gone..

I do have a solution to the high cost of cold weather, it's called 'Move to SW Texas'..
But, my wife still isn't interested. She doesn't have Rheumatoid arthritis pain yet..

In the 12 days our solar panels have been online, we have produced 374.6kWh. Over that same time, we used and additional 510.5kWh from the grid - for a total of 885.1kWh.

It has been pretty cool / cold so our heat pump is drawing about 2kW, and when we plug in either of our two electric cars, that is about 6-7kW for several hours.

Judging from the pictures it looks like you're using a Sunpower inverter. Is that the case and is it paired with power optimizers, or do you have a micro inverter setup? Does it give you an online dashboard you can look at your power production like the SolarEdge inverters do?

We have Sunpower micro inverters, and that Sunpower unit is the connection to the network. We have two online dashboards, actually - Sunpower and BlueSel, who were the installers.

At 60 days of production from our 10.1kW solar array, we have a total of 2.386.1kWh, which was 70.7% of what we used. That's 39.77kWh / day average. (We had several cloudy days recently.)

We have also switched our grid supplier, and gone from about 61% renewable energy, to 100% wind renewable - and better yet - we are saving 3.19¢ / kWh!

We have two electric cars, and one gasoline one. The Scion xD sits in the driveway 6 days a week, usually. And our natural gas bill is tiny, as well - we cook and dry our clothes with natural gas. Next stove will be an induction unit, and hopefully the next clothes dryer is either a heat pump, or ultrasonic (if they produce them).