DIY solar array 12.5 kw

[Vern2]

pinballlooking,

Remember zero electric bill is cool, but all the excess watts you generate are usually worth a lot less!

I'm looking at a much cooler shop in the future, new heat pump, plus I really hate changing panel tilt 4 times a year. What a pain!

I'm retired and never watched my kids grow up. Retirement was a big thing. 800 to 1200 hrs overtime for 33 years. I do believe in the stock market. I'm still working hard, but no way making any money, I don't really need it. It's usually doing things I like doing. Another income thing is plasma table art and parts people need cut up to 5/8" steel. I have a single garage fab shop, coming into it's own little niche.



Vern

[Robaroni]

Originally Posted by where2

An EV would certainly help end some people's end of the month finances, but not mine. Rather than go that route, I have TDI's in my driveway. Took me 5 years and the roll over of my wife's 4Runner to convince my wife that a TDI would suite her needs just fine. After 6 years driving her TDI, you have to pry the keys out of her hands. She got sideswiped at a filling station a few years ago, and was without her Jetta for a week. She couldn't give that Ford Escape (rental) back fast enough as she watched her $$$ vaporize at every stop light and on-ramp. Three months into my wife's TDI, we did a road trip from FL to Maine and back: averaged 47mpg. The week after that vacation, my boss told me to go find a TDI to replace the Explorer I was driving 62 miles per day! I put 90k on the company TDI before I handed in the keys. Before I left that job, I picked up a used TDI wagon for my own daily driving. I got into it for under $6k, and only put $64/mo into it for fuel... (one fillup, 650 miles per tank!)

RE: Smoking, they were pushing $5/pack for the cheap stuff last I looked. I used to work with some pack-a-day guys who complained quite vocally when they raised taxes $1/pack.

Rather than complain about the need to build more fossil fuel plants or add more reactors to the alternatives, I simply did what my POCO did and built a renewable energy plant of my own (4.4kW). You can't tell me PV doesn't make sense in America when my own POCO has 35 megawatts of PV running, and a 75 megawatt solar thermal facility...

Where2,
The Germans swear that the TDI's are better than the hybrids. Simpler and cheaper to run. I don't know, I'd like to see the cost analysis for 100k miles. I do know that once electrics get some issues worked out, they will walk away with transportation.
One thing that's nice about the diesels (and electrics) is the torque curve. I like cars and trucks with broad torque curves, much nicer to drive.

The only thing I heard about the VW's is the repairs can kill you and they don't have great repair records although you might have a better idea about this owning a couple over a long time.

Rob

[Robaroni]

Originally Posted by pinballlooking

We really like our Chevy Volt. We bought it mid Feb this year. So far we have driven 8850 EV miles and our life time MPG is 181. We have saved 417 gallons of gas so far. We charge it with solar power so take that oil companies. We live out away for things there lots of people that don’t use their first tank of gas the first year of ownership.
It has 236 lbs. torque and that toque is usable at any speed. So it is fun to drive. if you are thinking about a EV you should test drive one.

Pinball,
I've heard Chevy did their homework on the Volt, that's great mileage and of course the icing is the PV charging!

Rob

[Robaroni]

Originally Posted by Vern2

pinballlooking,

Remember zero electric bill is cool, but all the excess watts you generate are usually worth a lot less!

Vern

Vern,
My rural electric coop pays me the amount they charge per KWH, I think it's 10.7cents. Maybe because it's a coop? I pay a monthly fee of about $15.00 and that's it but I did have to buy my smart meter when I put the system in.

I know the PV systems in town on NYSEG (New York State Energy and Gas) get less per KWH than they pay for it. Also NYSEG is reluctant to OK intertie systems where as the coop engineer welcomed me and did all he could to help me get the system in. I think I was the only one who did his own install. I hope I will lead the way to others doing their own, I get a lot of people asking me about my systems and I have people coming up my driveway with lots of questions.
What I'm hoping to see are more places like HD selling 'box' systems to people for DIY installs.
I know Amazon sells this module arrangement that lets you put up modules in bundles of 4. You just stick a plug in the wall for an intertie, that's it!
HF sells modules too but I don't know how good they are.

Rob

[TackyTeddy]

I'm just up the road a bit, thought you'd like a PV System to do comparision with.

System Location: 467 Lawson Road, Crossville, TN 38571

Tilt: 26.5° Orientation: 180°
Panels:21 (7 x Schott Poly 235) + (14 x Suniva MVP240)
Inverter: 21 (7 M190 + 14 M215) Enphase microinverter
Monitoring: Enphase Enlighten Capacity (kWp): 4.93

My Enphase is at: https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/...tems/Wjgg11567

My install page is at: Prospective by TackyTed - Solar

My PVoutput (Great Stats and it's free (Donation's) : Teddy-Denise 5kW Crossville,TN 4.998kW | Monthly

My Generator page : Generaytor | the solar energy network

If an individual wants to harvest the sunlight that’s falling on their property and sell it for a profit, that’s their American right.

[pinballlooking]

This was the first full month with my upgraded solar power. I am happy to say we covered all electric we used and are carrying forward -$18 power to next month.
This was a nice sunny month. http://www.pvoutput.org/list.jsp?id=23064&sid=20945
This is good because the boys are back in school and we charge the car two to three times a day.
Duke power raised the meter fee to $8.49 a month but the new rates are only for ½ this month.

[Daox]

Very nice! Congrats on a job well done.

[Robaroni]

Guys,
Listen to this. I get my bill on the 17th of each month and Sept. is the first month that I've run with both my systems feeding back to the grid.
Anyway I get my bill and it's missing my interties so it's just like a regular bill everyone gets. I send an email out to the nice people at my coop and the clerk sends me an email back that the trouble was that their system was only set up for 4 digits and my power exceeded that so it didn't register. Sept. was such a sunny month that I produced over a megawatt. Oct. looks like it will be just about the same. I checked my solar output and this Sept. made more power than the previous two years. I heard that Germany had record power too.

My coop is going to give me the credit this month. I can't wait to see what my bill looks like as this will be over a megawatt too! I'm really getting close to heating the house on PV, once the wind is in I should be able to do it with heat pumps.
Rob

[pinballlooking]

That is crazy they can’t handle megawatt. I have Duke Power and that have smart meters but they do the solar billing adjustments by hand each month. It is crazy they don’t automate this.
We just got a little better that a %5 increase but the base rate went from 7.29 to 8.29 and they don’t let us offset this. I guess this is what they will do in the future just keep raising the base rate so they can get more money from solar installs.

I am adding one and hopefully two mini split systems the first one is 27 seer and should ship soon.
I have natural gas heat and I want to use some of the solar power to heat.

[Robaroni]

Originally Posted by pinballlooking

That is crazy they can’t handle megawatt. I have Duke Power and that have smart meters but they do the solar billing adjustments by hand each month. It is crazy they don’t automate this.
We just got a little better that a %5 increase but the base rate went from 7.29 to 8.29 and they don’t let us offset this. I guess this is what they will do in the future just keep raising the base rate so they can get more money from solar installs.

I am adding one and hopefully two mini split systems the first one is 27 seer and should ship soon.
I have natural gas heat and I want to use some of the solar power to heat.

PB, It wasn't that they couldn't handle the input it's that they never expected a residential customer to feed them that much power.

Pricing wise we pay 10.7 cents a KWH and also get the same 10.7 cents. I expect this is because we are a coop.

27 seer, that's pretty good, whose unit is it?

Rob