Solar System Install and Performance

[team dirt]

How are your solar panels doing?? I have been watching the provincial solar farms but they are more or less dead, and producing no power.

I can tell you for certain that brooks has not made power. Panels have been covered in snow. Yesterday sun came out and warmed up so maybe they melted off but today it’s supposed to snow again.

 

[X-it]

The one in nelson is producing some power, they are amazing at showing how much power it is producing. I glad to see them keeping their internet figures going, usually embarrassment and pressure from the so called green initiative make them take it down so they can keep pushing their agendas that cost the tax payers a small fortune.

 

[ABMax24]

How are your solar panels doing?? I have been watching the provincial solar farms but they are more or less dead, and producing no power.

Still waiting on ATCO at this point, I can't connect until I get the Bi-directional meter installed. I finally signed the micro-gen contract on Friday. This is by far the most painful part of the whole project.

 

[mareshow]

Looks like a great system, the one thing that shocks me is the 18 year payback. I sell solar systems for commercial and residential and at the rates we're seeing the payback is a lot faster than 18 years (in the range of 8-11 years for residential and 5-7 years for commercial) Do you know what your gross cost per watt is installed?

 

[jhurkot]

I priced out a 12.2kw system at $21k (ground mount). Here’s where it gets muddy. You have to buy 1 kWh for about $0.10 from the utility and sell your excess at $0.03. I still haven’t decided if it’s worth it to go off grid. Would need 3 Powerwall 2’s at a minimum.

 

[rsaint]

I priced out a 12.2kw system at $21k (ground mount). Here’s where it gets muddy. You have to buy 1 kWh for about $0.10 from the utility and sell your excess at $0.03. I still haven’t decided if it’s worth it to go off grid. Would need 3 Powerwall 2’s at a minimum.

You are lucky to get .03 per kw
and not what it costs to produce it at the power plant.

 

[ABMax24]

Looks like a great system, the one thing that shocks me is the 18 year payback. I sell solar systems for commercial and residential and at the rates we're seeing the payback is a lot faster than 18 years (in the range of 8-11 years for residential and 5-7 years for commercial) Do you know what your gross cost per watt is installed?

I'll redo the math and see what the numbers are again. But it really depends on how much energy I self consume vs sell to the grid to buy back later as to what my payback will be.

$3.07/watt before rebate.
$2.17/watt after rebate.

 

[ABMax24]

ATCO finally showed up today and installed our Bi-Directional meter! We are officially able to turn the system on, and we even managed to make a little bit of power today. The East and West panels are currently snow covered, but the south panels managed to make some power.

The Blue line is our consumption and the orange line is production.

 

[doorfx]

 

[jhurkot]

Oops, my earlier post said $0.03 per kWh sold to the grid and it's actually $0.067.

 

[ABMax24]

Here is what we did today, I'm not sure I'll have much to report the next few days we are supposed to get a bunch of snow.

We had some high level cloud today, so the power output dipped for a while because of this.





Overall not a whole lot of generation, but it is winter the days are short and the sun is pretty low in the sky. I'm hoping by mid-march will will be generating as much energy as we use on average, and as we move toward summer we will produce more than we use.

 

[team dirt]

Do you know what the spikes are on your consumption? Furnace cycling on and off maybe. I wonder what an a/c unit would do in the summer?

 

[TROLLCAT]

Do you know what the spikes are on your consumption? Furnace cycling on and off maybe. I wonder what an a/c unit would do in the summer?

good thread

 

[DRD]

So with the solar do you still get hosed on items like transmission fee etc.? It kills me that fees are sometimes more than my power consumption.

 

[jhurkot]

So with the solar do you still get hosed on items like transmission fee etc.? It kills me that fees are sometimes more than my power consumption.

If you do grid tie you will still have these but they should be slightly less. If you use 1000kwh and generate 1000kwh you still pay transmission cost on all your non-generated power and pay for the privilege of being connected to the grid. Basically all the times you use power when your array is not generating (or use more than what you’re making) are subject to the normal transmission costs.

 

[X-it]

Do you know what the spikes are on your consumption? Furnace cycling on and off maybe. I wonder what an a/c unit would do in the summer?

In BC we have team power smart it helps you to save power, they actually pay you money if you save 10% off your yearly bill. Best ways to save power, change your bulbs to led, never use electric heaters, cook with cast iron or use instant pots, do not have to many fridges running, wash dishes by hand and avoid your cloths dryer as much as possible. A dc furnace fan saves money as well.

 

[keyboardjockey]

Solar panels don't work with smoky days during fire season in BC.

 

[mareshow]

You are lucky to get .03 per kw
and not what it costs to produce it at the power plant.

Oops, my earlier post said $0.03 per kWh sold to the grid and it's actually $0.067.

By law they have to buy the electricity from you at the rate you're paying for it. Right now there is a cap at 6.8 cents/KWH that will change once the NDP's sneaky subsidy law expires in 2021.

I'll redo the math and see what the numbers are again. But it really depends on how much energy I self consume vs sell to the grid to buy back later as to what my payback will be.

$3.07/watt before rebate.
$2.17/watt after rebate.

Good to know, you can buy a device that hooks onto your primary power cable coming into your house and it'll tell you which devices use what power, when and how much. A very handy tool to maximize your PV purchase.

ATCO finally showed up today and installed our Bi-Directional meter! We are officially able to turn the system on, and we even managed to make a little bit of power today. The East and West panels are currently snow covered, but the south panels managed to make some power.

The Blue line is our consumption and the orange line is production.

View attachment 215344

View attachment 215345

You'll be very pleasantly surprised once the sun is higher in the sky, the angle at which the sun hits the panels greatly effects your power output as a whole.

 

[ABMax24]

Do you know what the spikes are on your consumption? Furnace cycling on and off maybe. I wonder what an a/c unit would do in the summer?

That's exactly what all those spikes are, my furnace fan motors are pretty much the biggest power consumers I have in the winter. Some of the spikes in the morning are us getting up and turning on lights, as well as the lights, tv and computer in the evening.

A/C would be brutal, it would be the same consumption for the fan motor plus the AC compressor and fan outside, I could easily see this being a 4000 watt load or more.

So with the solar do you still get hosed on items like transmission fee etc.? It kills me that fees are sometimes more than my power consumption.

All power I buy i still pay the transmission fees on, but because I will self consume a lot of the power we generate we obviously don't have to pay transmission fees on that.

In BC we have team power smart it helps you to save power, they actually pay you money if you save 10% off your yearly bill. Best ways to save power, change your bulbs to led, never use electric heaters, cook with cast iron or use instant pots, do not have to many fridges running, wash dishes by hand and avoid your cloths dryer as much as possible. A dc furnace fan saves money as well.

These are the things we started with as well, we don't regularly use electricity for any heating appliances, and all lights are LED. It is said that for every dollar spent on efficiency you save $5 on a smaller solar system.

 

[ABMax24]

Figure I'll post a quick update. The month of February was garbage for solar power, the panels were covered with snow and the cold weather prevented the snow from melting off. March is proving to be much different as the snow has now melted off. I have seen outputs as high as 1500 watts and even with the sky cloud covered we can get as high as 900 watts. So far this month 50% of our electricity has come from the panels.