Avalanche!
Last week, it snowed a lot. A trace the previous Friday. 2.5 inches on Monday morning. Then 3 inches on Friday morning followed by rain. We’ve gone over a week with no solar production because every panel is at least partially blocked by snow.
Sunday, I was sitting in my home office on the 2nd floor working. Suddenly I hear a LOUD scraping sound from the roof. I ran downstairs to find out what happened.
The snow that had been completely covering the bottom row (of 3) of panels let loose all at once. It fell from the roof to the ground.
Later I discovered that the snowfall took out most of our Christmas lights on the bushes. They were torn off of the bushes and buried under 3-8 inches of snow. One string was permanently ruined because of a wire pulled out of one of the plastic sockets. We replaced it with a smaller unused string. We’ve also left the whole thing unplugged last night and today so that the sockets can dry out.
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This didn’t happen last year – even in the 10-inch storms. Of course, those were drier storms and the snow tended to blow off the panels. I guess it took a small, very wet snow to cause this.
I’m still a bit nervous – the snow on the top 2 levels was still there last night. Of course, it was only covering 50% of some of the panels and very little of the rest.
At least we’ll get some power today.
One Year – Let’s Run the Numbers
This is the first anniversary of the first successful meter reading by PSE&G after activating the panels. That means that we can run the numbers.
All values are kWh. This year’s date is 7/21/2005 – last year was 7/21/2004.
Inverter 1 This Year: 4279 Last Year: 677 Total Inverter 1: 3602
Inverter 2 This Year: 3544 Last Year: 565 Total Inverter 2: 2979
Total Solar Generation: 6581
Meter Out This Year: 8724 Last Year: 1365 Total Bought: 7359
Meter In This Year: 4823 Last Year: 564 Total Sold: 4259
Net Metering Purchase: 3100
Total Electricity Use = Total Solar Generation – Total Sold + Total Bought = 9681
Solar Generation Percentage = Total Solar Generation / Total Electricity Use = 68.0%
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Our installer predicted that we’d generate 2/3 of our usage. He was pretty much dead on – the real numbers are just a smidge better than that. Additionally, we reduced our utility demand by that much – reducing utility pollution.
When it comes to dollars, we actually did better than these numbers show. PSE&G rates increase above 600 kWh per month in the summer. Our usage allows us to avoid going over 600 kWh net purchase per month, avoiding the higher rates.
Our savings works out this way:
Green Mountain Energy Supply Charge: $0.07508 / kWh
PSE&G Delivery Charge: $0.0.30305 / kWh (the lowest rate – it’s higher above 600 kWh in the summer and higher in the winter as well at $0.0384/kWh)
Total Rate: $0.10539 / kWh
Our Savings: $693.57 for one year
That would produce a 23 year payback but with the added $1251 from the sale of the SREC, it’s a 8.5 year payback.
And the air is cleaner.
SREC Sale Completed
Well, my SREC’s for 2004-2005 sold. I got a check in the mail yesterday for $208.55 for each of 6 SREC’s.
Considering that I was offered anywhere from $115 to $150 by the big guys (Sharp, Mainstay) in the last month, it seems that I did the right thing holding out for a better offer.
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One question – please reply in Comments. Is SREC income taxable for Federal or NJ purposes? I’m assuming that it is, but I’d like to hear from someone who has done some research.
NJ Solar Rebate Changes
The NJ Clean Energy Program changed some of the rules for the solar PV rebate program. The changes can be found HERE.
One small change is how the rebate is figured. The rebate used to be based on the lesser of $5.50 per watt or 70% of the total invoice from the vendor. Now, it’s based on $5.30 per watt. Supposedly, this is intended to foster price competition among installers. For me, based on my installer’s charges, it would have cost me about $900 more – I guess my installer was more expensive than most. I suspect that my installer will eat the decreased rebate rather than lose business.
They also want an “electric bill showing yearly usage”. Now, PSE&G doesn’t produce that. I suppose you could produce two bills a year apart, but the only way I’ve ever gotten yearly usage from PSE&G is via screen prints from their billing system.
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They also want a copy of the Completed Interconnection Agreement before they’ll pay the rebate. In my case, the rebate was paid even though PSE&G forgot to sign and return the agreement. I wonder how this works with the new BPU rules that state that the system can be activated if the utility doesn’t reply within 2 weeks.
They’ve also added an inspection charge beyond the first 2 inspections by the state inspector. My installation only required one inspection, but I guess lower quality work might require multiple inspections.
One Year Later
On June 14, 2004 in the late afternoon we turned on our system for good. We haven’t thrown the breakers since.
Tomorrow I’ll give you statistics on energy produced by the system. I believe that the total is about 6,300 kWh. I don’t have numbers on our home’s usage for the year – the first good meter reading after installation was July 2004 (PSE&G botched the June reading), so I’ll come back with more details later.
The system has been completely maintenance free. We do write down the production numbers every night for our interest, but there’s no reason to do so. The system just hums along in the basement when the sun is shining.
Systolic pressure, the upper number, measures the pressure within the arteries of the body. levitra properien So, to treat erectile dysfunction in additional info commander viagra men is very costly medicine. In recent years, cheap viagra in usa has been joined by two other drugs, levitra. The leading workers Comp cheap discount levitra doctor at Arizona Injury Medical Associates in Phoenix. The only minor annoyance is that the system disrupts AM radio. We hear what sounds like R2D2 perking away behind the radio station when the system is active. That is not usually a problem – we only listen to AM radio in the morning – but when production is high it does overpower the station sometimes.
We’ve only had one indirect complaint from a neighbor – a co-worker who knows a neighbor reported that they sometimes get sun reflected onto the front of their house in the morning. They haven’t approached us. I suspect that this will get better over time as the glass on the panels gets less smooth (though we’ll lose some power at that point as well).
Would I do it again? YES. No question about it – this helps the environment and saves us electricity costs in the long run. One unexpected savings is in air conditioning – the panels block the morning sun from reaching our attic and therefore our cooling requirements are lessened. For that reason alone, I’d love to put an array on the back of the roof as well.
Selling SREC’s
This month marks the end of the fiscal year for Solar Renewable Energy Credits (SREC) in NJ.
Each solar facility creates one SREC for every 1MWh of electricity that they generate. NJ utilities are required to meet a requirement that a particular percentage of their total power generation comes from NJ-based solar sources. If they fail to do so, they pay a penalty that’s the equivalent of $300 per SREC. Other companies (out-of-state utilities, green power companies) purchase NJ SREC’s and Green Tags from other states to back their renewable energy label.
As an example – my system generated 6 SRECs this past year (and may eke out a 7th at the end of the month).
The problem for small producers like us is this: we’re just too small for large companies to do the paperwork and buy directly. Enter the aggregator or broker. These folks purchase SREC’s (and other things like pollution credits) from producers and sell them to buyers. You won’t get the full value selling to a broker, but you will likely be able to sell them.
I sold mine yesterday to a broker for a minimum $200 per SREC, minus a 3% commission. They will now try to sell them to a buyer for at least $200 each, and I will get paid what they sell it at minus the commission. If they fail to sell by the end of July, the certificates will be transferred back to me. At that point, I’ll probably retire them.
Next year, there’s talk of a bunch of us little guys banding together to sell directly to a renewable energy company. It’s good to make a few bucks off the greenness of your power – it’s much better to support the green power industry while doing so.
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I’ve heard several explanations.
- The cost of the SREC purchase process has to be paid for somehow – that’s where the margin comes in. This is especially true for brokers.
- The NJ utilities have already built the penalty into customer rates. There’s no reason for them to bust their tail buying SREC’s. If they do, they save money. It’s in their best interests to buy low. (I don’t know how true this is, but I have heard it.)
- Green tags from out of state are cheaper (this is true) – running about $100-150 per MWh. I believe that this requirement was shot down by the state BPU’s recent amendments requiring that NJ SREC’s must be used to satisfy the requirement.
At any rate, I never expected to be able to sell SREC’s when I installed the system. For each year that I can sell SREC’s at about this rate, I take one year off the time to pay back my costs. Now, my 16-18 year payback is one year shorter.
And I just made $1200 for doing nothing that I wasn’t already gonna do.
PSE&G Billing – some sad news
I just got off the phone with the PSE&G Customer Service folks, since I hadn’t gotten my corrected bill for last month.
If you’ve noticed that the corrected bills for the Southern NJ area have been slow or missing, it’s probably because the person handling the corrected billing, Bob Honey, died suddenly a few months ago. They have a new person working on it. That’s too bad – he did a really good job with it when the billing system remembered to forward the uncorrected bill to him (which wasn’t often for me).
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Supposedly, they were going to have the net metering billing automated by the 2nd quarter of this year. I asked the CSR to add a question about that to my query about last month’s bill. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.
A Spring Update
It was recently pointed out to me that this site hasn’t been updated recently. Time to fix that with a few little notes.
Power production is up as expected now that spring is here. We’re getting about 30kWh on sunny days. Of course, if you get 2.5 inches of rain and the Delaware has a 50-year flood, you produce nothing. (The flood didn’t affect the house – just my commute.)
We still have not sold our SRECs (Solar Renewable Energy Credits). My wife and I are leaning towards NOT selling them, based on the premise that this will force utilities to pollute less. We’d retire them instead. A reader points out that we could sell them to renewable companies and help the environment. Right now, the highest offer that we’ve received (unsolicited for the most part) was $150 each. Reportedly $175 is the going price now – I expect it to continue to climb until near the end of the SREC fiscal year in a few months.
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I’m also in the hunt to buy a hybrid car – probably a Toyota Highlander Hybrid SUV. So far no local dealers are willing to take my deposit – though one dealer thinks he’ll be able to accommodate me in a month or so. I plan to write more about that quest and the final results here, and therefore I’ve started a new category.
That’s all of the news for now. Once I get a full year under my belt, I plan to write up the full statistics on my solar usage and production.
Utility Rate Increase
The state BPU has announced approval of rate increase for NJ utilities.
PSE&G will be going up 2.8%. Other areas of the state fare worse: JCP&L is up 4.5%, Atlantic City Electric is up 4.37%, and Rockland Electric is up a whopping 8.3%.
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Of course, this rate increase only affects 1/3 of my electric needs. The other 2/3 (solar) cost just what they cost yesterday!
Questions and Answers
A potential customer from Freehold, NJ sent me an e-mail with questions, having been referred by an installer (not the people who installed my system).
After replying, it seems that my replies might be useful to all of you as well.
Good Evening, I have recently had a consultation with an XXXXX XXXXX representative, and your email was given to me by him.
I was hoping, if you had a moment, to hear from you on how you feel regarding your solar panel purchase.
Were the savings they estimated realistic? Has the system cut your energy bill? All year long? – and a large portion of recouping the original cost appears to be the sale of solar energy credits – have they sold as easily as promised?
The kamagra pills for buy viagra pills our storefront sale that is available online are high quality. All men with ED fail to satisfy the usually in stock order levitra online sensual urges of their female partners. Just like viagra 100 mg other erectile dysfunction drugs it also displayed side effects that usually occur after taking this medication. The dosage of penegra medicine may be maximized to 100 mg if not showing the cialis online prescription effect (15 to 20 minutes and then men can start the sexual activity) silagra 100 mg has three adapted versions, viz. We have produced at least a little electricity every day except for January. We had a few zero-production days in January – when the panels were snow-covered or when the skies were VERY cloudy and/or rainy. One factor for that in our installation is the fact that our roof with panels faces east (100 degrees), and therefore the angle of the sun to the panels is narrower in the winter as the sun moves farther south.
Our 6.875 kW system went “live” in June of last year. Our record production day was 42 kWh, and obviously the minimum was 0. I calculated an average based on June to mid-December data and got about 17 kWh/day. We don’t have a full year’s data yet. Our installer (not XXXXX) predicted that the system would generate about 2/3 of our electric usage and the numbers seem to bear that out. We haven’t done a rigorous analysis yet – that would require the full year and we’d have to figure out usage based on inbound power from the utility, outbound power to the utility, and solar production.
PSE&G doesn’t have automated billing for residential solar customers – they have to send an erroneous bill automatically and then send a manually-generated correction each month. This makes it a little tough to compare usage to last year (pre-solar). That’s supposed to be fixed in the 2nd quarter of this year. They do read the meter via a phone line that they install (at their cost), and the meter provides both an inbound and outbound counter. Supposedly, the meter will also “phone home” if there is a power outage.
So far, I have gotten few nibbles on the offer to buy SREC’s but the market is new. The state’s brokerage website has only been online since last fall. We have listed our SREC’s at $200 each (an SREC is essentially 1 MWh of solar production) as have members of the state BPU who have solar. I’ve gotten a solicited offer of $115 before the state system existed, and I recently got an unsolicited offer of $135. My wife and I haven’t decided whether to sell them at all or not (selling them allows the utility to continue to pollute more than if they couldn’t buy them and had to produce clean energy themselves), but I’m the more likely to sell them and I won’t do so under $150 each. I expect things to get interesting in April, when the utilities have to complete their purchase for the year. Also, the state just changed the rules to require that state minimum solar production requirements for the utilities must be met with SREC’s from NJ – rather than other states that might be cheaper.
Our investment was about $16,000 – the state paid the rest. Based on our current energy savings, we expect the payback to be 16-18 years. As electricity rates increase, that timeframe will shrink. This calculation does not include SREC sales.
Has the value of your home appreciated due to the solar panel installization?
I don’t know. We haven’t gotten appraisals or put the house on the market since installation. We only got one negative comment from a neighbor – he was looking to sell his home and was worried about the effect that our property would have on his sale. He got at least his asking price, and the new owners think our system is “cool”, so it doesn’t seem to have mattered. We’ve gotten many positive comments. One funny story is posted on my solar blog about a police officer who stopped by to ask about them – he lives nearby. Our installer provided information that states home values increase $20 for every $1 in energy cost savings. He felt that we wouldn’t see a property value increase of the full $52,000 project cost, but that it would be at least the $16,000 net cost to us after state rebates – probably more like 20-23K.
Bottom line, are you glad that you made the investment?
Yes. I’m a computer-type and my wife is an engineer – so the “cool” factor was involved. Additionally, we skew a bit liberal in values, so the greenness was a factor as well. Last, it has reduced our electric bills. We’re happy.
Any feedback would be appreciated.
Additional thoughts:
1. There is NO maintenance required. The panels get washed by the rain, and the electrical equipment requires no attention at all. All we do is write down the daily readings – more out of engineer curiosity than anything else.
2. The inverters have fans built in that are a bit louder than normal small appliance fans. It’s a little quieter than our microwave when it’s running. You may want to consider that when placing them. They usually go near the breaker box anyway. Also, they do cause minor interference on AM radio – we listen to the local news every morning and have just gotten used to it (“computer” beeping sounds in the background).
3. We’ve had no physical trouble at all. No roof leaks, no wind damage (and we’ve had winds short of a hurricane last fall), not even anything flapping in the wind. I also believe that it keeps the attic cooler in the summer than our bare asphalt shingle roof did.
4. You’re welcome to see the installation if you wish. If your Akeena rep is who I think it is, he has his own home solar to show you, but you’re welcome to see ours. Keep in mind that we are using Sharp equipment installed by someone else (though they’re all similar).
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