Utility Rate Increase

February 18, 2005 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Solar Energy 

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

February 16, 2005 by · 2 Comments
Filed under: Solar Energy 

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?

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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).

Snow, part 2

January 28, 2005 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Solar Energy 

Yesterday was the first day since the big snow last weekend where the inverters ever woke up.  The snow melted off the panels on Wednesday when the temperature finally climbed over 32F, and on Thursday we got some power.

Interestingly, the inverter with the smaller number of panels had the bigger day, due to the fact that some panels on the other inverter were still partially snow-covered.
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It was still 1/2 of what we should have gotten on a similar day with no snow on the panels, but at least we got something.  Tomorrow, the temps are supposed to go above freezing again and the last snow should melt.  (Today’s low was 4F!)

Snow

January 24, 2005 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Solar Energy 

One of the questions that we’ve had about solar panels was:  “What happens when it snows?”

We learned the answer yesterday.  We got 15 inches of snow between 10am Saturday and 10am Sunday.  The inverters produced nothing on Saturday (not a surprise – the sun was hard to see).  On Sunday, the panels were 90% covered with an inch to 4 inches of snow (guestimated from the ground).  We got nothing.
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Today, the skies are brighter but it’s STILL cold (it was 5 degrees F at 7am this morning), so I don’t expect the panels to be uncovered today.  Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny and above freezing.

Solar PV Energy Payback Discussion

December 29, 2004 by · 3 Comments
Filed under: Solar Energy 

I posted an entry below about the shortest day of the year.  In the comments, a reader John Pickens responded with comments about the belief that my system will never produce enough energy to repay the energy used to create the components (panels, etc).  I believe that he is incorrect.

UPDATED 12/29/2004 4:47pm EST

Below is the discussion (click the link to continue reading):

Read more

Shortest Day of the Year

December 22, 2004 by · 6 Comments
Filed under: Solar Energy 

Well, yesterday was the shortest day of the year here in the Northern Hemisphere.

I haven’t seen the numbers from yesterday’s production, but we’ve been getting 9-12 kWh out of the solar panels on a sunny day in December.  Compare that to the record of 42 kWh on a sunny day in June, and you can see what a difference the lower angle of sunshine and shorter days has on the system.

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So now we turn back to longer days.  Our “net producer” months are predicted to be April, May and a bit of June.

Here Come the Fuzz

December 9, 2004 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Solar Energy 

Yesterday afternoon, I had a DirecTV installer working at my house on cable issues.  He was parked out front.  About mid-afternoon, a police car starts cruising around the neighborhood.  The car came to a stop right next to my installer, and the officer inside started talking to my installer.  I saw all of this from the window.

So, I high-tailed it outside to see what was up.  When I got within ear-shot, my installer said, “Here’s the guy you need to talk to.”  (Gulp.)

So the officer says, “Are those solar panels on your roof?”

(Whew!)
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I proceeded to explain a bit about them and their costs.  It turns out that the officer lives a few blocks from me, has been considering panels, and recently noticed mine.  He had questions about costs and who installed it.  I gave him the name of my solar installer and the address for this website.

So, for Officer Jones (his real name – might be Corporal or Sergeant, I wasn’t paying attention), here are your links.

The panels were installed by Jersey Solar, LLC (website).  The total cost was $52,000 but the state rebate pays about 70%, so my cost was about $16,000.  Click the Major Event Entries link to the left for an index to articles and pictures of the whole process.  If you need anything else, please feel free to e-mail me at the link on the left.

Renewable Energy Feasibility – NJ

December 7, 2004 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Solar Energy 

The New Jersey Board of Public Utilities commissioned a study to determine whether or not it would be feasible to require that 20% of NJ’s energy needs be met by renewables by 2020.  They received the results last week.  (Press Release)

The study results show that increasing the requirement to 20% by 2020 would only result in a 3.7% increase in electric rates – which is negigible over the 16 year period.  It’s important to note that this scenario assumes significant cost-reducing technology changes for wind and PV (solar) production.  The report leans heavily on wind-generated power including off-shore wind installations in it’s estimates.

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I have to admit – I’m a little skeptical of the results.  For one thing, they base their estimates on the best case scenario – that we would have significant cost reduction for wind and PV power in the 20 years.  However, I’m strongly in favor of anything that makes NJ cleaner and less dependent on fossil fuels.

Zero Day

November 16, 2004 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Solar Energy 

We had our first zero production day last Friday.  It rained heavily all day long, and the inverters never “woke up” from the night before.

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PSE&G Follies, again

October 26, 2004 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Solar Energy 

Well, I got to October 15 and hadn’t received my September net metering bill. I called PSE&G, and was told that the right person was out of the office and would get my message on Tuesday, October 19. My meter reading was on September 20.

Flash forward to today. I called again. Now, we’re past my meter reading of October 19. Still no bill.

They called me back this afternoon, and e-mailed the bill to me. It seems that the system is STILL not set up correctly to re-route my regular bill to them for net metering capture and re-billing. So, they issued a combined September and October bill, which I will pay tonight.
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I really hope that they get this right soon. I’ve had my system running since June and they still haven’t billed me properly without MY prompting.

The good news is that my system output more than half (755) of what I consumed in input (1427). That means that I bought less than 1/2 of my external flow from the utility. That’s probably on track for a 2/3 usage from solar – I’ll have to look at the solar production to see for sure. There was some air conditioning time in there too – it runs back into August.

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