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.
I’m a little worried about a portion of the gutter that is sagging a bit – I’m hoping it will pop back up as the snow inside melts.
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%
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
Snow, part 2
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.
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
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.
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
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):
Shortest Day of the Year
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.
Of course, we aren’t using the air conditioning at the moment either, so our usage is down. We are using lights for longer hours in the evening and even morning now.
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
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!)
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.
Web Stuff
