Solar Panels, Battery and Egauge and cost of electricity

[TexasBill]

I don't think that there are many that have done this - so I thought I would put this up to encourage others and help others if they are going down this path.

I have a rather large house (about 5,500 square feet) in Texas. We have (usually) light winters and HOT summers.

Electricity for houses like mine are running anywhere from $500-700 per month for electricity. (not a scientific survey but a quick canvas of local neighbors)

I put in (about 11 years ago now) a 10.8 kW solar system (18 panels)

I loved it- together with my foam insulation I was paying about $180 in electric every month - I was conserving air conditioning during the day because I wanted a credit to help cover my nights. 

So we were always bordering on sweating or freezing (wintertime) 

Then Reliant (my electricity company) starting offering "Truly Free nights". From 8 pm to 6 AM electricity is free. Yes - you pay 24 cents per kwh in the daytime to offset this "free" nights but - my brain said that I have solar during the day so it will be free during the day. So - I switched and we found that we could move all laundry etc till after 8 pm nightly and we were now down to $110 per month approximately for electric - but - the difference was that we could now air condition the dickens at night - down as low as we wanted to go, charge the Tesla and during the day we had plenty of electricity from the solar so now we were much more comfortable and not spending a lot of money.

THEN we added a 31 kw Harris battery (https://www.harrisbattery.com/) with a 15 kw Sol ARK (https://www.sol-ark.com/sol-ark-15k-all-in-one/) to cover from 6 AM when electricity is no longer free till the sun comes out and then from when the sun goes down till 8 PM (I refer to these times as the "shoulders" of the bell curve produced by the solar generation.

The house (using the egauge: https://www.egauge.net/) "knows" when we are making solar and set the air condition appropriately - when there is no solar being made the thermostat is made higher so that the AC does not kick on so low.

MY electric bill last month was $14.

I am telling you this because Reliant advertises this truly free nights:  https://www.reliant.com/en/public/truly-free-nights-plan-lf.jsp and if you look, they show that what I am doing is PART OF THEIR PLAN and recommended - 

So - we now have "gas" free - we no longer pay for fuel for our travels.

My plan was up in March so I went to "renew" expecting that they would not let me renew and I would have to pick a plan that worked differently - Imagine my surprise when they offered to allow me to renew for FIVE YEARS online with one button click.

DONE - I now have for the next five years, electric bills that should be $25 or less.

Now - I am nearing retirement age so this is really cool to get this under control for my monthly expenditures when I am retired.

31KW does NOT handle all my electrical needs - I also have a generator for power outages to keep the refrigerator running etc.

I wanted to post this in case it helps anyone else out there.

Bill

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[msgreenf]

But how much have you invested in solar and batteries?

[zaphod]

Very cool, but how is this sustainable for Reliant?  Isn't their cost to keep you on the grid more than that?  I know that some states have started upping minimum monthly bills because lots of customers had solar and were paying very little.

Or are they happy with the system to subsidize a few folks like you that truly minimize their bills.

Are there conditions around the truly free nights?  What if you got a huge bank of batteries and loaded them up every night.  Would that be allowed?

[C4 User]

11 hours ago, msgreenf said:

But how much have you invested in solar and batteries?

@TexasBill very cool indeed. I have actually been thinking about doing the same. My challenge is that I will need to put solar panels on the street side of my roof in order to get enough panels to supply my daytime power AND charge my batteries for night - and this will upset my neighbors and HOA (even thought I legally can do it). Would you mind sharing how much you have invested in your setup, or your estimated breakeven payback in years?

[msgreenf]

right that is what I was trying to get to - payback period.

 

Let's say 50k investment and saving $500 a month.

That's 100 months or 8.3 years...

[Neo1738]

I have a 15.4 kw solar system with 50 panels in the summer I save about 450/mo in the winter about 100/mo. Also have 10kw battery to backup the 1 panel not on a generator. Now if power goes out whole house has power. Average about 350/mo savings will repay in 137 mo. After tax credit whole system cost about 48k. So after about 12 years I'll make profit. 

[Topfox]

I have a 31.45kw system here in VA. 70 panels on a ground mount about 500 ft from my house. I was paying 500-600 a month for electric by the time I did it that was only going up every year. I paid 80k for my system, got a 22k fed tax credit (it’s a credit not a deduction) that prevented me from having to pay 30k to the feds last year. I also get an 80k deduction on my real estate taxes for 5 yrs.

In 11 months I generated 42mw which paid me about 2.2k from SRECs that covers my yearly propane bill (main floor heat, cook top, tankless water heater, outdoor grill and 22kw generator). I haven’t had an electric bill at all since Jan 2022. Think we are expecting full return after all the tax breaks, SRECs, no bills around 9.5 years. Note it also increases the value of your home should you decide to sell prior to getting the return. 
 

All and all, I’ve been very happy with the investment and luckily I paid for it with stocks that are now currently in the toilet so I actually timed it well. 

[zaphod]

Anyone ever have issues with components dying?  I have had a 10kW solar system since 2015.  This summer my SolarEdge inverter died.  My dealer came out and you could see scorching on the circuit board, so something shorted out or there was some kind of small fire/heat event.  SolarEdge replaced the inverter for free,  but it took about 4 months to get the inverter replaced so my system was down for the entire summer which cost me about $2500 in revenue, as with my system I sell the power back into the grid and a very nice price.

[South Africa C4 user]

I have 2 systems (2 homes).  Both investments were around US$50,000 with payback periods of about 8 years.  Well worth it in South Africa, as we also have regular rolling blackouts and this covers these nicely!

Wish we had free electricity at night as I have a 100kwh battery at one house and a 40kwh battery at the other house.  If night time electricity was free, I could probably get my payback period down to 2 or 3 years!

I also use eGauge linked to C4 to determine what to run when etc.

Edited December 29, 2022 by South Africa C4 user

[Topfox]

8 hours ago, zaphod said:

Anyone ever have issues with components dying?  I have had a 10kW solar system since 2015.  This summer my SolarEdge inverter died.  My dealer came out and you could see scorching on the circuit board, so something shorted out or there was some kind of small fire/heat event.  SolarEdge replaced the inverter for free,  but it took about 4 months to get the inverter replaced so my system was down for the entire summer which cost me about $2500 in revenue, as with my system I sell the power back into the grid and a very nice price.

Was the replacement time period a Solar Edge issue or an installer issue? My inverters are also Solar Edge so curious. Before I got my system I talked to a guy that’s a friend of a friend who works in the commercial solar business. He told me the manufacturers like Solar Edge are usually pretty good, but these small to medium installers come and go a lot. So their individual maintenance warranties aren’t worth the paper they are written on. 

[zaphod]

I think it was SolarEdge.  My installer was good and came very quickly after I called him about my system being dead.  He took the cover off of the inverter and you could immediately see the damage.

I am in Canada so that my have made the issue worse.  But given the Supply chain issues that have been going on since Covid hit I thought that this just might be part of that whole issue.

FYI - here's an image where you can see the scorching both above, and to the right of the screen.

[TexasBill]

On 12/27/2022 at 7:32 PM, msgreenf said:

But how much have you invested in solar and batteries?

The solar has been paid off - and I had $18,000 in those.  I am now positive on that financial front.

The battery was $22,000 after rebates and tax incentives etc.

My math indicates that I should be positive - if I take the money that was paying off the solar and apply it to the batter it should mean that I am positive again in less than 4 years.

The good thing for me is that I don't have any electrical bill to speak of in my retirement.

 

 

[TexasBill]

On 12/27/2022 at 11:11 PM, zaphod said:

Very cool, but how is this sustainable for Reliant?  Isn't their cost to keep you on the grid more than that?  I know that some states have started upping minimum monthly bills because lots of customers had solar and were paying very little.

Or are they happy with the system to subsidize a few folks like you that truly minimize their bills.

Are there conditions around the truly free nights?  What if you got a huge bank of batteries and loaded them up every night.  Would that be allowed?

I posted the link so that you could read what they say on their web site.

I do not sit in their board room so I have NO IDEA what they think or are thinking. All I know is that I have talked with their representative and no one has expressed frustration.  There are no conditions - I pay (when I need electricity - like the battery is exhausted due to no solar) 24 cents per KWH.

Bill

[TexasBill]

On 12/28/2022 at 6:59 AM, C4 User said:

@TexasBill very cool indeed. I have actually been thinking about doing the same. My challenge is that I will need to put solar panels on the street side of my roof in order to get enough panels to supply my daytime power AND charge my batteries for night - and this will upset my neighbors and HOA (even thought I legally can do it). Would you mind sharing how much you have invested in your setup, or your estimated breakeven payback in years?

See my post on costs..