Nissan has some leasing deals on Leafs (Leaves?) For $19 per month, no joke. Every state is different but locally to me tax title license is I think $1200 out the door. I'm not an ev person at all but $19 per month it's tempting.
Excess Solar Production - Considering an EV
- Thread starter 99Saturn
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At my rates this will never pay for itself, the utility company rates in my area are in the 10 cent per KWH range. I would rather pay for the panels than make my cost of electricity go up by 70%.
I am considering solar, but it is because I want a hedge against the grid, reliability wise. I don't ever want a repeat of what happened in 2021. Plus I work from home 3 days a week. Don't need to run everything but HVAC, fridge, Internet are all must-haves.
A key reason I installed solar was I knew I would be retiring soon and my home energy costs would increase. I also thought I might buy an EV one day... My goal was to minimize recurring costs for the long term. Due to high energy costs in Silicon Valley, this turned out to be better than I thought.
Ya ain't gonna work forever.
My assumption is the lease was structured intentionally to be $0.XX below the market rate when the sales person was selling it. Makes for a good sales pitch, "you save X per kWh" maybe even, "which equals Y a month/year". So in a different region the price per kWh would be lower (or higher) adjusted for the prevailing rate in that market. Just my guess.
OVERKILL
$100 Site Donor 2021
We had an ice storm here last week. I had no power from Saturday through to Thursday, ran the genset the entire time. Got a GenerLink installed on Tuesday as part of my panel/stack/meter replacement (ripped clear out of the house due to the storm), that was a game changer, could run my furnace and hot water tank, though we still had no internet because my fibre was sitting on my front lawn until mid-day Thursday.
Our office, which isn't a huge load, has a Cummins 22kW NG generator installed. It ran Saturday through to Sunday at 7:30PM, 8 days and 14 hours straight. With the overcast conditions, which decimate solar output, there was no way a solar + storage combo was working for either me, or the office.
Spring time is a good time for generation but no demand due to lack of AC need. You are likely going to have some waste one way or another, even if you have battery (because in mid summer you likely will use a lot during day time and have nothing left to charge).
This is likely going to be a problem if you don't have a grid to absorb it but the grid will likely pay you little to nothing (sometimes during spring sunny day the grid goes negative). I will see battery as a separate equation even without solar, because if it is negative electricity cost you will be able to take that from the grid even if you have no solar.
This is likely going to be a problem if you don't have a grid to absorb it but the grid will likely pay you little to nothing (sometimes during spring sunny day the grid goes negative). I will see battery as a separate equation even without solar, because if it is negative electricity cost you will be able to take that from the grid even if you have no solar.
We installed solar 7 years ago and oversized it with the idea of eventually getting an EV. Bought an MME last November. We had 9000KWH in the bank that we are using. It should take us 27 to 30k miles.
When that is used up, the power company will power my EV for $.03 a KWH, which is about a penny a mile. I can still burn my excess by charging outside the 11pm/5am window. It is really nice not to have to worry about fuel prices and going to the gas station is not something I miss.
When that is used up, the power company will power my EV for $.03 a KWH, which is about a penny a mile. I can still burn my excess by charging outside the 11pm/5am window. It is really nice not to have to worry about fuel prices and going to the gas station is not something I miss.
This is awesome. I wish I was able to go solar sooner, but I will eventually and it will only be benefit across the board.
Did the 9 MWH aggregate over the years, or are you reset to zero every year?
April coming to an end: 1547 kWh produced from the panels, 370 consumed (we were away for a week) +1200 kWh; around +2000kWh extra as of now.
So now you have 11 MWH to " spend"?
The 2000 kWh was total since January (or December), so 2 MWH to "spend".
Got it, so the answer to the question I asked in post 49 is - your contract resets every year.
We dont know if thats a fiscal year that starts in December or if it's a calendar year that starts in Jan.
(using the enphase app I set my custom range to = the contract year vs. the calendar year.
so @ 2000 / 123 days gives you on average of 16 KWH day if that were linear or 5840 a year to spend as you see fit, or 17520 miles a year of driving if you get 3MPKWH.
Nice.
For anyone interested., this is what it looks like from a waveform/load perspective when you charge a model 3 from 20 to 95% using a 50 AMP connector and teslas 32amp mobil charger.
Orange is consumption, blue is solar production.
Friends drove up from LA this week.
Orange is consumption, blue is solar production.
Friends drove up from LA this week.
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I think I know that you know but for those who don't - solar panels will not provide you with electricity during a black out unless you also go for the added expense of a very expensive battery back up system. With that said battery back up could be much cheaper after local and federal incentives. I dont know.
Since your electric, like mine is only 10 cents kWh I would think, if your lucky enough to have natural gas, get a whole house generator for a fraction of the price or simply a large gas one if needed. Even though gasoline is more of a bother, black outs so rare it still might be worth it. Added bonus you can run the whole house.
Many in my community whole house use propane you need large tanks though.
For cheaper gasoline install,
They have an electrician install an outlet outside the the house that goes to the breaker panel. During a black out they can wheel their large powerful gas generator, plug it in, switch the safety switch on the circuit breakers and fire up the generator in that way and it powers the house through the breakers. You have the option of a smaller generator to power only what you want.
(posting this for others if you know, as many people during black outs learn their solar system doesn't work if the grid goes down, that they needed a very expensive battery back up system for it to work during those times)
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Mostly. I do find it surprising how many solar customers don't understand what they buy.
If one is willing to accept compromises, one can add "sun up backup" to an enphase system fairly economically.
Solar edge also has a similar feature with more restrictions on it (based on what little I know about solar edge)
This feature allows one to run the house during the day more or less directly off the panels without battery.
It is much more reliable with even the smallest battery though acting as a cloud/shade buffer.
Many consumers do not understand most of what they buy!
The other things you mention I have no clue about but we need to keep in mind @Brons2 is looking for back up power for that once every 5 or 10 year power failure and only pays 10 cents a kWh (as I do) He might even buy another house by then that he doesn't know about yet.
There are people in my community that have whole house Generac systems (not cheap but way cheaper than solar) And others with large units that can be wheeled from the garage to the outside and plugged in a dedicated plug to the circuit breakers. Cheap and can be bought in Costco
We only lived here for 2 years now but others commented the last time they needed anything was in 2018. So at 10 cents kWr a solar system, I guess its worth is up to the individual. I only know of one home in our community with solar. New homeowners, I suspect they did not understand every time I pass their house. There are most likely a couple others someplace here, our community is huge with miles and miles or roads. Thing is here, being its a golf resort many of us would not be on this earth by the time we realized any payback from solar
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- Dec 20, 2024
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As @UncleDave mentioned, the latest NPhase inverters have a mode where they can pass through electricity directly to your house, should you lose power.
It is not high power and won't be able to power up everything, making it the same as having a small backup generator.
Understood, nice to know, as long as the sun shines. Night time is another story so it might be just as good to have a small back up generator in this case if that is the only concern. At 10 cents kWh solar for this purpose would be way costly for a once or twice in a decade outage.
However my reply to the person in this thread was his statement said "HVAC, fridge, Internet are all must-haves." that requires larger than small and he needs it to be reliable as he states his work from home is 3 days a week.
BTW-
I have my first solar devices. Two outdoor security cameras. Kind of neat, I can imagine in a high cost area how panels would be fun. I love electronics. project after the cameras was finishing up the whole house TV antenna system for local channels which compliments all our streaming.Still adding to it, won't need it in all the prewired rooms, it will be much neater when done. MBR closet Some production builders still go that extra mile providing the infrastructure.
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