Solar Panels for house

[PandaBear]

Yes trackers where the S when the panel prices were measured in dollars per watt and the panel prices was most of the cost of the install.
Now they're mainly used when a solar project has taxpayer money to burn or in places that are really remote so shipping costs are your main expense or in places that are particularly terrible for solar performance like way up North. Sometimes both of those last 2.

The prime real estate for solar has probably been used already or are too expensive. Once you add land cost that make sense. Also don't forget lands where they have ideal condition for farming but not enough water, they can use some of those lands for solar as well and focus the water to the rest of the farmland.

 

[alarmguy]

PG&E has the most expensive electricity in America. The bill can easily be car payment sized for a big household and this is only going to get worse as transportation electrifies.

The billpayers absolutely subsidize their incompetence and greed and pay their bonuses to boot.
The State forces you to subsidize everyone in it with fee after fee to pay for the clean energy everyone voted for, but now cry poor and want to push the bill to everyone but the people that voted for it.

How do you get out from under this car payment sized bill? If it were a car you pay it off.

The smart money WAS to buy solar. Well sorry Mr billpayer - we're going to get your money regardless of what you do.

If one decides to put up panels to deal with problem long term then "you are being subsidized by the poor and a terrible person" (its not true but that narrative has taken hold) - so we need to change the deal to keep you paying.

So you say - Well then just stop the subsidy and let me do it all on my own - but guess what? - you cant do that either!

You MUST keep paying for everyone else, and the power companies salaries, bonuses and mistake and problems and the people that didnt know what they were actually voting for, but did and are now running away from the bill.



View attachment 226708

Definition of socialized electricity I guess. (not getting political) But that is what it is. Seems hard to believe that you are forced to be an energy customer of one source even if you do not want to be.

When you say you are forced to connect and when the power goes off the system shuts down. I understand that and there is good reason technically for that. If you dont have battery back up the panels have to shut down.
To be clear that we are talking about the same thing. IF I have a solar system with full battery back up am I still forced into connection to PSE&G if I dont want too and dont need them?

 

[PandaBear]

PG&E has the most expensive electricity in America. The bill can easily be car payment sized for a big household and this is only going to get worse as transportation electrifies.

The billpayers absolutely subsidize their incompetence and greed and pay their bonuses to boot.
The State forces you to subsidize everyone in it with fee after fee to pay for the clean energy everyone voted for, but now cry poor and want to push the bill to everyone but the people that voted for it.

How do you get out from under this car payment sized bill? If it were a car you pay it off.

The smart money WAS to buy solar. Well sorry Mr billpayer - we're going to get your money regardless of what you do.

If one decides to put up panels to deal with problem long term then "you are being subsidized by the poor and a terrible person" (its not true but that narrative has taken hold) - so we need to change the deal to keep you paying.

So you say - Well then just stop the subsidy and let me do it all on my own - but guess what? - you cant do that either!

You MUST keep paying for everyone else, and the power companies salaries, bonuses and mistake and problems and the people that didnt know what they were actually voting for, but did and are now running away from the bill.

Agree. PG&E is expensive. How we get there? 1) wildfire settlement related bankruptcy, 2) overpaying for retail solar before we have NEM3 to existing customers, and duck curve before people were on smart meter / time of use schedule, 3) voters want "clean energy" and shutdown fossil fuel, 4) inflation / cost of natural gas going up due to geopolitical reason (LPG export to Europe) + gas price was artificially low due to fracking bloom that finally stopped.

However, let's say a similar customer like you who has already installed solar, got grandfathered in, want to increase his installed size and stay grandfathered, should you let him? I think this is what pissed you off because you believe he should be allowed to add as much as he want since he already grandfathered, yet PG&E don't.

What would happen if PG&E let people who grandfathered to add unlimited amount of solar? Someone would buy a house near a farm, tear that farm out, and expand that "house" to a commercial solarfarm and profit. PG&E and other non solar customers would be paying for that profit, defeating the purpose to stop this loss that NEM3 tries to prevent.

Hey, at least NEM3 didn't stop all previous user base from its grandfather for a long time (20 years?). I think as a non solar installer of PG&E it is fair. If I am an NEM2 customer I probably would be upset, but that's understandable.

 

[UncleDave]

Definition of socialized electricity I guess. (not getting political) But that is what it is. Seems hard to believe that you are forced to be an energy customer of one source even if you do not want to be.

When you say you are forced to connect and when the power goes off the system shuts down. I understand that and there is good reason technically for that. If you dont have battery back up the panels have to shut down.
To be clear that we are talking about the same thing. IF I have a solar system with full battery back up am I still forced into connection to PSE&G if I dont want too and dont need them?

IF I have a solar system with full battery back up am I still forced into connection to PSE&G if I dont want too and dont need them?

If at any point your house was EVER connected you are forced into being and staying connected.

If your place was never connected, you can remain unconnected and be truly off grid.

 

[UncleDave]

Agree. PG&E is expensive. How we get there? 1) wildfire settlement related bankruptcy, 2) overpaying for retail solar before we have NEM3 to existing customers, and duck curve before people were on smart meter / time of use schedule, 3) voters want "clean energy" and shutdown fossil fuel, 4) inflation / cost of natural gas going up due to geopolitical reason (LPG export to Europe) + gas price was artificially low due to fracking bloom that finally stopped.

However, let's say a similar customer like you who has already installed solar, got grandfathered in, want to increase his installed size and stay grandfathered, should you let him? I think this is what pissed you off because you believe he should be allowed to add as much as he want since he already grandfathered, yet PG&E don't.

What would happen if PG&E let people who grandfathered to add unlimited amount of solar? Someone would buy a house near a farm, tear that farm out, and expand that "house" to a commercial solarfarm and profit. PG&E and other non solar customers would be paying for that profit, defeating the purpose to stop this loss that NEM3 tries to prevent.

Hey, at least NEM3 didn't stop all previous user base from its grandfather for a long time (20 years?). I think as a non solar installer of PG&E it is fair. If I am an NEM2 customer I probably would be upset, but that's understandable.

I understand not allowing people to become mini power companies, but why not allow people to match their consumption as it grows ?

PG&E is a public company, they want to show its shareholders a profit I dont have a problem with that.

I have a problem, with being forced into a game I'm not allowed to quit.

They want it every way and speak out of both sides of their mouth.

" Because of the duck curve we dont want or need your power anymore"

No problem I wont sell it to you then.

" You have no choice you have to sell to us at a price of our choosing" .. and you have to pay for the problem we created, as well as pay for the lines and transmission, and pay for the people that want clean power but can't actually pay for it - you have pay for yourself and help cover everyone - but aren't allowed to escape and cannot be independent.

Go to work peon and pay these bills.


Sound fair?

 

[oil pan 4]

mmmmm... not so sure about lifespan.

There are plenty of guys at work with midnight solar/ outback, and SMA/ sunny boys that are 10-20 years old with no failures.

The solar edge clients have the most trouble in my own group.

My own experience with Enphase is that the core of the system is susceptible to failure most specifically the gateway and consumption transformers. I lost this part and was unable to record production and consumption for about 3 months last summer.

Note the gap in last years reporting.

View attachment 226732

I'm talking about not working as in it doesn't make power at all any more, at all.
The cool little tech features that sell it failing, not worried about.
Some will last 20 years but don't be surprised if you live in a hot climate and your string inverter burns out after 7 to 12 years.

 

[UncleDave]

I'm talking about not working as in it doesn't make power at all any more, at all.
The cool little tech features that sell it failing, not worried about.
Some will last 20 years but don't be surprised if you live in a hot climate and your string inverter burns out after 7 to 12 years.

Havent had any failures yet, but friends have.
Good news is that only the one panel goes down and thats a a benny.

I'm worried about what I paid for not working.

If Im trying to stay within my target window I need to know what Im consuming as well as what Im producing to hit my target.

I can adjust the irrigation pump to stay on target if i know where Im at.

 

[oil pan 4]

Havent had any failures yet, but friends have.
Good news is that only the one panel goes down and thats a a benny.

I'm worried about what I paid for not working.

If Im trying to stay within my target window I need to know what Im consuming as well as what Im producing to hit my target.

I can adjust the irrigation pump to stay on target if i know where Im at.

Yeah I have 4 out of 30 panels smashed right now. If they were on a string inverter I would be getting half the power they all normally make or less. But with micros those 4 smashed panels are only ones down to half of normal.
Also a string inverter with crazy high voltage DC it would be a fire risk to run with smashed panels.

 

[PandaBear]

I understand not allowing people to become mini power companies, but why not allow people to match their consumption as it grows ?

PG&E is a public company, they want to show its shareholders a profit I dont have a problem with that.

I have a problem, with being forced into a game I'm not allowed to quit.

They want it every way and speak out of both sides of their mouth.

" Because of the duck curve we dont want or need your power anymore"

No problem I wont sell it to you then.

" You have no choice you have to sell to us at a price of our choosing" .. and you have to pay for the problem we created, as well as pay for the lines and transmission, and pay for the people that want clean power but can't actually pay for it - you have pay for yourself and help cover everyone - but aren't allowed to escape and cannot be independent.

Go to work peon and pay these bills.


Sound fair?

I understand that, and I feel for you.

My line of thinking, not trying to take the side of PG&E and hate on anyone else, is that, it is hard to foresee what you write into rules and contracts may cause massive loss down the road. Can they make the contract better for everyone? maybe. Do they want to not even let people grandfather NEM 2. We can argue all day on that and whether it is fair.

I think, people should be allowed to turn ON/OFF whether they sell to power company or not, but in the end you have to decide whether you want to allow people to make a statement by dumping output without getting paid or whether we should force them to sell at wholesale back to the grid. We can't make everyone happy and in the end this is what we have. I am not emotional about it because I have no skin in the game, so I guess I am ok with it, but I would understand I would be pissed if I add more panels and are forced to sell at a 'loss' back to the grid.

 

[JeffKeryk]

PG&E has the most expensive electricity in America. The bill can easily be car payment sized for a big household and this is only going to get worse as transportation electrifies.

The billpayers absolutely subsidize their incompetence and greed and pay their bonuses to boot.
The State forces you to subsidize everyone in it with fee after fee to pay for the clean energy everyone voted for, but now cry poor and want to push the bill to everyone but the people that voted for it.

How do you get out from under this car payment sized bill? If it were a car you pay it off.

The smart money WAS to buy solar. Well sorry Mr billpayer - we're going to get your money regardless of what you do.

If one decides to put up panels to deal with problem long term then "you are being subsidized by the poor and a terrible person" (its not true but that narrative has taken hold) - so we need to change the deal to keep you paying.

So you say - Well then just stop the subsidy and let me do it all on my own - but guess what? - you cant do that either!

You MUST keep paying for everyone else, and the power companies salaries, bonuses and mistake and problems and the people that didnt know what they were actually voting for, but did and are now running away from the bill.



View attachment 226708

The PUC is just as bad as PG&E.

 

[alarmguy]

I’m amazed at the stuff I’m reading here. How can a private property owner be forced to purchase electricity from a company?

I’m not questioning your statements in anyway, but I just can’t wrap my head around it. I guess it’s like a tax that once they supply you with power, you will forever pay whether you use that power or not

@JeffKeryk
@UncleDave @PandaBear

 

[SC Maintenance]

.

I’m amazed at the stuff I’m reading here. How can a private property owner be forced to purchase electricity from a company?

I’m not questioning your statements in anyway, but I just can’t wrap my head around it. I guess it’s like a tax that once they supply you with power, you will forever pay whether you use that power or not

@JeffKeryk
@UncleDave @PandaBear

In most counties in South Carolina you are required to be connected to the utility to get a Certificate of occupancy. Some exceptions might exist for remote counties. Obviously you can flip the main breaker. Not sure what happens if you purposely disconnect. Presumably they could condemn the property, but in SC I seriously doubt they would. (yet. Things are changing here too)

Anywhere in the state if you install solar its supposed to be inspected. By the county for off grid, and obviously by the utility if your connected. Not sure of the process.

Net metering in SC pays a whopping 3 cents per kWh if you make more than you use.

Not as draconian as CA, but my point is there are rules everywhere.

 

[PandaBear]

I’m amazed at the stuff I’m reading here. How can a private property owner be forced to purchase electricity from a company?

I’m not questioning your statements in anyway, but I just can’t wrap my head around it. I guess it’s like a tax that once they supply you with power, you will forever pay whether you use that power or not

@JeffKeryk
@UncleDave @PandaBear

The way I see it as, you want a pipe coming to your home, and you can be charged based on either per unit used or a fixed cost. You can pay all these "sewage fee" per household per month, or you can pay water consumption by ton / CCF, etc, or both. I once have a water leak and a $1k water bill, and was told by the local water dept that they can't waive it because it cost them 4/5 of that to buy water, that comes from Hetch Hetchy, that use the cost to rebuild our 100 year old water way to earthquake proof standard.

For electricity, in our area we are in a municipal called SVCE. They replace PG&E as the local generator who buy electricity from other sources: power plants, dams, solar, local people having solar, wall street contracts, etc. This replace the PG&E generation portion and in exchange PG&E charge them a "fixed" connection fee per month, and usually they sort of break even in how much it cost.

So this is why I think we are not really that bad if my municipal cost me about the same as PG&E. If you (as in a local with like minded people forming a municipal utility) in PG&E area decided to switch to get your own sources, you can, and in exchange PG&E just charge you a fixed profit to provide you a grid service. What I found out is that the generation in my bill is only about 1/3 and the rest of the fees / grid / CPUC mandated programs etc cost the remaining 2/3. I am not sure if you can getaway from paying that high transmit cost because that's how much they are paying for all the cost I mentioned. If they don't charge you per generation they will somehow find a way to charge you in fixed cost.

They are not stupid, and they definitely did the math and knows that going completely off grid will cost you more (3x generation and / or storage just to make sure you don't blackout, and you are going to waste that money if you don't at least sell it to the grid wholesale), so that's why they charge what they charge.

 

[alarmguy]

.

In most counties in South Carolina you are required to be connected to the utility to get a Certificate of occupancy. Some exceptions might exist for remote counties. Obviously you can flip the main breaker. Not sure what happens if you purposely disconnect. Presumably they could condemn the property, but in SC I seriously doubt they would. (yet. Things are changing here too)

Anywhere in the state if you install solar its supposed to be inspected. By the county for off grid, and obviously by the utility if your connected. Not sure of the process.

Net metering in SC pays a whopping 3 cents per kWh if you make more than you use.

Not as draconian as CA, but my point is there are rules everywhere.

Yes I assume rules I guess the key question for me would be if I called one of the electric co-ops here could I tell them to pull my meter and if they did would I be liable to still pay a service charge …

I’m not disagreeing with you not at all. I guess I’m just kind of surprised.
Good point about a C/O needed, and electricity is part of that. I guess the same goes for needing a stove in the house as well as plumbing.

I wonder if you’re paying cash oh well, oh never mind now my imagination is getting away

 

[PandaBear]

.

In most counties in South Carolina you are required to be connected to the utility to get a Certificate of occupancy. Some exceptions might exist for remote counties. Obviously you can flip the main breaker. Not sure what happens if you purposely disconnect. Presumably they could condemn the property, but in SC I seriously doubt they would. (yet. Things are changing here too)

Anywhere in the state if you install solar its supposed to be inspected. By the county for off grid, and obviously by the utility if your connected. Not sure of the process.

Net metering in SC pays a whopping 3 cents per kWh if you make more than you use.

Not as draconian as CA, but my point is there are rules everywhere.

You can definitely just "stop paying your bill and cancel the account" and your utility will turn it off and no longer charge you. It should not be against the law this way, despite forcing your home to have the capability to connect to the grid for someone in the future. If you buy and build your solar to be big enough for backup, they should in theory work if you don't run out. This would be just like during a storm blackout anyways.

The points are still the same:

1) Your home value would be really low if you build it and you cannot connect to the grid in the future. This is like having a home with no internet connection in 2024. Most customers won't want it, most lenders won't want to finance it, good luck if you want to sell it or refi one day.

2) The local utility don't want to lose money by paying you more than a utility scale solar farm to sell to your next door neighbor. Why should they breakeven on the generation and lose money on the transmission between you and your neighbor? Why do they not have the right to choose a powerplant that's cheaper?

3) Paying a flat rate 3c/kwh may sound greedy, but if there's a time on a sunny cool day everyone is generating and nobody is using, some generators may pay money to someone else to take free electricity away, and paying 3c/kwh can still lose money. If I were the utility i would not put a fixed 3c/kwh in my contract, a blackswan can come and make it negative and I can lose my shirt even if the home owners complained about 3c/kwh being a ripoff.

4) Buying 3x your solar panel need just to stick it to the man and not connecting to the grid is still money losing. The only people making money off that is your solar installer and panel manufacturers. Both the utility and home owners are still losing.

 

[SC Maintenance]

Yes I assume rules I guess the key question for me would be if I called one of the electric co-ops here could I tell them to pull my meter and if they did would I be liable to still pay a service charge …

I’m not disagreeing with you not at all. I guess I’m just kind of surprised.
Good point about a C/O needed, and electricity is part of that. I guess the same goes for needing a stove in the house as well as plumbing.

I wonder if you’re paying cash oh well, oh never mind now my imagination is getting away

If you pulled the meter and threw it on the ground, as long as you kept paying the bill who would know?

However in my county property tax I pay line item service fee's for the seniors center, the community college, the community pool and a whole host of other things I have never used. At the end of the day its no different than California forcing you to stay connected to the utility. You never really own your property - you rent it forever from your local government.

 

[PandaBear]

If you pulled the meter and threw it on the ground, as long as you kept paying the bill who would know?

However in my county property tax I pay line item service fee's for the seniors center, the community college, the community pool and a whole host of other things I have never used. At the end of the day its no different than California forcing you to stay connected to the utility. You never really own your property - you rent it forever from your local government.

Most people don't remember that. Nobody owns anything anymore and if they can't force you to buy a service, they will spin it around and ask your local government to pay it via infrastructure as a bond, and pay for by your property tax.

That's what our local hospital (El Camino) is like, they are around to provide ER as a service to our community since PAMF does not want to operate an ER and not everyone is on Kaiser.

The same goes for paying the bells to keep landlines around despite them wanting to turn them off in rural area. They got a deal and either a license to rob the locals (it is for safety) or they are paid by some municipal infra bond and then property tax. You can't force a business to get in a money losing business forever, they can always refuse to do business with you.

 

[SC Maintenance]

You can definitely just "stop paying your bill and cancel the account" and your utility will turn it off and no longer charge you.

Technically in counties with this law it would not be legal for occupancy, but you would still own it. Same as the reason you can't pitch a tent or park a trailer on your lot in the city. Its a zoning restriction.

Now if you had enough solar to power yourself and your house was not eye soar - I wonder if they would do anything in South Carolina. On Hilton Head they would likely. My county probably would not?

My point wasn't that you could or could not - but that there are rules everywhere. PG&E / California forcing you to be connected to the grid and installing panels is philosophically no different. The only difference is the number of zero's in the check.

 

[PandaBear]

Technically in counties with this law it would not be legal for occupancy, but you would still own it. Same as the reason you can't pitch a tent or park a trailer on your lot in the city. Its a zoning restriction.

Now if you had enough solar to power yourself and your house was not eye soar - I wonder if they would do anything in South Carolina. On Hilton Head they would likely. My county probably would not?

My point wasn't that you could or could not - but that there are rules everywhere. PG&E / California forcing you to be connected to the grid and installing panels is philosophically no different. The only difference is the number of zero's in the check.

Maybe you are right.

How much money are we talking about just being on the grid to pay a connection fixed cost if you don't use anything? $30? $50? $60? Is it really worth doing all that out of principles to stick it to the men? 3x of the panels and not selling it to the grid and going off grid just to stick it to the men sound like a lot of expensive emotions.

Also nobody prevents you from building a small system just to power a second set of AC to supplement the primary AC, or slightly underbuild your panels so you will never sell to the grid, or buy 2 EVs and park 1 constantly at home just so you have something to charge your car with, or mine cryptos when you have surplus solar. It feels great to stick it to the man, but it may not be a good financial move.

They can still charge your property tax bill as an infrastructure cost to local community even if everyone stick it to the man.

 

[UncleDave]

I’m amazed at the stuff I’m reading here. How can a private property owner be forced to purchase electricity from a company?

I’m not questioning your statements in anyway, but I just can’t wrap my head around it. I guess it’s like a tax that once they supply you with power, you will forever pay whether you use that power or not

@JeffKeryk
@UncleDave @PandaBear

Pretty amazing isn't it?

Whether you use power or not you will pay a minimum delivery charge, and what they call non bypassable charges.