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Think of your home as (small) profitable power plant

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Re: Think of your home as (small) profitable power plant

#21

Post by bluGill »

lucioperca wrote: post #6

These suburbia homes are still pretty bad deal for the public. Lots of infrastructure cost come with them like car infrastructure etc.

That infrastructure is amortized over many years and so it is pretty cheap. Every time I look I discover the dense cities where you would think costs are lower end up having higher tax rates. Remember the original streetcar suburbs were built before electric, water/sewer and other services, they have all added that infrastructure over the years and replaced their roads many times.

Sure transit is cheaper than roads (and suburb costs don't count the cost of a car, while transit counts those costs), but roads are not that expensive over the lifetime.

Re: Think of your home as (small) profitable power plant

#22

Post by bluescrn »

lucioperca wrote: post #6

These suburbia homes are still pretty bad deal for the public. Lots of infrastructure cost come with them like car infrastructure etc.

Yes, if we all lived in city-centre 'WFH pods' eating bug paste we could get infrastructure costs and environmental impact way down! Then we could breed more humans, and 'growth' continues! (for some definitions of 'growth')

But while some (young) people are fine with super-dense urban living, not needing a car, and rarely leaving their city, many people place a very high value on space, peace+quiet, and the increased freedom to travel that cars offer.

Re: Think of your home as (small) profitable power plant

#23

Post by simonjgreen »

djaychela wrote: post #20
technotarek wrote: post #17

One man’s experience in DC (where the SRECs are crazy valuable): Installed 10Mwh system in 2021 for ~$40k. After federal tax credits, SREC earnings, reductions in electric bills, and payments from electric co for over production, we have $7k left to recoup in only 3 years. And that ignores savings from the gas we’re not spending on charging the PHEV. I know it’s a luxury to have, but there’s also some pride value (cl…

10MWh?

Surely 10 kWh

Re: Think of your home as (small) profitable power plant

#24

Post by PaulKeeble »

hattmall wrote: post #16

75,000 in savings over 6 years is $12,500 a year, which means this person's utility bills were over $1000 a month!? I know that my house is wildly inefficient and $300-$400 a month is the worst it gets with extreme weather. Talking with friends and family my bills are higher than normal, most are around $200 and less in the milder months. A quick search shows $469 being average us Utility bills and that includes wate…

Typically a panel these days is going to be around 400W, so the 33 panels is likely somewhere around 13KWp. I am not sure which Needham (Boston?) they are referring to but in Boston would produce annually about 15 MW/h.

As to the battery the price gives us an idea of its size, $23,000 dollars. On the expensive side with a Tesla powerwall you get 13.5KW/h for about $9000, its possible to get about 2/3 that price with other systems. So somewhere in the region of 40-50KW/h of storage.

Hope that helps.

Re: Think of your home as (small) profitable power plant

#25

Post by robin_reala »

djaychela wrote: post #20
technotarek wrote: post #17

One man’s experience in DC (where the SRECs are crazy valuable): Installed 10Mwh system in 2021 for ~$40k. After federal tax credits, SREC earnings, reductions in electric bills, and payments from electric co for over production, we have $7k left to recoup in only 3 years. And that ignores savings from the gas we’re not spending on charging the PHEV. I know it’s a luxury to have, but there’s also some pride value (cl…

10MWh?

Presumably KWh? That’d be ~25 rather than ~25,000 panels.

Re: Think of your home as (small) profitable power plant

#26

Post by PaulKeeble »

djaychela wrote: post #20
technotarek wrote: post #17

One man’s experience in DC (where the SRECs are crazy valuable): Installed 10Mwh system in 2021 for ~$40k. After federal tax credits, SREC earnings, reductions in electric bills, and payments from electric co for over production, we have $7k left to recoup in only 3 years. And that ignores savings from the gas we’re not spending on charging the PHEV. I know it’s a luxury to have, but there’s also some pride value (cl…

10MWh?

Could be an annual measure of expected output.

Re: Think of your home as (small) profitable power plant

#27

Post by simonjgreen »

hattmall wrote: post #16

75,000 in savings over 6 years is $12,500 a year, which means this person's utility bills were over $1000 a month!? I know that my house is wildly inefficient and $300-$400 a month is the worst it gets with extreme weather. Talking with friends and family my bills are higher than normal, most are around $200 and less in the milder months. A quick search shows $469 being average us Utility bills and that includes wate…

Presumably the export has been factored in to this, so making money not just saving

Re: Think of your home as (small) profitable power plant

#29

Post by lucioperca »

eru wrote: post #15
davemp wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only a bad deal if you ignore what a significant portion of the population prefers and value space lowly. There's more to life than optimal efficiency.

Please read carefully: 'These suburbia homes are still pretty bad deal for the public.' The original comment was carefully worded to avoid any statement about whether suburbia was a good or bad deal for the people who want to live there. Similarly to how protectionism and subsidies can be a good deal for those people who benefit from them, but still be a bad deal for the public.

Yes, cost for infrastructure like sewer, water, electricity is much more expensive for low density city parts compared to dense ones. But this is not reflected on the billing. Apart from the needed streets there is a lot other cost like health care which comes with car centered living.

Re: Think of your home as (small) profitable power plant

#30

Post by PaulKeeble »

M95D wrote: post #5

I wish I had my own roof.

Have a look for cooperative solar farm schemes. There might be a local one or a state/national one you can invest into to offset your electricity bill. There are more popular in the EU and UK but they are bound to come to the USA due to how cheap Solar is for power now.
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