Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022 • Hacker News Board

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#191

Post by manscrober » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:55 PM UTC

bgentry wrote: post #96

jjeaff wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like they have a good net energy metering plan that is crediting them for their solar being put back to the grid. (So they don't have to pay for charging the electric car in the evening when solar stops working) I wonder if Texas is working to walk that back like California is right now.

I'm in the Austin suburbs on Pedernales Electric Coop (not Austin Energy as in the city proper). In 2022 they switched away from net metering to a scheme that pays just over 50% of the cost for power returned to the grid. So I now pay $0.090337/kWh for power consumed from the grid, and am credited only $0.05377/kWh for power returned to the grid. https://www.pec.coop/your-service/distributed-generation/int... This ha…

My parents in Germany are paying 0.50€/kWh this year. How much does a typical household use in austin?

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#192

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:55 PM UTC

amluto wrote: post #149

eppp wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because net metering is forcing the utility to purchase power at the retail rate. It doesn't make any sense. It isn't a profit margin issue. There is a massive infrastructure and expense to deliver wholesale power to an individual customer and it has to be recouped. Either you sell back your power at some percent of wholesale or solar installs need to get a corresponding increased delivery fee.

This is all rather bizarre. If PG&E charges 30 cents/kWh for a marginal kWh delivered, then either something is quite wrong with the pricing model or it really does cost some respectable fraction of 30 cents/kWh to get a marginal kWh through their system into their distribution network where the customer is. If it's the latter, then reduction of 1 kWh delivered should save them the same amount of money. I think the r…

[deleted]

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#193

Post by mdorazio » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:55 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #87

>Realizing that the solar company was in quite the pickle insofar as repossessing the panels would require costly legal actions on top of paying people to take out the system, I just waited on the payment. They would contact me periodically asking me to make payment and offering to help me get approved for a new loan. But I just ignored all of that. Seems pretty unethical tbh. The solar company delivered, but now thi…

Author definitely took advantage of the situation to force a larger discount on the company, which I also consider a dick move. However, the situation was complicated. The solar company failed to install within the original timeline, so when they did, the original approval on the loan was no longer valid. It seems the interest rate went up during that time as well so the author’s new loan would have been more expensive to him/her.

The solar company messed up by not getting a new confirmation of loan approval prior to installation, and the author then leveraged that into a fat discount.

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#194

Post by jackmott42 » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:55 PM UTC

praxulus wrote: post #144

hbarka wrote: post #109

Assuming you are grid-tied, the reduction of electric bills is predicated on net metering, where the utility company gives you (ideally) 1-for-1 credit for the electricity you produce. In California, this was called NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0. Every few years the California utilities lobby the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to chip away at the NEM program. This year the PUC voted unanimously to cut net energy metering an…

Net metering just doesn't make sense though. Everyone who wants to rely on the grid for power availability ought to pay for grid upkeep costs. Net metering would make sense if it came on top of a baseline "connectivity fee" that covered grid maintenance, but that's not the current policy, would likely be politically infeasible, and would hurt rooftop solar customers financially anyway. Subsidizing solar is a perfectl…

Agreed, at some point the grid will need to spend on storage to enable more solar users. So either you need to have a fee to pay for that, or push the storage burden onto the end users. Make that cost apparent and force people to deal with it and we will find creative ways to do so (like more EV vehicles that can act as storage, as the Ford Lightning can)

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#195

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:56 PM UTC

KerrAvon wrote: post #139

hbarka wrote: post #109

Assuming you are grid-tied, the reduction of electric bills is predicated on net metering, where the utility company gives you (ideally) 1-for-1 credit for the electricity you produce. In California, this was called NEM 1.0 and NEM 2.0. Every few years the California utilities lobby the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to chip away at the NEM program. This year the PUC voted unanimously to cut net energy metering an…

If there’s no net-zero metering, aren’t they incentivizing people to be completely disconnected from the grid, or at least not incentivizing them to be connected? (Which is bad for the grid.) Why would I fuck around with the utility at all if I’m installing enough solar/battery to power my needs?

[deleted]

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#196

Post by mrguyorama » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:56 PM UTC

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #92

atonalfreerider wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not affiliated, but Solar Wholesale is a DIY that can be 1/4 the cost of hiring a contractor: https://www.solarwholesale.com Even the wiring is DIY. Most people think this requires a lot of skill, but you are just adding an input to your panel board on your house.

Is this for 100% detachment from the grid? Otherwise you need to add cutoffs so you don't kill a lineman, right? Is that a DIY thing?

Different states have different rules but in some states you can just put a new breaker in your box that connects the solar output to the rest of your house and a mechanical interlock (literally a stamped piece of metal) that prevents both the main breaker and solar breaker being closed at the same time.

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#197

Post by cogman10 » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:57 PM UTC

treis wrote: post #108

cogman10 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't ever get a few inches of snow on the top of the roof. The point of the aggressive pitch is so the weight of the snow pulls itself off the roof so your roof/home doesn't have to support 5 tons of water weight. IDK if you live in a place that sees significant snow, if so, just drive around a neighborhood and notice what the snow looks like on the rooftops. Generally none on the top and some on the bottom. Tha…

>You don't ever get a few inches of snow on the top of the roof. The point of the aggressive pitch is so the weight of the snow pulls itself off the roof so your roof/home doesn't have to support 5 tons of water weight. This is definitely not how snow on roofs work. Here is an example with a roof with lots of snow on it: https://millworksconstructionservices.com/wp-content/uploads... Roofs in cold climates are design…

That's absolutely how snow on top of the roof works. Most building codes in snow heavy areas have pitch requirements.

https://www.atozroofingdenver.com/how-does-roof-pitch-affect...

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#198

Post by jackmott42 » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:58 PM UTC

mrits wrote: post #44

jackmott42 wrote: post #17

My parents had panels installed on their house, it is a large single story house in Austin, Texas, which is pretty ideal (more surface area for panels, less volume inside vs two story). No trees in the way either. They haven't had to pay anything for electricity yet. And that is with an EV charging in the garage. We have panels on our roof, a two story house, also in Austin Texas, not so lucky as my parents. With the…

In Austin I'd like to see some studies on solar vs tree coverage. My empirical evidence would suggest that great tree coverage alone keep the inside livable on 100f+ summer days. On my house without trees I could barely keep some of the rooms cool.

I would certainly never cut a tree down to get more solar on my roof, even if the math worked out favorably from a cost perspective it just feels gross.

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#199

Post by CTmystery » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:58 PM UTC

cheald wrote: post #126

Dwolb wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you experienced any grid power outages where your solar panels saved your day?

Solar won't keep you online through a power outage. The inverter is required by law to cut power from solar panels when there is not power from the grid, so as to avoid feeding electricity back into the grid lines (which technicians may be working on!) - this is known as anti-islanding protection. If you want to be online through a grid outage you need a battery array.

From a circuit perspective, it seems trivial to open a switch back to the grid to prevent grid-feed, while still feeding the internal circuit that is the house. Can you help me understand why this is hard?

Re: Solar panels reduced my electric bill in 2022

#200

Post by xenadu02 » Tue, Jan 03, 2023, 6:58 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #87

>Realizing that the solar company was in quite the pickle insofar as repossessing the panels would require costly legal actions on top of paying people to take out the system, I just waited on the payment. They would contact me periodically asking me to make payment and offering to help me get approved for a new loan. But I just ignored all of that. Seems pretty unethical tbh. The solar company delivered, but now thi…

The solar installer wanted him to eat the rate change due to their own delay.

The discount was to offset that rate change.