One of the steps in this process that I've sort of doubted all along was the claimed tax refund from installing the solar. Well, I did my taxes and wow was I surprised. Not only did I get several thousand dollars back from my taxes for installing solar but I have an even larger hold over for next year because my deductions were too large. So I get a huge return this year (which is very good since it's going to save my ass) and next year I get a bigger than normal return.
At this point my total outlay for the installation is going to be about $13,500 for a 6.72Kwh system. Then I'll get another chunk back for it next year, probably dropping the total price to around somewhere around $11,000. I won't know for a while yet exactly what my payoff period will be for the system, but at the very least it's making it so that my hot tub increase in power use is offset. During the summer I expect to generate quite a bit more power than I use, even with the hot tub, and I intend to make the hot tub significantly more energy efficient before next winter.
So all in all, I would guess that I'll have this entire installation paid off in about 7 years, so then I should have about 13 years of profit from it before I have to replace it.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Monday, February 1, 2010
Power usage/generation Jan 2010
Ugh...I used 926 kwhs last month in addition to the 590 kwhs I generated. I've got to do something about the amount of power that hot tub is taking. It was a cold month, average temperature of 26, but still...that's a crazy amount of power.
Total so far: 2.03mwhs. Woohoo! December is definitely the low month, and that's likely to be true every year.
Total so far: 2.03mwhs. Woohoo! December is definitely the low month, and that's likely to be true every year.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Data collection
I've really screwed up the data collection for my power. I was going to put together a nice set of data and comparisons and whatnot for the end of the first year with solar, but it turns out I don't have a baseline. I've just been changing things too fast.
Moved into the house in 2006 and didn't have time or money to do anything for winterizing the house. Nice baseline but that's it.
2007 I had two roommates and did some winterizing. Now way to tell which effects apply to what.
2008 I had one roommate and installed a tankless electric water heater and did some more winterization.
2009 I added a crapload of insulation, had no roommates, installed a hot tub and solar panels.
So...no clue about any of the changes. It appears since I got the insulation done and winterized more this year I'm saving an entire 1 therm at the same average temperature.
Clearly I used more gas and electricity when I had roommates by a tremendous amount and I'm using far fewer therms now that I've got an electric tankless but it's almost impossible to tell if I'm really saving money.
I generated 390kw in December 2009 for a total of 1.52mw since the installation in October. I really wish I could figure out what is required for a monitoring system since REC won't respond to my questions about getting a datalogger installed. Sigh.
Moved into the house in 2006 and didn't have time or money to do anything for winterizing the house. Nice baseline but that's it.
2007 I had two roommates and did some winterizing. Now way to tell which effects apply to what.
2008 I had one roommate and installed a tankless electric water heater and did some more winterization.
2009 I added a crapload of insulation, had no roommates, installed a hot tub and solar panels.
So...no clue about any of the changes. It appears since I got the insulation done and winterized more this year I'm saving an entire 1 therm at the same average temperature.
Clearly I used more gas and electricity when I had roommates by a tremendous amount and I'm using far fewer therms now that I've got an electric tankless but it's almost impossible to tell if I'm really saving money.
I generated 390kw in December 2009 for a total of 1.52mw since the installation in October. I really wish I could figure out what is required for a monitoring system since REC won't respond to my questions about getting a datalogger installed. Sigh.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Home sized battery systems.
http://green.venturebeat.com/2009/12/24/panasonics-new-home-battery-could-store-a-weeks-worth-of-electricity/
Now I've got to save up money to buy one of these and buy my way out of the Xcel contract. This is exactly what I've been wanting.
Now I've got to save up money to buy one of these and buy my way out of the Xcel contract. This is exactly what I've been wanting.
Monday, December 7, 2009
11/7/09-12/7/09 power generated
510 KWH, still haven't passed the max generated amount of 6686W, but that's not surprising. In theory, I'll generate about the same amount from 12/7/09-1/7/09 as I did this month, because I have the trees cut back more and intend to cut them back further on 12/21/09 which should be the day the most branches shade the roof as the day the sun is lowest in the sky. All of course depending on me keeping the snow off the roof. I need to go buy some implements to make that easier.
I'm missing a lot of statistics here, just getting the bare minimum because otherwise I'd have to take the readings daily just before sundown and I can't reasonably do that. I really wish REC had included a monitor with this system like I asked, even if I had to pay for it. I tried several times to get a monitor put in, but it failed.
So far I've generated 1.13MWH of electricity in 2 months during the winter. I can't wait to see what it generates during the summer.
I'm missing a lot of statistics here, just getting the bare minimum because otherwise I'd have to take the readings daily just before sundown and I can't reasonably do that. I really wish REC had included a monitor with this system like I asked, even if I had to pay for it. I tried several times to get a monitor put in, but it failed.
So far I've generated 1.13MWH of electricity in 2 months during the winter. I can't wait to see what it generates during the summer.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
1 month of solar 10/7/09-11/8/09
I don't yet have a good monitoring solution so I'm going to just do Monthly Total Generation and Maximum Generation stats. So far it's looking good, even without my tree being trimmed so that the solar array is blocked at least partially every day here is what I generated:
Max Generated: 6686 W
Total Generated: 620KWh
So by my calculations from my records, even in winter with my system not receiving all the light it should because of my tree (getting that fixed next week) I am generating about two times more than I use any month of the year that I live by myself. During the summer I will generate a great deal more, and I haven't yet had a chance to use an energy monitor to get rid of the biggest uses of power. So I should be doing really great once the tree is trimmed and I've reduced my electricity usage even further through efficiency.
One thing this doesn't include is the power usage of the hot tub. I've only had it a month and a half and only 2 weeks of that was before the solar was functional. So I'm not sure how much power it is pulling a month. That is one of the things I want to use the energy monitor for. Even with the hot tub I should be generating more than I use every month of the year, and quite a lot more during the summer months. It looks like this plan is going to work out.
I'm not yet sure how to calculate my total savings, there are some confounding factors and I haven't quite come up with an algorithm that will take everything into account. So I may have to wait until I've had the whole set up for an entire year before I can calculate how long it will take for it to pay for itself.
Max Generated: 6686 W
Total Generated: 620KWh
So by my calculations from my records, even in winter with my system not receiving all the light it should because of my tree (getting that fixed next week) I am generating about two times more than I use any month of the year that I live by myself. During the summer I will generate a great deal more, and I haven't yet had a chance to use an energy monitor to get rid of the biggest uses of power. So I should be doing really great once the tree is trimmed and I've reduced my electricity usage even further through efficiency.
One thing this doesn't include is the power usage of the hot tub. I've only had it a month and a half and only 2 weeks of that was before the solar was functional. So I'm not sure how much power it is pulling a month. That is one of the things I want to use the energy monitor for. Even with the hot tub I should be generating more than I use every month of the year, and quite a lot more during the summer months. It looks like this plan is going to work out.
I'm not yet sure how to calculate my total savings, there are some confounding factors and I haven't quite come up with an algorithm that will take everything into account. So I may have to wait until I've had the whole set up for an entire year before I can calculate how long it will take for it to pay for itself.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
One Block off the Grid
Hey! I got mentioned in the 1BoG site. Signing up with them was instrumental in getting the price for the array down to the price range I could afford this year. 1BoG
Getting my trees taken care of, including cutting the walnut back so that it doesn't shade the roof is going to cost about 1/2 what I expected just taking care of the walnut was going to cost. So that's making me really happy. Hopefully they'll get around to doing the work soon.
Getting my trees taken care of, including cutting the walnut back so that it doesn't shade the roof is going to cost about 1/2 what I expected just taking care of the walnut was going to cost. So that's making me really happy. Hopefully they'll get around to doing the work soon.
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