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.

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.

WOOHOO!

I came home today, after 1.5 weeks of hearing absolutely nothing about the progress of my paperwork or project to find a plastic clip on the sidewalk. I recognized it as the clips the electric company puts on their panels and looked up to the panel to find a shiny new NET electrical meter. I was elated! Then I realized that nobody had notified me this change was being made, and so I hadn't been able to shutdown my servers. That's very bad.

I go inside and am absolutely baffled by the fact that the power has clearly not been off in my house. That's right, they switched out my electrical meter without disconnecting my power. How is that possible? I haven't the faintest idea.

I'd sent off an email several days ago bitching about the project management on this project. The guy was just terrible at communicating project status. I basically never knew what was going on except the three days the crew was here doing the installation, because they kept me well informed and always showed up to work on time, etc.

Anyway, so without any communications at all, I sent off an email to the sales guy several days ago. Nothing. Sent off another email to him and the head of the colorado division. Nothing. Today I sent an email to the sales guy, the head of the colorado division, the project manager and the Operations Manager for Arizona and Colorado.

Then I called Xcel. Xcel verified they'd installed a NET meter for me, and that they believed I was good to go on the solar installation, but the guy that answered the phone couldn't be positive. We agreed it would be better to wait for verification from Xcel and REC before I turned anything on.

Then I got a phone call from Jason Zink the Operations Manager for Arizona and Colorado. He first apologized for all the problems, and said that my complaints were not falling on deaf ears, then walked me through verifying that everything was ready.

Then he walked me through turning the system on. Now...it's 6pm on October 6th so it's unlikely the system is generating enough electricity to even power up the DC side of the system, but still...It's on. Tomorrow morning it'll start generating massive amounts of electricity. SO FUCKING COOL!

And I found another company to come take care of the shade problem, so sometime this week someone will be out to tell me if I get to keep my black walnut tree or not, and hopefully give me some advice on my other tress health also. I really hope I get to keep the black walnut...I hate to have to cut down trees.

Woohoo! Solar officiall completely installed!

I have fully inspected and approved solar panels! Assuming they patch the hole in my wall on Monday like they said, I am done with REC Solar. Once all the paperwork is turned in, I start the push to get Xcel to come install the bi-directional meter. I was told "it can take as long as 30 days" up until today when the project manager said "6 weeks, but lately they've been a little faster about it". UGH! So it may be 6 weeks before I get to turn my system on...meanwhile it sits there slowly losing efficiency.

I still can't get Tree Pros to even call me back about taking care of my tree. If they don't contact me today or answer the phone when I call, I'm calling their biggest competitor.

This may yet happen!

The inverter is installed, all the wiring is done. The inspection is supposed to be tomorrow. So...assuming the inspection goes well tomorrow then all I have left to do is get Xcel out here to install the bi-directional meter and give me the go ahead to power on, and I'm hot.

Of course...I still have to get someone to look at my tree...I'm having real problems getting these guys out here and that's getting annoying.

Solar estimates

I finally got through the final analysis of the current estimates last night. Here are the results:
One company came out and did an evaluation but never got back to me with an estimate. One company had a rep come out and basically told me that my roof needed work before the solar could be installed and even then they could only get a 2kw system installed even though I mentioned trimming back the tree next to the house. I'm getting the roof inspected as soon as I can to make sure that isn't correct. And I still need to verify a couple of things but this looks to be the end result.

Of the three companies that have been cooperative and helpful these are the numbers:
Rec Solar 8000W $25,000 including all fees and taxes but not including tax rebate.

IPS 9900W $38,115 plus taxes and fees (~3% of total) not including tax rebate

SRE 8000W $30,174 including all fees and taxes but not including tax rebate

So the question is still how much financing I can afford, but it's unlikely I'll decide to spend roughly $14,000 in order to get an additional 1.9kW of power. I'd love to have the additional power, but the payoff just isn't worth the expense, especially with all the great solar technology that is being invented right now.

I don't think I've mentioned the problem with the tree here, so here's a bit of info about that.
I have a black walnut tree about 10' from my south facing roof. It's not huge, but it does shade the roof where I want there to be solar panels. So it'll have to be trimmed severely, cut down or moved before I get the solar installed. I'd really rather not kill a tree that I don't have to kill, and I don't think I can afford to have it moved, so I'm hoping the amount it needs to be trimmed won't kill it and won't make it completely idiotic looking. However...black walnet isn't really a tree I'd have chosen to put in my yard. They don't provide enough shade for how big they are, they don't have leaves enough of the year, and they drop annoying nuts in the yard. On the other hand, it's kind of fun having squirrels running across the roof. That would annoy most people, but I think it's funny.

Shade is a tricky thing with solar panels. Each panel is made up of groups of chips. And then the panels are in groups like the chips. So, if you get a spot of complete darkness that covers enough chips it will shut down not just the chip that is covered but the group of chips it is in. If enough groups shut down, then the panel shuts down. If enough panels shut down, the the whole group of panels will shut down. So if you have even a small amount of very deep shade on the panels, there is a chance that from that chunk of deep shadow you could get a pretty significant percentage of your solar array to stop producing energy.

The reason this happens is that each subset has to produce a certain amount of power in order to trigger it's connection to the others. If the chip doesn't produce enough power to get beyond that threshold it never turns on and so no power flows out of it. That scales up in the same way all the way up to the entire array.

So now I am waiting for verification of a couple of things, then I have to start trying to get the financing and hope that the estimates don't change much or at all, and that they are accurate and I can afford to pay for solar. Otherwise...time to start saving up significant amounts of money.