Solar Charging, from an owners perspective

[solar_dave]

Ah the saga of solar. Several people have asked about our solar system so I thought I would give you the whole tour.

The wife and I are trying to plan our retirement and would like to be able to maintain our home at a fixed cost and in a sustainable manor. We had electric bills well over $4000 annually and natural gas bills of about $800 annually. Really untenable on a fixed income. We decided to research what we could do to reduce our output from a capitalist view (mine) and a carbon footprint view (hers).

In the fall of 2009 we heard that the Federal government (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) was going to increase the solar tax credit to 30% of the actual cost with no caps on the expenditure for the tax years 2010-2016. We also found that the state offered a $1000 tax credit and our utility would rebate us $3 a watt for a solar PV install. We went to our utility and pulled our annual usage from a page they offered on their web site. We researched a couple of lease programs and found they really didn't lower our costs that much and none of the tax benefits would be ours. We started taking bids for a purchase of a full blown solar system. Some sales guys didn't seem to get it, and offered partial systems. We finally got someone to sit down and look at our total usage and agreed that with our goal of net zero electric bill a couple things needed to happen.

1) We needed to conserve on our usage.
2) we needed to scale a system that could easily have some head room for expansion.

On the conservation side our old AC units had to go, as luck would have it, the large one blew a compressor as we were talking to our AC contractor about a replacement. Ah the Feds to the rescue again, the same law that allowed a tax credit for solar also allowed for a $1500 tax credit on cooling system improvements. Again we took advantage of the tax situation. We eventually replaced both 10 seer AC units with 17 seer. We also took advantage of some other credits & rebates from the state and utility and replace our 15 year old fridge & freezer units with energy star and hit Lowes on a 20% off sale and a 10% off coupon . We did a mass change out of incandescent bulbs for CFL's and are gradually changing them out with LEDs as price and opportunity allow.

As for system scaling that was a bigger issue. Our solar contractor suggested that a 8,000 watt setup would do the trick. My calculations showed that about a 10,000-12,000 watt system was required and we did have a Volt in the back of our minds even then. We compromised sort of. Initially we installed the 10,000 watt setup but insisted that the electronics package be large enough to add 2500 watts of solar panels at a future date. He agreed, and why not it was more dollars in his pocket! We wrote the contract for commissioning in 2010 to qualify for the tax credit, and made a minimal down payment and draw schedule for him as he completed phases of the work.

Now this is where it gets interesting, the permits! The permitting agency in my jurisdiction had never seen a residential solar install that large. There was several revisions of the engineering drawings going back and forth between the engineer and the code monkeys. Finally a cost over run came out of that exchanged, our service entrance would require an upgrade to handle the added capacity that the solar system afforded us. Boom $4300 required. We relented. From there the install was straight forward and progressed to commissioning. That was an interesting day as the utility, code guys and contractor guys were all there for the big switch throwing.

We used the system for about 1 year and did determine that even with our conservation methods if we added a Volt we would need more panels, same contractor for a fair price did the add of 2500 watts. Our submission to the utility was one of the last ones available for the $3 a watt rebate. We will need to watch our usage again when the second volt comes on line this fall. If we need to add again for Volt #2 the rebates are down to $1.45 a watt.

Attached are some pictures of the system.

[solar_dave]

Just as a FYI the one thing I didn't talk about was our HOA! We were rejected twice by them, then some more research and we found out the State had laws on the books that precluded the HOA from preventing our install. One last letter to the HOA with references to the state law and to a local renewable energy attorney that I talked to (for free), they relented. Come to find out our board has 2 attorneys on it and they new they would have had to pay for all costs in any litigation and would ultimately loose the case.

[jkoeller]

Just curious, what were your total costs with the rebates, and what would they have been without them? My yearly electric bill is slightly less than $2000 with no conservation steps taken other than replacing our light bulbs. I suspect that when I finally get my Volt online, it'll push my bill beyond $2000, but still comparatively low. I'd love to add solar if I could justify the initial cost.

[solar_dave]

Just curious, what were your total costs with the rebates, and what would they have been without them? My yearly electric bill is slightly less than $2000 with no conservation steps taken other than replacing our light bulbs. I suspect that when I finally get my Volt online, it'll push my bill beyond $2000, but still comparatively low. I'd love to add solar if I could justify the initial cost.

No rebates or tax credits, overall cost including the over run is just under $80,000. After all the cost reductions less than 1/4 of that with full ROI between 4-5 years.

But don't forget the value of happy wife, happy life!

[Grumpa]

No rebates or tax credits, overall cost including the over run is just under $80,000. After all the cost reductions less than 1/4 of that with full ROI between 4-5 years.

But don't forget the value of happy wife, happy life!

Not to be too picky here but it looks like your ROI number is based on your out of pocket cost. To be fair, you really should be quoting ROI based on the total system cost because someone else had to do that "I" not just you. Perhaps you should quote both as then it would give someone interested in solar an additional number to work with. Ignoring the total system cost would be akin to ignoring the electrical energy used to charge the Volt then using gas costs alone in calculating ownership costs.

Grumpa
Volt #3856 "Valence" home to Papa on 6/18/11 in SE WI
Would love to charge with solar but do not plan on being in my present home long enough for it be worthwhile.

[DonC]

To be fair, you really should be quoting ROI based on the total system cost because someone else had to do that "I" not just you.
...
Would love to charge with solar but do not plan on being in my present home long enough for it be worthwhile.

You don't calculate ROI that way. For example, if you were deciding to drill an oil well, would you not include the depletion allowance? Of course you would. ROI represents your costs and your returns not everyone else's. If you want to include the PV tax credits in a discussion of whether the credits make sense from an economic and policy perspective, that's a different question. My guess is that it's a close call. However, if you want to have that discussion, there are a gazillion tax credits and deductions that clearly make far less sense, including the home mortgage deduction, the capital gains rate, and the above mentioned oil depletion allowance. No reason to single out the PV tax credits for special scrutiny.

As for not being present long enough in a house to make solar pay, there have been some creative programs where you borrow money for the city and pay it back over time through your property tax bill. That allows an easy solution. (Unfortunately Fannie and Freddie are messing this up but that's another story).

[solar_dave]

Exactly, ROI is calculated from what it cost the investor.

[RickW]

We too decided to add solar to our house. One of the initial reasons was to reduce / zeroize electric consumption even with the Volt.

Here are the pertinent details:
- We live in San Francisco (no A/C) in a smallish Victorian (i.e., small roof)
- Our roof is small, but has almost perfect placement and we don't have large trees shading it
- We installed 14, 230 kw Sunpower panels. This covers every usable part of our roof. This is considered to be a small to medium-sized system. The install took 2 days.
- The cost, after the rebates, was about $12,000. The rebates covered about 45% of the sticker price. We decided to purchase rather than lease (we wanted the satisfaction of owning the panels and the power they produce).
- The system has been in place since March and our local utility currently OWES US $160 because we generate more than we use. Keep in mind that this is with the Volt plugged in. We can use this credit to offset how much we will owe them in the winter when we have to turn the heater on.
- San Francisco has a great solar install ordinance where they do not require crazy / lengthy permits. Rather, you are responsible for installing a system that meets code and they inspect it after the install. If it doesn't meet code, you've got to fix it.

I've got to admit that while our initial reason for the install was the same as solar dave's; we've found that having our house and car powered by the sun provides a huge amount of satisfaction; much more than that derived from low utility bills. Who'd have known?

Having an ER electric vehicle combined with your own solar is really a potent economic and environmental combination.

If you live in PG&E's service territory, I've got a great spreadsheet that you can use to experiement with what your bills will be if you install solar. It's very accurate and allows you to do a lot of what-if scenarios. If you want it, send me a private reply.

Volt 1943.

[AZ EV Driver]

Exactly, ROI is calculated from what it cost the investor.

I guess the other PV installation investors (US tax payers, AZ tax payers, APS customers & investors) don't exist? We do get something for our investment, so we should be included in the investment analysis.

VIN # 0985

[RScott]

I guess the other PV installation investors (US tax payers, AZ tax payers, APS customers & investors) don't exist? We do get something for our investment, so we should be included in the investment analysis.

For ROI, it's irrelevant. For example, a tax credit of 30% means that taxpayers are footing 30% of the bill -- but they don't get any money back. So there is no return on investment, or an infinite amount of time.

The idea of incentives is exactly that -- to reduce the ROI for the person installing the system, to make it more likely that they will install it. The people offering the incentives do this for varying reasons, but it does not necessarily include money (the utilities get lots of juice at peak hours, but other sources of incentives typically do not benefit financially).

I'm getting my solar system installed in about 1-2 months; it will be nice getting nearly free energy for the Volt!