Switching To Solar Power – One Month Later

ThinSkin writes "After an interesting article on solar panel installation for the home, Loyd Case at ExtremeTech has written a follow-up after about a month of normal use. Posting an $11.34 electric bill (roughly 3% of previous months), Loyd shares his experiences using solar power and how it can be fun for the geek, with computer monitoring services and power generation data. Of course, solar power isn't all fun and games, given the amount of required maintenance — even unpredictable maintenance, like wiping off accumulated ash from fires in Northern California."

Comments

Why can't he sell it back?

[deanoaz]

According to the article California will not allow homeowners to sell more power back into the grid than they are buying. He doesn't say why. I don't understand the reasoning for such a restriction, since the possibility of selling more than you buy would encourage wider adoption.

Re:Why can't he sell it back?

[Delwin]

Because their billing structure would put the power company out of business if they allowed it.

Note that while can't go net negative for the year he can get to net 0. Also note that he's 'selling' back power to get to that net 0 at retail rates.

The places that allow you to go net negative buy your power back at wholesale rates, which is far lower. If you think about it when you sell power back to the power company you're not competing with the power company, you're competing with the power generators. Why should the power company give you an unfair advantage there?

Re:Why can't he sell it back?

[Klaus_1250]

Why should the power company give you an unfair advantage there?

Lower costs for the power-company in terms of transmission and distribution of power (and related costs for that infrastructure). E.g. the power you produce can go right to your next door neighbor. Power from a power station usually has to travel quite a bit.

Re:Why can't he sell it back?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

IBM makes me work 60 hours a week. You see, my employment is contingent on something called utilization. My target and tenure is such that I can't meet my target unless I work 60 hours a week.

The utilization target is computed without taking into account vacations, holidays, and sick days. If I take all 3 weeks of vacation I've earned, then I won't make my utilization target, and I won't have a job.

It's time to fucking unionize the place. Or if that doesn't work, I'll just continue slacking for 60 hours a week. IBM gets an honest 30 hours out of me whether they know it or not. Fuck them.

Re:Why can't he sell it back?

[TheLink]

It's not whether it's privatized or not. It's whether it's _corrupt_ or not.

If you have a big corrupt government, your money and freedoms go to the corrupt government.
Of you have a small corrupt government, your money and freedoms go to some big corrupt company that bribes the small corrupt government.

Either way you end up being screwed.

You get all those libertarian fools thinking "Oh if the current big bad government is smaller, things would be wonderful".

Then you get the other fools thinking "Oh the current big bad government (that's already screwing me) should expand its role to take care of this".

It's not how big or small. It's how BAD or GOOD. When voters vote based on big or small, and not good or bad, what do you think they'll get?

If you have a good government, and it knows it has the ability to do "Natural Monopoly X" well (and will continue to do so for near future), nothing wrong with it doing X - after all it is supposedly answerable to the voters in a democracy. If it realizes it does not have the ability, it can get some company (or more) to do it, and if the government lacks the ability to even know whether the company is doing a good job or not it can appoint a regulator to do that.

Lastly if just because Company X gives lots of money to Candidate Y, means people vote for Candidate Y, then people sure are stupid. In the absence of Diebolded elections, you don't have to vote that way. If Coke and Pepsi are the biggest advertisers it shouldn't mean you continue drinking either Coke or Pepsi if both are bad for you.

When voters vote based on how much money Candidates get from companies, guess what they get?

So far it sure looks like voters have got what they have been voting for.

Maybe in the future companies like Diebold will save voters the trouble.

Insane energy usage.

[SuperQ]

Yea, I was shocked at how much energy the family in this article uses. My GF and I average ~370kWh/month, 4,440kWh/year. We live in Mountain View, which is the next small city over from Sunnyvale. The family in this article is using 17,400kWh/year. If he expects a 20% drop in usage when the family becomes 2 people, that's still THREE TIMES what we use. I also have a home server and network.

Another data point

[skidisk]

I put a 3kw system on my roof in February, 2005. (I live in Silicon Valley). My electricity bill has been zero since then -- well, actually, $60/yr in some fee PG&E charges. My total electricity cost for the previous three years (2002-2004) was $6,730. Installation of the solar panels cost a net of $13,369 after rebates. So I've saved 50% of the cost already, and my house is worth more due to the presence of the solar power array. I took advantage of California rebates which were higher then than now, though, so that's a bummer.