PA DETAILER
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- Mar 5, 2011
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H O T Supposed to cool down Thursday.
what's your weather currently like?
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chilly
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- May 13, 2006
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It is interesting, solar has become more mainstream in Alaska; however, people don't use batteries here
They just let the solar chug along and run the house if it can and more importantly, back feed to the utility where they "bank it" and take it off your usage in the winter
Nobody is interested in a battery backup for critical stuff, even the couple of dealers I talked to were surprised I was even asking about it
Big Dave
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- Jan 7, 2018
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Even though we've had solar for almost 5 years now, all of our power was coming from the grid, and the solar was sold back to the grid, and at way less than they were charging us for grid power. I won't go in to the politics, but the power companies were scamming us, with the support of government, and it wouldn't matter who you voted for. But with the battery we got a new smart inverter, and now we run off solar first, then battery, and finally grid, and the solar will charge the battery before sending to the grid. The app is telling me we are running at almost 95% self sufficiency.
We will be switching power companies soon to one that allows us to sell excess power from the battery back into the grid when the wholesale price is high, like at night when everyone is cooking, heating their homes and watching TV etc. and there's no solar coming in to the grid to keep prices down.
Anyway, this is today, and probably tomorrow.
chilly
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Hawaii was pretty much the same as you described, although the politics were probably even more crooked. The one single utility company simply said we aren't allowing any more backfeed period, and just shut off new applications on a specific date. People who had applied prior to the cutoff date were waiting 4-5 YEARS for their applications to be processed. Those who were allowed to backfeed got pennies on the dollar so it was hardly worth the effort. We had 24 panels, a smart inverter, and a full rack of 6 backup cells and were pretty much self sufficient. Most months we were only charged the $35 fee JUST for the privilege of being hooked up to the grid. The island we lived on, Molokai, had the second highest electric rate in the nation, right after Lanai, our neighboring Island
Setec Astronomy
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- Aug 31, 2010
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Do you really look at it that way? We have net-metering here in NJ, so whatever we sell back to the power company is at the full rate, 14 cents or so a kWh. But when the power company charges you that, a lot of that cost is overhead, like any business, so the actual production cost is 3 or 4 cents. The way I understood what happened in Hawaii was that so many people got solar, and the power company was buying so much electricity back at a loss, that they had to stop that or go bankrupt.
So...I presume that if enough people get solar in NJ (or any other state), the net-metering will stop. Full disclosure, I don't have solar, but I have thought about it.
chilly
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Although there are always dissenting points of view, I am not sure how else to look at it, other than politics and greed
I will acknowledge that so many systems could affect their bottom line but when a company is barging diesel across the Pacific Ocean to run antiquated power plants and charge exorbitant rates, not to mention filling the skies with diesel smoke, limiting the public's ability to do something about it at a grass roots level feels like overreach and money motivated decisions to me
Simplistic viewpoint? Yes, definitely, but after living there and paying power bills for close to 15 years between our condo and our house, it's all I have
FWIW, I feel like we have had this conversation before
HECO spent millions on ad campaigns championing green power and their attempts to completely go green by 2035 (I believe that was the date) but the bottom line was it was THEM going green and still reserving the right to charge the highest rates in the nation, while trying to limit the public from doing the same thing and helping the GREEN movement, 10-15 years earlier than they could possibly do it
I couldn't even GET a permit for a "solar array" or however they termed it. I had to get a permit for a self sufficient "solar AC" system and install whole house AC, powered by my panels and battery. Not everyone who wanted solar had the money to double the cost and install the battery and AC system
And as far as the politics go, I was speaking on a general level, Hawaiian politics are some of the most corrupt in the entire USA (my opinion)
Setec Astronomy
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Chilly, I was looking at it from more of a big picture than the macro (micro?) view of the Hawaii situation that you obviously have.
Here in NJ the power companies have been very good at incentivizing energy-saving equipment, I guess because as the most densely populated state it's difficult to add generation capability; of course it could also be the state of NJ that has been pushing them to do that.
Here in NJ the power companies have been very good at incentivizing energy-saving equipment, I guess because as the most densely populated state it's difficult to add generation capability; of course it could also be the state of NJ that has been pushing them to do that.
chilly
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I can see your point of view and admit it’s one of those “no easy answers” situations
I watched a news report a year or so back and they were talking about how the Nevada utility companies had put a stranglehold on solar and bankrupted several solar companies that were making huge inroads into the status quo
So you have a state with abundant solar possibilities and a “public” utility company gets to shut it down
Obviously it’s not as simple as that but it’s hard not to be bitter and view situations like that as brought on by greed
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Setec Astronomy
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Again, I was just looking at it from the net-metering vs. not, you guys talking about batteries reminded me of when I got a quote on solar they tried to sell me a (really expensive) battery system, that wasn't going to power much if the grid went down, and thought it was dumb since we have net-metering; if we didn't it would be another story.
That's different from what you are presenting which does sound like greed and corruption. Never mind.
That's different from what you are presenting which does sound like greed and corruption. Never mind.
chilly
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- May 13, 2006
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No reason to say never mind
I welcome intelligent discussion, although I am frequently unarmed in any battle of wits
The net-metering here in our area is apparently a VERY equitable situation for all involved
I guess the fact that here, in both my old house and the new house, I belong to an electric utility that is a Co-Op, really colors my outlook
Anything over and above the yearly operating costs is returned in either system upgrades or banked credit and to me, THIS is (or should be) the definition of a "public utility"
Big Dave
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We're in the process of changing over our energy company from one that uses fixed pricing to one with fluid pricing, half hourly. It does have a monthly subscription fee, but it works out less than the quarterly connection fee to the previous company. These are screenshots from their app. When it's up and running we'll be able to sell power from the battery back to the grid at night, when there's no solar coming in to the grid. We can even fill the battery from the grid when it's cheap, so we can sell it back at night when it's not. Normally we wouldn't have to do that as our panels charge the battery by around lunchtime, but the last couple of days have been heavy overcast and raining. To begin with we have to do this manually on the app, but after a week or so it learns our usage patterns and becomes automatic.
And these are the predictions for tonights prices.
And these are the predictions for tonights prices.
Karl_in_Chicago
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- Jun 9, 2007
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Temps and humidity fell a ton here, finally, from heat emergencies to ideal and smoke has abated some to get the AQ out of the dangerous range - just in time for Lolla! 
