We are in no way, shape or form getting kick backs from any companies and have no vested interest in anything we talk about, other than giving you folks some (we hope) useful information.
We will talk lots about specific products and perhaps even companies......good and bad. The goal here is to give you information based on the research we've done for your own home/lifestyle.
Now with that said.........
Solar panels.
The Central Valley of California has about 267 days of sun a year, so solar seemed like a good choice for some free power as well as a way to live more sustainable.
The first thing we had to do was determine how big of a system to get. There are lots of ways to determine this based on your total number of electricity used each month. The total number of kilowatts used (listed on your electric bill) will give an estimate of the size of system to obtain. This was a bit confusing since we use thousands of kilowatts per month and the two most popular solar power systems available were 3 Kw and 5 Kw.
Three and five Kw...what is that supposed to mean? Is that per hour? per day? We still don't know. What we did know is that we wanted to talk to a professional, so we made some calls.
Unlimited engery in Fresno was the only local company that would send someone out to talk to us in person. They sent out their sales rep to the house who looked at our possible installation areas then sat down at the kitchen table to answer all our questions. He eventually asked us if we wanted to put a dent in our electric bill or "murder" it. We chose to "murder" our electric bill, which the sales rep estimated would mean an average monthly bill of around $30
We did contact several (like all) the other solar companies in the area and everyone else wanted to just give a phone estimate and kind of acted like we were bugging them.
We settled on a 5 Kw system that would be hooked up to the power company's main grid. That means we made power during sunny days but at night/cloudy days we would still draw power from the electric company. No batteries, no living by candle light if the panels couldn't keep up. The goal here was to live green, not live "Amish".
So on days that we have lots of sun and don't use a lot of energy, the power meter really does run backwards because we are giving electricity to the grid. At night or cloudy days we pull electricity just like anyone else.
Of course this begs the question.....can we generate enough power to actually get paid by the electric company? The answer is, no (for us). We use Southern California Edison and their policy prohibits the "sale" of electricity by people like ourselves. We can generate enough power to have a huge credit on our bill, but they will never send us a check. This is why you aim for a low monthly bill, not a negative bill.
Inverters at the side of the house
The female half of this couple was very worried about the way the panels would look. Not wanting to have an albatross on our new home, this was a concern. The panels sit about 3 inch off the roof and are very symmetrical in their placement. You don't even really notice them, but if you do, they are well placed.
Southern California Edison has our bill set up to just keep revolving so we can pay as we go, or wait until the end of the year and pay all at once. To tell you the truth, the way SCE does their billing would take a astrophysicists with a degree in public accounting to figure out. We get a statement every month, but since we're on an annual billing cycle, the meter only gets updated every so often. We have months of $1-5 (service charges, taxes etc), then have a $400 month.This is not depended on the season either. We had $1-$2 bills in July and August with the AC running, but a $300 charge in March, when we were using hardly any energy.
In 2007, our entire year's bill was around $1600. What we do is just send SCE a set amount each month to offset the end of year payment. A smart thing to do would be to save that money in our own bank account to earn our own interest, but we're not that disciplined......maybe someday.
So if your keeping track, the original estimation was $30 a month and we pay about $130 a month. No, not what we thought, but still much better than no solar would be. Our bill before was about $300 a month in the winter and up to $600 in the summer.
The only maintenance is to occasionally rinse the panels off. This is not necessary, but does increase their efficiency. Our panels came with a 29 year warranty!!
We do wish we had a few more panels to get our bill closer to ZERO. With the system we have, it is totally possible to add on. Each additional panel is about $1000, so the next time we win the lottery, we will add on.
We hope some of you are thinking of getting solar energy for your homes, it has been well worth it for us.
The best part is when you get to sit out on your lawn chair, drinking a beverage of your choice and watching your meter run backwards......Ah, the taste of glory.
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