Other posts related to solar

A year of Solar Power and some very accurate early estimates….

February 24, 2010 6:32 pm

Well, it’s been just over a year since I had the solar panels turned on, and I’ve learned one important lesson:

  1. Either Bella Energy did a perfect job of estimating my energy usage for the entire year, and sold me the exact right number of solar panels needed to generate that exact amount of energy I’d use, or
  2. Wholesale energy is very, very cheap  :)
Xcel Rebate

Xcel Rebate

The reason I know this? Here’s the rebate check for the entire year of 2009, in which I sold energy back to XcelEnergy. A whopping $6.15. Now granted, when I started last year, my “net meter” started at “zero” and was running at below zero for the whole year, and I’m at about -100 now, but I was stunned at how close to “zero” usage I ended up.

I’m not complaining… Having monthly electric bills of $7.00 (just for the connection to the grid), and this rebate means my “out of pocket” for the entire year was roughly $75 bucks was absolutely worth it. At the current rate, the whole system should pay for itself in about 7 or 8 years. And that’s if Xcel doesn’t raise the rates for electricity.

All in all, I’m very happy I did this… :)

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Going Solar (PV Solar, that is)

November 14, 2008 7:35 pm
Panels from the North East

Panels from the North East

I finally made the decision to jump into some home improvements, one of which is putting a Solar PV array (Photo-voltaic) on the roof. I’m not home enough to benefit from solar heating, but I thought it would be interesting to see if I can end up with zero electricity bills at the end of each year.

Ali, a friend of mine, works at Conergy (a world-wide solar wholesale/distributor) and recommended that I talk to Bella Energy, an local installer who they work with often. I contacted Bella, and ended up purchasing a system from them (contact me for a reference if you’re interested).

For an east-facing roof (mine faces due east), I should expect to get about 77% of the efficiency of a south facing roof, which really surprised me. Apparently the panels work much better when cold (in the morning) than when warm (west-facing in the afternoon).

The market is getting a little crazy, what with rebates from the local electric company, and the recently changed law that gives you a 30% tax credit (of course, you pay income tax on the tax credit) so it’s really more like a 20% credit. The net cost to the consumer, after the rebate and the credit, is only about 30% of the price of the system. Given my “history” of electricity usage, I should be able to pay for the system in about 8-10 years, and that’s if the price of electricity doesn’t change at all (yeah, right).

The installers came out and had the whole thing installed in under 3 days, but won’t actually “hook it up” until after the first of the year, so that I can get the new tax credit (it went from a $2,000 credit to a 30% credit). The city will be doing their inspection soon, Xcelenergy will come install a “reversable electric meter”, and then we’ll fire up the whole thing in January. Below the break are some pictures of what it looks like, and a more detailed description of “what” was installed.

[edited on 11/24/2008] – I added some photos from the neighbors roof today.

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Categories: Green, Hardware
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