Electric bill

[Ervin R Dilly]

Hi all,I have gotten my bill for the month and it a whopping $4.00.Still will never get my money back but it sure feels good seeing this.Wait and see when the hot weather gets here.

[Joe Blake]

Sometimes I find it hard to sleep at night for the glee of having a power bill $380 in credit.

Saving the environment a wee bit is a great feeling but there are times when $$$$ makes it all worthwhile.

Joe:nuts:

[Ervin R Dilly]

Amen,to that

[Rob Beckers]

There's interesting psychology behind this: When asked, everybody wants to save the environment. Nobody wants to spend any money on it though, nor give up some of their life-style, not even a little bit (the odd individual excepted). Without some financial incentive, a rebate, discount, savings, feed-in-tariff etc, it's a hard sell to get people to be environmentally 'friendly'.

It's something that we're facing here in Canada, now that PV prices have come to a point where solar on the roof competes head-to-head with energy rates. The trouble is that you're asking someone to pay his electricity bill upfront for the next 20 years, to finance the installation (even if they'll earn it back far faster than 20 years since electricity rates will only go up). Few people live in the same house for 10 years these days, and asking them to front this much for something that's a decade or more in the future just isn't working (yet).

If anyone has any ideas on how to overcome this let's hear it...

-RoB-

[Joe Blake]

A bloody brilliant question Rob. A couple of random thoughts.

Politicians use this psychological trait to gain power by promising that we can save the environment AND make money ... if we vote for them. (The "green" sweetener is to give the people a guilt-reducer for taking the money - we're taking this money to save the environment.)

An interesting slant on power sharing (a pun ... get it?) perhaps because in Australia at one stage the federal government paid people to install the PVs on the roof top by giving home owners a grant. But the STATE government(s) paid people the feed-in tariff. Two different sets of pollies milking the same cow? Now the government that gave us the grants was tipped out of office, and the state government(s) are cutting back on the tariff because they were too successful. So now there is very little in the way of government incentives to green up, but that doesn't matter because they've got what they wanted, and by the time the next election comes round they'll be able to throw the public a different flavoured bone to get themselves in power again.

If I can quote myself "Many people think their lifestyle comes at a cost ... but they're cool with that as long as somebody ELSE pays the cost."

I guess I can can say I'm deceptive by omission. I'm quite happy to tell people my house can generate over 100% of my power requirements over a month ... but I omit to tell them that I'm an absolute miser in regard to how much power I actually consume.:p

People, at least in my experience, have in the main been brought up with a sense of entitlement, and they want what everybody else has, and if they can't have it, then they'll damned well vote for a government that will GIVE it to them, at the same time cutting taxes.

A prime example is currently brewing for our upcoming Federal election in September. The current government instituted a carbon tax to try and reduce consumption and emission of greenhouse gases by making emitters pay for their carbon, but also created a carbon tax assistance package for certain classes of population (including me, because I'm a pensioner) to help offset the cost of the carbon tax. Because I consume so little power my assistance package was many multiple times the amount of carbon tax I paid(!) so I donated it to charity. Now the current opposition is pledging to get rid of the carbon tax but KEEP the assistance package and their "direct action" plan is to PAY the emitters not to emit greenhouse gases.

The sad part I see is that by the time the climate has changed so much that it becomes more than inconvenient it will be far too late, and our society will send itself bankrupt trying to repair the damage caused by the climate change, whether it be flood, fire or drought, or even increases in illness caused by the different breeding patterns of insects such as mosquitoes, passing on previously unknown illnesses like malaria or Ross River virus. And people will start blaming the governments for not doing enough, but why are they taxing us so much? Perhaps they can't see that $100 million of prevention is a far better bargain than $10 billion of cure.

I'd say a lot more on this but I'd probably start to froth at the mouth and fall over in a heap shaking with impotent rage. :confused:

Joe:mad:

[Joe Blake]

Perhaps it's got to do with this new technology - Wii FM - What's in it for me?

Joe

[Rob Beckers]

Perhaps it's got to do with this new technology - Wii FM - What's in it for me?

Joe

:rofl:

Nailed it on the head Joe!

-RoB-

[Angie Joe]

I have a solar system in my home and its so cheap for me . I am so happy to my solar system .Just try it .

[Ervin R Dilly]

And what system might you have?:D

[Ralph Day]

Just wait for it....the link to their website.

Ralph

[Ervin R Dilly]

That is one heck off a setup.Never am I going to get that big.Sure looks like what I would like to have though,thanks for the link:cool:

[Rob Beckers]

Ralph, long time no post(ing)... Hope you're doing well.
Yeah, unfortunately there's forum spam, as yet another way to push links by posting content-less messages. Strangely the link part is still missing from Angie's posts, though the part about no content is certainly there. I can delete the account, and messages, but they would pop right back under another name. So as long as it's not too annoying I tend to let these things slide.

I know you're offgrid, but did you get your house grid-connected when you put in the MicroFIT system? Or is only the solar array connected to the grid, and you're living off the grid still?

My 6.5kW MicroFIT system is still going strong. Now I'm thinking of replacing the panels a few years down the road; instead of the 190 Watt ones I have now I could put 280 Watt panels on there, they are the same size. I haven't done the calculation, but I bet the extra revenue would outweigh the loss from prematurely retiring the 190W panels.

-RoB-

[Ralph Day]

Hi Rob
When the microFIT went in we had a 100 amp service put in the garage so the 2 meters are side by side. The garage service is all Hydro One (better for running power tools), and from it we use Hydro One as a multi billion dollar generator. A generator panel can switch from the diesel genset to utility power with the flick of a joined breaker. Still as off grid as one can get without being off grid completely.

I've found the batteries healthier with utility power available. Last night I ran a charge on lower amps and will float until Sunday with the forecast for cloud and rain like it is. Still a couple of lagging cells in the battery bank, but I have a supplementary charger that I can put on individual cells to put about 2 amps extra power into them/it.

Won't you have to change your microFIT contract if you change the pv amount of your installation, or are you just going to reduce the area and keep the wattage the same? We actually had our best day ever on Monday this week, over 90kwhrs as measured at the inverters (via the Enphase envoy), the Hydro One meter is always a little less. A fridgid, clear June 21st would be something to see for production.

I'm always checking in, just not posting too much. I did finally get a monitoring system to see what our consumption is. MTP3100 system from MTP Instruments of Montreal, less than $100 plus taxes, shows you the immediate use, daily, weekly, monthly, your cost at 3 different tariff rates. Altogether a pretty neat package. I'll have to compile a report on how it works for the forum. So far it says we only use about 4kwhr per day, but I don't think that can be right. Our fridge and Freezer account for about 2, and the uv light for another .8...maybe...

Ralph

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Rob
Won't you have to change your microFIT contract if you change the pv amount of your installation, or are you just going to reduce the area and keep the wattage the same?
Ralph

Nope, shouldn't be: The rules when I signed the contract were that the lower of the two (inverter or panels) determined the system size. If I leave the 6kW inverter in place I should be able to put whatever panels I like on there without violating the rules.

Of course, the rules have since changed, any any contracts nowadays use the higher of the panels or inverter as the 'size'.

-RoB-

[Ralph Day]

What's the limit you can over pv your inverters? 10%, 20% ? Must be some physical limit to the amount of pv you can string into an inverter of a certain size. (thought you would have been at that limit already).

Ralph

[Rob Beckers]

From the electronics perspective there's not really a hard limit: The way grid-tie inverters work they control the current going into the inverter. As long as you stay withing the operating voltage limit you can't "overpower" the inverter. There is a regulatory limit though: The inverter input/wiring/etc is only rated up to a certain current limit. In case of a fault, short-circuit, or other mishap the device can only handle so much before bad things happen (such as setting the house on fire). If your array can deliver more than that limit you have to provide overcurrent protection between the array and the inverter, ie. a fuse that limits the input current to what the inverter can handle.

So, nothing wrong with 100kW of PV going into a 10kW inverter, other than a massive waste of money! As long as you put a fuse between inverter and array. :nuts:

-RoB-