Contemplating Solar - not sure its viable for me

[Chris Ottawa]

Hi All, name is Chris, I am in the Ottawa valley near CP and have driven past SolarCity a few times recently as I have family not to far from the building. I am contemplating getting solar panels but I wanted to do a slightly different installation then completely off grid and not sure its its doable. Or just tell me I am out to lunch :)

Ideally I would love to have solar panels on my roof, going into a battery bank and instead of having a generator backup I would use the grid for backup. The cost of Electricity in Ontario is insane since I am on Hydro One. Those delivery charges are brutal.

My average house consumption is aprox 1500kwh per month so its on the higher side however I have a means to lower that by converting from an electric hot water tank to an on demand Propane system. I do have a 200g+ saltwater aquarium that chews through some power as well.

1) Is there a means currently to use the grid as a backup instead of a Generator?
2) I am not sure I am allowed to do Net Metering or MicroFit in my area, I think its full from what I have seen.
2) I have a fairly large footprint roof, however there are trees around my house. Is this even going to be worth it? (See pictures below)
3) Anyone in the Ottawa area use Wind Power? I was contemplating using that for additional power but not sure if there is enough wind in this area.

Curious if you think I am out to lunch or should I consider persuing this venture further? I can't stand these $400/month Electricity costs I am now at just because its Rural. (City costs would be half that)

Sun Arc
http://i.imgur.com/J6QE8Sc.jpg

Aerial View
http://i.imgur.com/bGQFFVE.jpg

Front View
http://i.imgur.com/93CGUXD.jpg

Back View
http://i.imgur.com/sO7nJZO.jpg

[Rob Beckers]

Chris, welcome!
I get phone calls from people with similar complaints to your several times a week. You're not alone.

I hope you meant "Solacity" and not "SolarCity", as the latter is a completely different US company with an unfortunate name (they came later, we registered Solacity long before they registered their name)...

To start with your questions:

1) Yes, you can use the grid as "backup power" in what is essentially an off-grid systems. A charger doesn't care if its a generator or grid power that's being supplied, works the same way. This won't get rid of the fixed part of the delivery fee though, as you still need to maintain a regular grid-tied electrical account.

2) You could apply for net-metering and find out if there is capacity in your area. Similarly for MicroFIT. At that point you're not committed to anything yet.

3) For solar PV to be effective on an annual basis (not talking off-grid, where the sun in winter is much more important) a rough guide is that you need sun on the panels from 9 - 3 in summer, 10 - 2 in winter, minimum. It doesn't look like you have that on your roof, you may have to cut or top some trees.

4) There is no wind to speak of in the Ottawa area. In general, very few places in Ontario have enough wind to make that a viable source of power. You'd have to live within a few km of the great lakes, or right at the St. Lawrence. That's about it. It's different for off-grid where a wind turbine can help in winter. It'll never pay for itself in a grid-tie scenario though.

More in general, your first job is to find out where those 1500 kWh/month are going. That is VERY high energy use. Get a Kill-A-Watt (https://www.amazon.ca/P3-P3IP4400-Electricity-Usage-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473074915&sr=8-1&keywords=kill+a+watt) and measure fridges, freezers, and your aquarium (and any other suspects). Put powerbars with on-off switches on things like the cable or satellite box and switch them off when not in use. All light bulbs should be CFL or LED nowadays.

Hot water tanks tend to use fairly low amounts overall (mostly depending on your hot water use), though you may want to look into an extra insulation jacket to lower stand-by losses. Another one that helps with that is a pre-heater that mounts in the sewer line (http://www.renewability.com/power_pipe/what_is_dwhr.html) (this needs to be mounted vertically though so you need a vertical drop large enough somewhere).

Make sure you keep the A/C switched off! There's a real energy hog...

Another potentially very large energy user in winter is the blower motor of forced air heating. They are atrocious, especially the older ones. A new DC blower motor that can be set to the exact flow rate that is needed, and no more, can save money there.

At the end of the day we have to realize that we've been spoiled with artificially low energy costs for decades in North America. Governments choose to pay for energy through taxes rather than rates, and neglect investments in infrastructure, something that only now is changing. That led to appliances and construction techniques that were (and are) very energy intensive, and that is not something that can be changed overnight. Europe was used to high energy costs and did things very differently, so an average house in The Netherlands (for example) uses 350 kWh/month vs. 1000 kWh/month for Canada. Over there you can't buy a regular clothes dryer; the only type that exists are condensating dryers that work the same as a dehumidifier, because they are so much more efficient (but also much more expensive to buy!), etc.

If you are willing to clear the trees a bit you could offset your own use through net-metering. It would lock your rate in for those kWhs produced by the solar panels (assuming you have capacity in your area), even today it's cheaper to make your own electricity via solar PV than it is to buy it from the utility.

Going off-grid will not save any money: Off-grid electricity is much more expensive than grid electricity. The reason are the batteries, they are expensive and they are a consumable that needs to be replaced every so many years, a recurring expense.

-RoB-

[Dayton Johnson]

Rob offers the best solutions for sure but myself personally roof mounted panels wouldn't be my first choice. IF bylaws allowed and space was available and the neighbours weren't complainers I'd look at pole mounted panels with trackers. I know Rob isn't keen on trackers but I'm wondering to save topping or cutting trees would they help in this small window of clear view. I had experience with hot water solar panels on my roof and they were pretty much useless in winter when you tend to use more hot water. Either iced over or snow covered for most of the winter. Impossible to clean in my situation so I re-jigged them to a pole mount in my yard. A sweep with the squeegee and your done.
My questions to Rob :: how many and what size panel would be needed to meet his requirements?
2nd. Rob did you get the pics and info I sent you on thr 30 amp. RV meters?

[Dayton Johnson]

Rob, would you suggest putting the electric HW tank on a timer as helpful? With off peak rate being used to heat up the tank there would still be a plentiful supply all day when the tank is shut off. Talk to me about what kind of timer. Thanks

[Rob Beckers]

Dayton, a timer for the hot water tank may work, to force it to recharge during the cheap time of the day. Though I doubt it uses all that much electricity to begin with (depends mostly on how much hot water you use).

Regarding trackers, they had a time and a place when solar panels still cost 5x to 6x of what they are today. They undo the simplicity of solar: Solar PV is one of the few technologies that really last nearly forever, with zero maintenance, and it 'just works', it is very rare to see panels break. Add a tracker to the mix and you undo all of that: Now you have a mechanical contraption that requires maintenance and sooner or later (for most it's sooner) break. Even the big brand, Deger trackers, breaks with alarming frequency. Often it's hard to find parts years down the road because manufacturers have moved on or gone out of business. If you need a better yield just put more panels up, likely cheaper than using a tracker anyway.

-RoB-

[Shayar Choksi]

Hi All,

It will be better to install vertical turbine to get 24 hours green electricity at lowest cost. Can setup in very small space.

[Rob Beckers]

A wind turbine, vertical or horizontal, between those trees would nothing. Zilch.

More in general, the area we're talking about does not have anywhere near the annual average wind speed to make any type of wind turbine economically viable. You might as well stick some solar panels in the basement, they will do just about as good as that turbine.

-Rob-

[Chris Ottawa]

Thanks all for the replies. Since this post I have gone through some things in the house and cut down on usage. I still feel the Hot water tank is a culprit for some of the high bills. When we are talking $300-400 a month in electricity, payback on solar energy would be pretty quick I would like to think. Better then when panels were 6x the cost anyways!

I do have some high consumers of electricity in the house other then the hot water tank like a 250 gallon Saltwater aquarium. I have budgeted for this and I would say it will pull a constant ~400watts 24/7. Heaters / Pumps / lights.. etc.. I still have to swap the lights for LED's, I just need to find the time to do that (New Born in the house now so time is limited)

With the new born, we do use more hot water then normal, and that's partially what has got me wanting to move away from my 60g 3800WATT hot water tank. I have already turned the max temp on it down twice to see if that helps, just waiting for the next bill to see.

I am pretty sure the transformer my section of the grid is attached too is at max capacity and Net Metering is not an option, hence the Use solar as a primary source and have the grid as a backup source if there was not enough supply.

Batteries / Storage of electricity is the largest expense from what I see so far, even with simple Lead Acid batteries, like you said replacement costs every so often have to be factored in.


At least we are going to be getting an 8% discount in the new year right? Only to be off set by more increases buried in the delivery charges.. :cry:


If it gets to be too insane, then I will look for property that I can setup a large array in the future which can power Geothermal :nuts:

[Chuck Roberts]

Why are your electric bills so high? What's your cost per kwh?
What type of heat do you use? Electric heat is one of the least efficient heating methods. Get an estimate of upgrading it. Can you get natural gas heat? Propane in my area is still significantly more expensive than natural gas.
Have you considered looking at your insulation of the walls or attic? If the house is too old, they may not have put insulation in the walls, and brick was fine 50 years ago. (My 1950s house is made of cinder blocks, I don't think there is much insulation in the walls.)
Have you considered putting in passive solar heating on the south side of your house? Do you get enough sun in the winter for PSA? I made my own PSA for a 70"/178cm wide south window. I put a thermometer probe in the output hole. It got so hot my room thermometer broke, so now I use an over thermometer! On a sunny day it regularly gets to 180F/82C.

[Chris Ottawa]

Why are your electric bills so high? What's your cost per kwh?

Thanks to the Liberal Gov, the cost of electricity has escalated up to an average of $0.24/kWh. I have a 200+ gallon saltwater fish tank that uses a lot of power as well as an electric hot water tank.

What type of heat do you use? Electric heat is one of the least efficient heating methods. Get an estimate of upgrading it. Can you get natural gas heat? Propane in my area is still significantly more expensive than natural gas.

Propane. I am in the middle of no where, no Natural Gas. But I have a electric hotwater tank like mentioned above.

Have you considered looking at your insulation of the walls or attic? If the house is too old, they may not have put insulation in the walls, and brick was fine 50 years ago. (My 1950s house is made of cinder blocks, I don't think there is much insulation in the walls.)

Insulation is good. R-50+ in the attic. Heating is not the problem.

Have you considered putting in passive solar heating on the south side of your house? Do you get enough sun in the winter for PSA? I made my own PSA for a 70"/178cm wide south window. I put a thermometer probe in the output hole. It got so hot my room thermometer broke, so now I use an over thermometer! On a sunny day it regularly gets to 180F/82C.


I thought about this, however trees are an issue as I wanted to do solar panels for power and determined its not plausible unless I cut trees down.

The goal now is to sell the house in a year or 2 and build a house that is extremely efficient with Solar heating into reservoir of water. Then use a heat pump style system to draw from that reservoir and use radiant heat.

[Chuck Roberts]

Propane.

Ouch! Propane here in Michigan went up 250% from 1998 to about 2004. It was quite expensive and the neighbors were demanding a natural gas line to our area.

Well, you could sell your house, like you mentioned, or cut down some trees to let more sun through. Your choice.

[Chris Ottawa]

So it's been a while since posting, but I have bit the bullet and bought 8 panels to try an experiment and setting up room to expand.

My plan is going to be a bit unconventional from the standard setups around here, but the plan is to move circuits of the house over to solar as I expand the array. I have 8 panels right now of silken 230 panels. I cleared out most of the back yard of trees and leveled it off nicely for the kids. (don't think I had them last time I posted. Haha) so that made me start to move back to this and being bored at home with this awesome pandemic.

So the plan, 230watt panels I picked up cheap since someone is giving their grid tie array. They were cheap enough to be worth the risk. I have built a stand for them out of unistrut, just need to finish the base by pouring some cement, that's this week's job. Then I am still contemplating charge controller, but thinking about Midnite 250 classic. (wouldn't mind input from people here). Batteries are still in planning phase but planning either 24v or 48v with 200aH to start. Trying to see how much I want to spends vs chemistry. Inverter I have a few I am tossing around with the idea of, ideally want 5000w. Gotta figure out battery's first

Here is the difference from normal systems. I am going to use an ATS that takes grid power and inverter power, it will read battery voltage and when it gets low switch over to grid automatically with a 10ms - 16ms transfer time. To start I am going to put one of my heavy loads on the feed, the aquarium and then add to the system from there.

Attached is a overview of power consumption of this house and our patterns. I am measuring it with an eyedro on the main at the panel. It's a decent amount of power and my main goal is to decrease this as much as I can.

[Chris Ottawa]

@rob I need to get over to SolarCity to buy some wire soon too. I am thinking 4 gauge but going to run the math on my full array of 20 panels and figure it out shortly

Do you have most in stock or is it best to order a head of time? Covid I understand causes havoc for most things these days :(

[Chris Ottawa]

Here are some pictures to see what's happen since long ago :) I borrowed an excavator and took out a few trees :D