A Rooftop Solar Panel
Last year 2021, I have installed a Rooftop Solar Panel with Battery Backup. It was a very long process and full of many logistical challenges, that had nothing to do with technology mostly, but permitting and other regulational issue. I like to discuss a little bit of that here. Also this is my first post in STEMGeeks community, where I think this post could be appropriate.
First, how they look. Fairly standard, I should say. I have installed 21 panels. In theory that is meant to offset about 75% of my total electrical consumption over the year on average. The above were the installation of 13 panels on my west facing roof of my single-family home in Houston, TX.
This is the array of 8 panels on my south facing roof. This was at the nice of installation. This was finished last September. I will get into the time-line and the equipment etc.
Background
I have been buying expensive wind energy generated in West Texas for about 12 years now. Don't ask me why, as that will be different post :) Trouble is wind energy is expensive. I used to pay about 19.5 cents/kwh and my energy consumption was about 1500 kwh/month over an yearly average. The cheapest electricity in Houston that one can buy is about 10 cents/kwh. So, I was paying about 2X more (again, don't ask me why).
A neighbor in my community that I talk to quite frequently recently (in 2020) put in a roof solar system in his home. It is about 3 doors down from mine. So what happened in Jan 2021, Texas had a major snow storm, which is very usual, as it never snows (almost) in Houston, TX. It was a major event and got a lot of national (even international) coverage at the time.
Basically, the problem were two folds. First, Texas electrical grid is not winterized (as it generally never snows in southern Texas). Second, Texas electrical grid is NOT a part of US national grid (Yeah! We like it here, its a different country didn't you know?). If you like any detailed discussion on these two points above, I can talk straight for 2 days without consulting any internet resources. But again let us not go there :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis
Point is during this event we lost power for 3 straight days (84 hours total). Our family have a natural gas fireplace and cooktop which also runs on natural gas, so we were relatively okay. However, I remember the first night being brutally cold (in Texas standard). It was 38 F inside kids bedroom. They did not like it. Their mom did not like it even more.
My neighbor Ann and Pat's home stayed bright during this time. Becuase it is really sunny from the second day of the power outage and they had enough backup battery power. So basically, this was the triggering event for our family. That late February 2021, 2 weeks past the backout, we ordered to install the rooftop solar panel system with backup batteries. Also mind you, Houston is no stranger to power outages. We have hurricanes. But this one we didn't see coming!
My System
I have a 7.67 kw system. I have 21 LG 355W NeON2 Solar panels. 13 on the west facing roof and 8 on the south facing roof. The panels have 25 years warranty. Houston gets about 204 sunny days on average in the year, which is not great, but its quite good.
Now, for those who don't know, south facing panels are best for Solar Output. There are some good scientific debate on the subject. It is on the fact that based on pure output, south facing panels are the best, however, west facing panels capture a lot of electricity during later part of the day, especially in summer, when city grid demand is high.
Trouble is in Texas, there are not enough Solar plans available for buyback. Those that are available are also fixed rate and doesn't offer cash out for the sold electricity. They only offer credits towards your electricity bill at this point. This means you can't take advantage of variable rate pricing of the elctricity, although your provider may charge you for it when you buy.
So currently, the best solution is not to generate too much power, because you don't have anything to do with it. Rule of thumb is to have a system that produces about 75% of your yearly consumption. Because, if you have some simple energy saving systems, like smart bulbs, or LED lamps, or energy efficient windows, you will likely be near 100%. In other words, you will have no net electricity bill.
Cost
This is what most people ask. Is rooftop solar panels worth it. It depends on where you are. In places like California (with both federal and state incentives, and high energy cost) it is no brainer. While in Texas, I will show you that it will probably take me about 12 years to breakeven, or recover the cost of installation. So in Houston Texas, probably it is not worth it. However, that was not my driver to do the installation personally. I simply wanted a backup power system that is clean and available when in need, and also I can afford it.
Here is close to my actual purchase overview. The final numbers are probably a few dollar different here and there, but this is as close as it gets. You can see all the rebates and discounts. For me the selling point was the Federal Tax Credit. I always have a lot of capital gain taxes, this purchase helps me offset nearly $11,000 of it (there is a discussion of elevating that to 29% instead of 26%, which would be even better). You can see the math here assuming 18 cents/kwh (my actualy is slightly higher) that my yearly cost of electicity that I pay is about $2642. To recover my total out-of-pocket cost of $31,182, I will need about 11.8 years. This assumes that I will generate about 8500 kwh per year. I am hoping I can generate a bit more than that, and also hoping to put on some energy efficient windows. If I am lucky, I can perhaps get it down to 10 or 11 years to breakeven. I am personally okay with that.
Current Power Production data
As I mentioned that I started ordering process in Late February 2021. The first problem I faced is the global supply chain issue. I was told that the Tesla PowerWall is on a 10 month backlog! I tried to find alternative (EnPhase), but that battery didn't fit my garage wall properly. So I had revert back to Tesla. There were permitting nightmare and logistical problems both at City of Houston and Centerpoint Energy (the utility provider). To make long story short, my system was finally installed in late September. However, that doesn't grant the permission to sell the electricity back to the grid. That permitting took more than 2 months, and finally on December 6, 2021 I could sell electricity back to the grid. My system is now fully operation, and I have about 1 month worth of actual data for the electricity production.
Month of December was mostly cloudy, as expected. On the brightest of days, the system can generate about 30 kwh of power. Above is the actual data from the month of December, where the system generated 430 kwh from 6th of Dec to 31st of Dec (26 days), about 16.5 kwh/day on average. My monthly consumption was about 640 kwh, so it is not quite grid independent yet, but I am hoping in the spring and summer months, I will generate more than I consume, and receive some credits to be used in the next winter.
Hey, man! Congrats on your solar panel system! This is a nice topic. I've been talking recently with other Hivers (@stefano.massari and @homesteadtlt) about it.
I also want to install something like this on the roof of my house in the next two years in order to get more decentralized and become less dependant on the centralized electricity-producing companies in my country/area. I've been thinking about installing 9 solar panels (325Wp) which will generate about 3KW. Such kind of solar panel system (the cheapest one) is about 3000 Euro. But, my highest consumption of electricity is usually during the winter, (to heat the house), and in particular during the night. So, if the solar panel system generates electricity during the daytime I have to store somewhere this electricity. For this, I need an accumulator (or whatever it is called in English) to store/keep the generated electricity there and use it during the night.
So, my question is if your installation/system includes such kind of accumulator? Because you mentioned in your post that you have this 'Battery Backup'? Is this where you store the electricity or do you simply sell the excess electricity to the grid (the company which operates in your area)?
Yes. It's the Tesla Powerwall. It's a Lithium Ion battery that can store about 13.5 kWh of power.
https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/pdfs/powerwall/Powerwall%202_AC_Datasheet_en_northamerica.pdf
@azircon , thank you for the info.
Btw, I would like to ask you.. I just received downvotes from your account. Why?
disagreement on reward.
You post too many times, and you have no viewership. It seems to me that you are just farming. This is my final word. Please no further discussion on this subject, as I am sure you know what you are doing. Correct your actions please. No need to respond to me to make your case, as my view will not change no matter what you say.
Have a good day.
It is really strange. Most people left Steem (now HIVE) during the bear market. Interestingly, most of those people were the ones who used to receive upvotes from the whales. During the Bear Market I didn't give up. I continued to post. Now, I do the same - no less or more posts. Exactly the same daily routine that I had in 2019,2020,2021. When the price of Steem (now HIVE) was between 0,12-0,30 cents some people use to tell me: 'Why do you waste your time on Steem (now HIVE)?' You earn almost nothing. To be honest, no whales supported me (except for DTube, they upvoted me back then sometimes). And I've never been complaining. This is my lifestyle. I like it. I like HIVE. The low viewership now is because of the Bear Market. Sooner, or later I will have enough audience, it is just a matter of time. Also, I know many people personally and participated in all HIVE fests since 2018. This is a great community. That's why I am here. Yeah, recently some account 'rocky' started to upvote some of my videos. I didn't even need it. But because they continued to upvote me, I decided to start to use their tag 'GEMS', to show them respect and that I value their kindness.
My final words are. I see that you have about 1 million HIVE. At the current price, this is a good amount of money. But keep in mind that HIVE (back then STEEM) was cents, $0,12-$0,30 during the Bear Market. Because of devoted HIVErs like me who didn't give up during the Bear Market and continued to keep the activity on the blockchain (we were a fistful of people) now HIVE is expensive. Because we (the bloggers) and the good developers together made it possible HIVE to survive during the Bear Market. And some of the whales like you have to be really thankful that we were here (a fistful of devoted bloggers) during the Bear Market to keep the blockchain alive. I hope you understand what I mean.
That's also my last words.
Have a good day as well.
I don’t need money.
And I don’t need you. I gave you a simple instruction. That was not to respond. I am giving you the same instruction again.
Hi @cryptospa, how do you exactly support Hive and show your loyalty towards the community – by powering down the moment the price of Hive went up and withdrawing every “penny” you get the moment you get it?
Please keep this type of conversation away from my post in future. As this post has nothing to do with this conversation.
Amazing post!!! Thanks to let me know
I researched the Tesla battery. It is about $10K. So, for me it is expensive. Plus, I am not sure if it is purchasable in the EU.
Where I come from here in Northern Italy someone managed to buy it, it works well and is performing. But the problem they told me is that the assistance. Assistance in Italy is currently rather lacking. This is what they told me.
Aaa, ok. I will check if Tesla battery 🔋 is purchasable in my country. Just curious about it.
before buying, I also recommend that you inquire about the service, that is, if they provide assistance in your country
Very interesting post. I've always been curious about solar panels so it was nice learning about it from someone who has actually installed them. I see them more and more on people's roofs these days. I'm originally from Canada so I would have to look into it a lot more to see the cost of installation vs ROI. I'm sure that having long cloudy winters do not help the panels at all. But maybe there are government rebates in the country.
Anyway thanks for sharing. It was an interesting read.
If you currently live in Canada you should consider a good solar buy back plan. This means the utility provider will buy the extra electricity that you generate. Canadian summer days are very long. You will generate a lot of power during that time that you won’t consume. That will definitely offset a lot of your winter deficit.
Okay I see. Yeah that makes sense. I know at one point, a long time ago now it seems, the rebate from the government was crazy for installing solar power. They were paying people a lot of money to do it. It went way way down over the years though.
Yes, because both in Canada and Western Europe it is quite widespread now. In the US California tops the list because of their sunny days, especially in the south and also friendly policies by the federal and state governments. Neighborhood effect also played a role, as you saw in my case as well.
That makes sense. Ideally, I would love to have a small home on a decent property that was completely self sufficient. Maybe one day. Hopefully with more people using solar as well, the price for the initial installation will go down
Wow I really liked how the solar panels turned out, I am thinking of installing a backup system, maybe something small like an inverter charger, 2 batteries of 100ah or 200ah, mppt controller, everything will depend on the consumption, I will have to study it. I was thinking about solar panels but since I live in an apartment it is very difficult to get everyone to agree. Here in Venezuela although electricity is cheap, we have constant blackouts. 😃
Wow, I also want to install rooftop solar panels but i don't have a roof entirely of my own. 😀
Yeah in China, lots of families live in Apartments/Condos, so it's not practical.
Batteries are a great idea. We have panels but the batteries are still too expensive with payback being almost longer than the battery life. A couple of times recently we've had power outages (not very common but still...). I just sat out in the back yard looking up at the panels muttering. 😁
This one is 10K right now and hard to get. The one that bothers me that it is still about 1day worth of power. I love to have 2days.
That's odd that you mention it only provides 1 day of power. Is it only one day of power or can you trickle the power for the times you would need it like during the night?
It’s approximate. It stores 13.4 kWh of power. You can trickle it as long as you want. But just like any battery it will run out if you don’t charge it.
Well, that's really good to know. To me it makes the cost more justifiable. Personally, I think it's important to ration out the electricity during times of need. Get down to basics when the going gets tough. Two, or more, days would be ideal, but you have to work with what you've got for now.
You can always put a second powerwall if you are so inclined. Each cost $10K currently.
Yeah, that makes sense too. Your article gave me something to think about as I'm planning for my final move in about 2-3 years. We've got two kids and are also caring for ailing in-laws. I mean 20 grand isn't cheap, but what wouldn't you pay to keep your family safe.
My current emergency plan involves lightweight equipment and cooking supplies that would last for about 1 week. However, a flaw in my plans would be energy supply for any medical equipment I would need over time.
Tesla makes some very good equipment. In California, the company I work for is using them to develop a battery power station to enhance grid stability.
I just saw that you live in Australia. You have a lot of sun there... The right place to use solar renewable energy.
Btw, are you familiar with the project Power Ledger and its token POWR? They received a grant from the Australian government back in 2018, if I am not wrong. It used to be a very promising project in 2018 during the end if the previous Bull Market.
I really only dabble around the edges with cypto stuff, so I haven't heard of POWR. I did see some bits and pieces a while back about Elon Musk and another project EWT (Energy Web Token) here in AU.
OwO Nice post I am interested in the solar panel project and want to build my own one later when I have a house. It's still my dream for now. >< But I like to learn about these things. tyfi~
Thanks. Keep at it. House first though :)
wow nice one, solar can really be of use, man you broke me when you wrote "Texas electrical grid is NOT a part of US national grid" wtf :D Good post man
It's is true:)
With the recent super typhoon in the Philippines and all the massive blackout in Metro Cebu, my sister is really considering getting one of these for her home. Well, she considered even before the typhoon but unfortunately, the typhoon came.
In our house, we don't have electricity for 20 days and counting now. Glad we have two small solar powered lamps and other few solar powered gadgets (radio). This is saving us some trouble at night.
Yes. We are no stranger to weather related blackouts here in Houston. Hurricane Harvey still quite vivid in our memory. We lost power for 5 days that time.
I'd take 5 days! But really we should consider solar to power up our homes these days!
It’s still quite expensive even in US. The system is heavily subsidized by the government otherwise it will take multiple decades to break-even.
There is no such thing as subsidy from government here in PH. Sad thing. It'll be out of our own pockets if we decide to get one. 😩
Solar panels are necessary these days to the core in the households as well as I guess in the commercial areas too. Even we are planning to install a solar panel in our new home now. also, thanks for sharing this informative post. liked it to the core. awaiting more such informative posts from you! :)
@azircon may I know why you keep on downvoting me?
Because you are a spammer. You have many accounts and you are farming them by circle voting and tipu vote. Tipu is now considered rouge curation. As none of us can contact cardboard. Otherwise we will request to revoke your tipu curator privilege. Until that happens we make to make sure you don’t get any rewards. I am also blocking you here so I won’t be seeing any comment or reply from you.
@azircon
My entire content is focused on speeding awareness about Ecency/Hive!
How to monetize our time on internet.
@ecency
Doing #posh daily on Facebook by using groups to share as well.
Please check my social accounts very good:
https://www.facebook.com/spirit.of.freed0m
https://www.instagram.com/spirit.of.freed0m/
Namaste 🙏
@tipu curate
@azircon what's your problem why you down vote my posts
I downvote spam and low quality content. Yours qualify for both.