Watch This Space.

 I think I'm moving this site back to Wordpress imminently. 

Yes, Fixing Last Year's Solar Weirdness Mattered, Big Time

Hindsight is always 20-20, as the saying goes, and as we approach mid-summer my solar system's strong performance during the month of June is reminding me how poor performance was at this time last year. 

You may remember last year's weird phase, which began in May and wasn't fully corrected until early August. The inverter was swapped out for a fault comms board, and then a bad crimp connecting panels to the inverters was replaced. Once it was all fixed, and a communications problem solved with a Wi-Fi router, production soared.

And here's how I now know that my instincts were right then: Performance this summer has improved versus last summer significantly. Compare June of '24 in green to the same month in '23 in blue. (June of '22 was the month the system was installed, so it was a partial month.) Production came in just shy of 1.3 mWh versus 510 kWh, for an improvement of more than 2.5x.

Even so, the system ended the month consuming slightly more power — 1.35 mWh — than it produced. We had the power-gulping pool heat pump running for several days during June. Also, the electric water heater is running, and heat waves meant running the AC system aggressively. 

The good news is that prior solar production starting in September and running through May had by June created a sizable generation bank with our utility. We don't get paid for the power we export to the utility grid, but we do get ongoing bill credits for it, and as of June the added value of those credits amounted to about a third of what we consumed from the grid in all of 2023.

Even better: A quick check of the bill for the two-month period ending July 2 says that this generation bank has only grown bigger since then, to north of 3 mWh. What it all means is that everything that consumes power in July and August, and likely for the rest of the year will be free. And the long sunny days will extend that billing credit even further. And once the hot weather to sunny and cool days in September and October, the cycle will repeat itself.

Also, a day in June brought the system's highest single day of production so far: 92.4 kWh. It was a perfect, cloudless day. I was always curious to know what the production graph would look like under ideal conditions, and now I know. This day's performance beats two prior records set in April, the first of which occurred on Earth Day.  

My utility, Central Hudson, charges me $19.50 per month in basic delivery charges. This means my utility bill is now basically a gas bill with a minimal charge for electrical grid service. 

I have some other encouraging news on that front. As I told you in the last post, the hybrid electric water pump is in and running. And the early results are promising. I compared the current gas bill to the one from the same period last year. It was about $67 lower. I can attribute to a lower average daily cost for gas of $2.24 versus $3.33 in the same period last year. But consumption is also lower: We used 47 Ccf of gas this June compared to 80 in the same period last year. That's a reduction of more than one-third. 

It won't always be so good because we still heat the house, dry our clothes, and cook with gas. But as I start the work of trying to reduce our overall reliance on natural gas, this is a good start. Next year I plan to get a heat pump to replace the air conditioners. If I understand correctly, it will heat and cool the house, and the gas furnace will be on standby for the exceptionally frigid days of deep winter. I also want to replace the gas range in the kitchen with an induction cooktop. I hope to have more progress to report on this front soon. 

The Sun is Finally Cooling My House and Heating My Pool, Almost for Free in 2024

 

Our benefactor.

The summer is getting off to a good start. After last year's equipment problems and weather issues throughout much of 2023, the roaring start we had in early 2024 has continued. 

For one thing, I've now clocked several days during which I've both cooled my house and heated my pool simultaneously and still ended one day with a power surplus. During the sunniest days of Memorial Day Weekend, I finished just a little behind the break-even point on the first and on the second day, finished well ahead. And I did it while hosting a two-day pool party that impressed our friends. 

Here's what the data shows:

On May 25, my system produced 77.3 kWh while the house and pool consumed a combined 82.7 kWh. Only 13 percent of the day's power needs came from the utility grid, the rest directly from the solar array. I ran the pool heater most of the day in order to get the water temperature up to a comfortable 80 degrees. 

On May 26, I only ran the pool heater for a few hours in the morning and then shut it off, which lowered the day's power needs. I ended the day generating 76.7 kWh and consuming 64.2 kWh. The next day, it was rainy, so I left the pool heater and the house air conditioners off. But for those two pool-use days, I ended the weekend consuming 147 kWh against solar generation of 154 kWh. In short, I ran those heavy-consuming items for free. 

Well, almost for free. I'm still paying off the loan at $277 per month at 5.5 percent interest, but even so, that's significantly lower than the power bills I remember from my first summer in the house. In July and August of 2021, we consumed about 5 megawatts. It was a super-hot summer, and we ran the AC and pool heaters constantly without the benefit of solar panels, so the bill that year was pretty high. However, I can't actually see the amount because it's too far back. And with two full years of operational history in the books, I've settled into the understanding that in 10 months out of 12, my power bill is only $19.50, the only exceptions being December and January so far, because I usually end the month having generated more power than I take from the grid. 

And that's important for another reason. According to my utility, CenHUD, as of May, I had a 2.8 mWh generation surplus on the books. This means I could, in theory, run both the AC and pool heater guilt-free for the better part of the summer, working against that surplus. But as it stands, I'm running both and actually making the surplus even bigger. 

Also, sometime in May, we crossed the threshold of our 15th ton of carbon emissions saved and should hit 16 tons by July.  

At this point, the economic arguments against rooftop solar panels essentially fall apart. One local joker in a Facebook group argued that since most people will have to borrow money to finance the panels, the economic benefits get canceled out. But in my case, they're clearly not.

And yes, I grant that not everyone is in a position to borrow about $40,000 for something like this. Most solar households skew toward the higher income brackets. A study by the Lawrence Livermore National Lab found that in 2022 — the year I deployed my system — reported income ranging from 108 percent to 180 percent of their state's median. When only wealthy people can afford to spend money to save money on a necessity like electricity, we have a problem. But there are programs coming online now that will help lower-income families go solar via grants and low-interest loans.  

The cost of electrical power isn't going to decline in any part of the country anytime soon. Demand is rising across the country and, in fact, around the world way too fast for that. The only way for a home or business to counter that trend is to reduce usage or start generating on-site from a free and sustainable power source like the sun or wind. Solar won't work in every situation, but my array is so far proving the case for rooftop solar. 

While I'm at it, there's one additional new wrinkle to report. Last month, we swapped out our old 80-gallon natural gas water heater for a hybrid electric water heater with an 80-gallon tank. I was a little concerned at first. When it was installed, the weather was rainy, and it seemed like the new heater was going to consume more power than the solar array generates and thus erase all the progress I've made. But it has slowed down a bit since powering up. I'll have more to say about it as the months wear on. I'm specifically interested to see how my gas bill declines, if at all. Water heating accounts for about 15 percent of gas usage in the average U.S. home (I read that stat somewhere but now can't find the link.), while the rest goes for space heating, cooking, and drying laundry. 

The up-front cost was about $8,000, and I'll get $1,000 back from the utility and then another $2,000 tax rebate from the federal government when I file next year. (Thank you Biden Administration!) I also had to hire an electrician to install an electrical sub-panel as my current basement panel was maxed out.

The gas bill has been a tough nut to crack because winters in the Hudson Valley can get incredibly cold and so there's no choice but to consume a lot of gas. The new water heater should reduce our gas consumption. I'm also likely to turn off an ornamental gas fireplace we rarely use, even in cold weather. Plus, I'd like to swap out the gas-based cooktop in the kitchen for an induction stove. 

But another big upgrade is looming ahead: The two AC units out in the backyard have about one year left in their realistic operational lifespan. That means electric heat pumps are in my future, which should put a bigger dent in my natural gas footprint. But it should also increase my electrical demand. And yes, another round of tax credits will make the move a little easier on my wallet. Can the current solar array keep up? Or might I have to add some additional panels on the West side of the house? And I haven't even begun to think about an electric vehicle yet. Obviously, there will be much more to consider in the coming 12 to 18 months. 

(Image of the Sun: The Sun photographed in 2010 at 304 angstroms by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.)

My Solar Array Had Its Best Day Yet ... On Earth Day

We're back to sunny days with relatively low temperatures in the Hudson Valley, and that meant good things for my rooftop solar array. 

In watching the SolarEdge mobile app yesterday, I saw something I hadn't seen before: A day with total production above 90 kilowatt hours. I looked back, and while there were a lot of days with production above 80 kWh, this was the first I could find above 90, so unless I missed one, it now holds the record for the highest single-day production since the system went live in 2022. 

It was also Earth Day, which made it a cool coincidence. I ended the day having completely offset all consumption from the utility grid. My house consumed a little more than 20 kWh direct from the panels during the day and exported about 70 kWh to the grid. And as of this afternoon, the system is on track to book another day just like it by sunset. 

That hints at some additional good news, though it's still a little early to get too excited. Recall that last year, after the repair of a bad string and crimp and the replacement of my inverter, I was worried that the system might not build up enough of a billing surplus by summer in order to offset my AC and swimming pool.

If my math using the data from the app is right, as of today, I'm ahead of consumption by 2.16 mWh with about six weeks to go before my anniversary date. If the days remain this sunny, and the temps don't get crazy high in May, I should have a nice generation bank going into the summer. 

However, I'm pretty sure my math is off, and I'm likely underestimating the surplus. My net meter, which started at zero in June 2022, showed a high of about 2,755 in late September of 2023. Sometime in April, it went below zero and showed a number in the upper 99,000 range. That tells me that since September, I've offset more than 2.7 mWh within the utility's billing year, so my above math may very well be under-counting the size of the generation bank. We'll find out soon. 

Update: Not that you asked, but the Earth Day record held until Thursday when it reached 91.5 kWh.

If You're Someone Who Likes RSS Feeds, Today Is Your Lucky Day

 

Someone told me the other day — he knows who he is — that this site appeared not to have an RSS feed. I was a little surprised at that and assumed such a feed was a default feature in Blogger. Not so much it turned out. 

I dug around in the features and settings, and finally found it, turned it on, and now the RSS Feed is working. So you can add this site to Feedly, or whatever other reader you happen to like. 

Personally, I like the thought of a reader app, and have at time experimented with putting news feeds directly in a mail app, like say Thunderbird, which I once swore by but have since given up. 

And every time I have gone to the trouble of enabling a reader app with a bunch of feeds I think I want to follow, I end up spending the time configuring that app, only to find I never use it. Feedly and NetNewsWire both come to mind. 

What I do miss is the RSS feeds that used to be auto-generated by Twitter. Now that was amazing. You could follow a particular Twitter feed using an RSS reader, and even generate your own automated rules and actions based on that. 

One trick that helped me stay on top of certain kinds of stories when I was reporter involved RSS feeds. When a company I followed was close to taking its shares public, I would follow the RSS feed associated with its SEC filings. Using IFTTT, I created automated scripts to alert me either by email or text or both when a new SEC filing would drop for that company. I also used the same trick to watch for important filings from already-public companies I followed. I got a lot of good stories that way. 

Anyway, here's the link. 

Solar Performance is Hot in the New Year, and I Wasn't Alone

The first quarter of the year is nearly over, and just as I thought, EL Niño has produced a relatively warm and sunny winter. And at my house that has been good news on the solar power front.

January saw low performance, which is as expected. But February? It kicked ass. And March is off to a stunningly strong start. 

Performance this February bested the same month last year by a fair amount, as you can see to the left. And while March is only half over, the pace is looking really promising. Last March the system produced 960 kWh. As of today, with 19 days left to go, I'm already at 367 kWh. 

But what's even more interesting is that as of today my production is totaled about 3.6x my rate of consumption. If the days stay sunny — which is a stretch — I could potentially end the month with production at FOUR TIMES consumption. That's kind of mind-boggling. 



Here look at a few more graphs, because why not?

            

It's also been fun looking at the electric meter. On January 1 I happened to photograph. It read 1,315 which was down from a peak of 2,595 I captured on Sept. 15. Yesterday I photographed a reading of 835. That means I've exported more than 1.7 megawatts into the grid since the end of the summer. For context,  last summer I consumed about 2.8 megawatts, most of it from air conditioning and heating the pool, which I did only two or three days. (Summer mornings here can start on the cold side, especially in June.)

But what I'm starting to think is this: If production remains this strong through through May, I may just about offset what I can expect to consume this summer, which is sort of the point of the whole system. I'm might just have that power cushion I was hoping for when I started this project. 

There are a couple other points to consider: We need a new water heater, and it will be electric, not gas. I'm pretty certain we're going to swap out the cooktop for an induction stove. Both will reduce the gas bill, one by a little the other by a lot. But both will boost our year-round power consumption. I'm still not ready to switch over to an electric vehicle, but that day is coming. And yes I'm still paying off the loan I took out to build the array and install the battery, but the payments are manageable. 

And I'm still a little wary about the production problem I experienced during the first half of last year. But now that it has been solved, 2024 looks to be the year that going solar will really start to pay off. 

And I'm part of a national trend that brings both good news and bad news. (Isn't always a mixed bag?) I read here at Popular Mechanics which surprises me by still being around, that the US power grid added 32.4 gigawatts worth of solar power in 2023, which amounted to 52 percent of all added power capacity. Natural gas came in a distant second, with 16 gigawatts of newly installed capacity. Texas and California added the most solar power of all the states. That's the good news. 

The problem is it's not enough. Today's New York Times led with this story about how demand for electrical power is growing so fast, that even all that new capacity I just mentioned isn't proving to be enough. 

Consider this: Electrical utilities have doubled their estimates for the amount of power they'll have to supply by 2028 — four years from now. The demand, The Times says, is driven by electric vehicles, data centers — and get this — factories building batteries and solar panels.

And so what are those utilities proposing to do? Build more natural gas generating capacity, and in some cases keep some coal plants running longer than previously planned. And if that becomes reality, all hope of meeting America's climate change goals by 2035 are finished. There's no way, apparently, to grow sustainable power alternatives fast enough to both meet the growing demand and meet the climate goals. It's going to be a tough slog to get through the next decade and hit those targets. 

Even so, there's still some good news left on the table, but it's more geopolitical than climate-friendly. A report by the investment bank JP Morgan estimates that the US last year achieved energy independence, meaning as a nation we exported power energy than we imported. There's a good summary here and you can read the full JP Morgan report here. I haven't read it yet, but will get through it in the coming days.

Onward!

How My First Full Year With Solar Panels Worked Out

My first full calendar year with the panels is in the books, and if nothing else, the numbers tell a mixed tale that emphasizes how important weather cycles are. 

First the top line numbers: The system produced a total of 8.55 MWh against total consumption of 7.82 MWh. Exports were 6.3 MWh, and I exported more power than I took from the grid in February, March, April, August, September, November, and December. 

Put simply, I ended the year having produced almost three-quarters of a megawatt more than I used, overall, and I consumed about 2.5 MWh directly from the panels. (The sum of the blue strips on the graphic to the left. Click to make it bigger.) 

By itself, it's good news, but when you compare it on a month-by-month basis, production was lower in CY23 than in the months of CY22 when the system was live. (Recall it first went live in June of '22.) Only November had higher production year-over-year, and then only by a whisker.

Weather was clearly a factor. It was a wet summer and a wet fall in the Northeast, so it wasn't a surprise that production came in below the prior year which was a pretty dry one, especially in the Hudson Valley.

Another factor was the weird production interference the system experienced from the "bad crimp" that was corrected over the summer. 

As luck would have it, 2024 is an El Niño year, which implies a warmer and wetter winter than the typical seasonal pattern. I'm not a big fan of snow, but the local creeks and rivers are already close to overflowing, so it would be great to see more sun if only to dry things out. If typical, the La Niña cycle that tends to follow will bring a drier summer, and perhaps a lot of sun with it.

So far the system tells me it has produced more than 16 megawatts in its 18 months of operation, and saved the atmosphere more than 25,000 pounds worth of carbon emissions, which according to SolarEdge, the manufacturer of my inverters, is the same as planting 190 trees. To give me that number it used the methodology created by the US Environmental Protection Agency. In perspective, the carbon savings equate to taking 2.6 gas-powered cars off the road for one year, or 1,292 gallons of gasoline consumed. By that logic, it's at least offsetting some of the gas I consume driving my car, but not all of it. We do drive a lot.

On the billing front, we've now had three billing periods come in with that minimal amount I first saw on my bill in May. So we are saving money, but because of the weird problems the local utility has experienced with its billing system, it's impossible to actually do the math and estimate the savings with any precision. Meanwhile, I'm still paying off the loan I took out to build the system, but it's a relatively painless amount every month. 

And obviously, we're still paying the utility for natural gas to heat our home and make hot water. Still ahead for us are questions about if and how to transition toward non-gas alternatives. I'd like a tankless electric water heater, and I'm curious about geothermal heat pumps, both of which qualify for tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act. So while we're off to a good start on reducing our overall carbon footprint, there's a lot more work to do on that front, but it also has to make financial sense.