jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Every two months, I get an email showing me how my electric use compares with similar households. I've been in the "Best" category for several years. I have an electric dryer and electric stove, so I have no advantage there. LED light bulbs help, as does using the clothesline. Installing solar panels would not be a good idea for me, financially.

KateH

I took advantage of a local solar program and all the equipment was free. I pay a small monthly fee to the solar company plus the metered usage. I am saving the equivalent of a peak month prior to solar!

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Free is good.

A few years ago, I contacted every solar company I could find online. Not one replied.

Blair Shaw Jr Loc: Dunnellon,Florida

Well FUDGE JERRY:

This survey says: You don't Cook or Clean & you Eat Out A lot ! HAHAHAAAAAAA

Thanks Man !

BlueMorel Loc: Southwest Michigan

Congrats! Our electric bill is half what it was after getting LED bulbs for our light fixtures and getting a new LCD tv. Our electric company had a special on LED bulbs, and low-flow showerheads a few years ago. I see now that they're offering them free to lower income folks.

cytafex Loc: Clarksburg MA

We use less electricity than you (around 400 kWh or less) and not considered best, but at least not bad!

tommy2 Loc: Fort Worth, Texas

Yes, solar really cut our monthly expenses. Our all electric houses utility cost went from an average of 275 to less than 10 bucks a month. The cash we put up along with several grants was reimbursed in about 6 years (the system had a twenty-five year guarantee). The only part was it would have been nice to have a storage unit along with all the generating equipment. The system was designed to provide about 95 percent of our needs and whenever (very seldom) there was any more generated than needed the power company would buy it back - at pennies on the dollar compared to what we paid them from off the grid.
Where we ran into a problem was when trying to sell the house - took a couple years to find a buyer that wasn't bothered by that "big thing" on the roof. Really blew us away that no one but us could comprehend the realty of the greatly reduced utility costs compared to looking at the panels on the back side of houses roof.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

Do you have or use A/C? I have a home in California with all natural gas utilities. Yes, the methane seems cheaper than electrical power. Run our A/C a couple days per month in hot weather and our electric bill goes sky high. Since we can afford it we don't sweat how much power we us compared to anyone else but we do try to keep it down when we can. In CA we are all more concerned with how much water we use! And in some areas of CA where there is none or where one is not on an aqueduct or canal the price of water can be high. Unfortunately our other home that is near the ocean is in such a place. Little to no ground fresh water so the cost is high. I am not looking forward to paying for that. I've seen what our tenants pay.

Also in addition to that aesthetic issue when selling. It seems here anyway as taxes are calculated and handled differently from state to state, many of the nearly "free" or "low" cost programs have a sort of hidden problem or booby trap. It seems the otherwise real estate taxes on the added value of the Solar and the loss in taxes on the lower paid usage are defrayed for the current home owner and solar customer and passed on as an extra tax burden to the next owner. This might even include part of the construction cost. Homes may also have to be brought up to code for the solar program. Thus making harder if impossible to sell the home later on! Especially if it were an older home needing extensive additional work.

sodapop Loc: Bel Air, MD

Where do you get your methane from? Propane the only gas available in this part of the country.

tommy2 Loc: Fort Worth, Texas

Yep, it pays to look further into the project besides the actual design and construction of the solar panel array.
We encountered every point and then some in lamiaceae's post. Since we were the first in the county to take on adding a solar array system to our house we, the county, the city, the homeowner's association and adjacent neighbors had to come to terms - that process took a little over two years. Taking that long allowed us to upgrade the initial design with the latest components too.
Fortunately the system did not add to the taxable evaluation of our property - as long as we filed the necessary paperwork and photos showing it on the premises we were allowed an exemption every year and were able to pass that ability on to the new owners.
Almost immediately upon completing the project several more homeowners installed (completing their projects in just a few months each) similar systems on their houses. We held many meetings and answered multiple questions while our project was being approved and constructed. I joked on several occasions that I needed to collect my usual engineering consultant's fee but settled for everyone getting along and the ultimate approval of our project.
The most vocal and sometimes nasty group of folks we encountered were members of the golf association. Our house backed up to the 7th fairway on one of the three courses in the 7500 home gated community. The demographic make-up of the community's population was about half the folks were from here in Texas and the rest from north of the Mason Dixon Line. The folks from above that line seemed to oppose just about anything newly proposed for the community so I didn't feel singled our for their ire.
Yes, I'd do it again.

rdemarco52 Loc: Wantagh, NY

I looked into solar, but with our usage it was not worth it.

jaycoffman Loc: San Diego

That's very interesting considering we live at opposite ends of the country--I live in San Diego. I just put in air conditioning and took a big hit on my kilowatt hours--it went up to 480 (for essentially the same period as you). I know the electric companies send us these things to help but I'm always struck by the comparing apples to oranges problem inherent in comparing different households. My wife and I are retired and live alone in our house (1200 ft/sq). Being retired we are home a lot using energy while many of our neighbors are at work using their employer's energy. But it appears they compare us to them and find us wanting.

The other thing that bugs us is that we're often gone a month or more at a time traveling (no one home and everything pretty much turned off) and yet our use doesn't seem to drop all that much.

So it's all a bit mystical to me. So far we can afford it and are lucky that we only have to run the a/c a couple of hours a day in the afternoon.

CaptainBobBrown

We built our retirement home here on Hawaii Island (aka 'The Big Island') 10 years ago and had photo voltaic installed (along with mandated solar hot water). All lighting is LED. On the best days in winter when the sun hits our panels at close to a 90 degree angle we'll produce about 32 kW/day and with net metering (We put all our production into the grid and draw out what we consume and towards the end of each contract year our net contribution to the grid results in credits.)

Our average daily consumption is about 11 kwH/day. Cost of a similar pV system now is about half of what it was when we built so the payback period is even shorter but our system paid for itself a couple of years ago. Of course our solar hot water system provides year around hot water up to 166 degrees F. and is essentially free. (The electricity to drive a small pump is negligible.)

We pay $25/month for the grid tie and in every year since then we've produced more than we've consumed so I bought an electric car (Nissan Leaf), an extra fridge and a freezer but we still put out more than we consume. Recently I took into account our total carbon consumption including airline travel and found that we have a net negative carbon footprint.

I use only electric landscaping equipment having given away all gasoline powered equipment and so the only gasoline we use is for a Prius C at about $20/month. The power company here is making good progress towards 100% wind+solar+geothermal so it's a race between us and California as to which state gets to complete elimination of fossil fuels powered electricity generation.

People who are afraid of giving up on fossil fuel powered cars and other equipment should take heart. It can be done easily enough if one doesn't just accept the notion that a century long way of doing things is the way of the future. Any Hoggers interested in details of how to get to a negative carbon footprint for their household can contact me via private email at CaptainBob.Brown@gmail.com.

CBruceM Loc: South Central Texas

Just got our solar installed last month. I'm hoping I'll live long enough to pay it off. I am hoping also that I will at least break even on the cost. Very few days this summer didn't get near or over 100, so cooling 3,700 sqft takes a toll. Electricity has run about $.08/kWh for the last 10 years. I'll get faster payback after the "Green New Deal" kicks in and electricity costs sky-rocket.

The report for my first partial month looks pretty good on the production end.

Your monthly energy report shows how your system performed and how much you contributed to offsetting the global carbon footprint.

Week Peak Power Energy Produced
08/01/2019 - 08/07/2019 6.07 kW 2.10 kWh
08/08/2019 - 08/14/2019 0 W 0 Wh
08/15/2019 - 08/21/2019 10.4 kW 34.7 kWh
08/22/2019 - 08/28/2019 11.0 kW 415 kWh
08/29/2019 - 08/31/2019 10.3 kW 189 kWh
August 2019 Total: 642 kWh
Previous Month Total: 0 Wh
Year to Date: 642 kWh

Your Carbon Offset for this month: 977 lbs
You have offset the equivalent of: 11 Trees

My consumption for the same period was about 879 kWh

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

The switch from plasma TVs to LEDs really cut the electric usage.