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Who's gone Solar

byke said:
Can you post your territory, heat source, and total kwh?
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X, Natural Gas (furnace and new water heater), 429kwh

Gas portion was $620

We may have a problem with our new water heater - complained to AO Smith about the very hot water even on a low setting - a plumber comes out on Monday.

Previous years the most was ~ $375 total utility bill during the winter time though and we are not living any differently
 
Grissom said:
Over $800 last month more than doubled from a few years ago and we do not live any differently

Both of us work during the day so everything is off - 1600 sq ft

Both PG&E and the PUC can go "rhymes with pluck" themselves - god damn thieves
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Those are the horror stories I'm hearing.

Last January we were $486 and $600 in December.

Still waiting for my January 2024 bill but December was $137; we are under Net Metering 2 remittances.

At the rate PGE is going even under the less generous NEM 3 remittances solar starts to make sense again.
 
Grissom said:
X, Natural Gas (furnace and new water heater), 429kwh

Gas portion was $620

We may have a problem with our new water heater - complained to AO Smith about the very hot water even on a low setting - a plumber comes out on Monday.

Previous years the most was ~ $375 total utility bill during the winter time though and we are not living any differently
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Your electric sounds good, but that gas sure sucks. If you averaged $2.60/g, you'd be using about 240g/mo? We have propane and run the furnace every morning to get the house up to temp for a bit, then leave it off most of the day and use the fireplace at night. Doing that in the winter months, our 500g tank will drop 10-12% per month, or about 50-60g. We paid $2.38/g at the last refill in October, so that's about $119-$143/mo. Oh, we also have other propane appliances; range/oven, 50g tank water heater, and clothes dryer, so that's included in the total use (household of three people).

I'd say we use the furnace sparingly since the fireplace takes over at night, but it's also a lot colder here at 4k feet elevation, sometimes in the teens and often in the twenties, plus we have this damned dog door in the slider that drives me nuts with how much heat we lose through it. I'm not sure if this is enough to make it a wash with being in the bay, but it's something to mention.

The propane guys tell us that the furnace is the huge suck and everything else is negligible, which jives with my experience because we hardly use any gas outside of the cold months. If it were May and our tank were at 20%, there's no problem making it to October or November for the next refill with normal use of everything aside from the furnace. If our gas worked out to $620/mo, I'd be trying to supplement with electricity, like if you left the furnace on all night, then maybe turn it off and use a space heater for the bedroom/s overnight, that kind of thing. Then you're really only looking at using the furnace from when you get home, to bedtime, then whatever on weekends.

And then if the electricity becomes a problem, look into having your baseline changed. You're probably on basic, which is only 10.9kwh/day in territory X durign winter, but it'd be bumped up to 16.7kwh/day if you told PGE a small fib that you had electric as your main heat source and you only supplement with gas.
 
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Abacinator said:
Our bill has gone from around $200 to nearly $400 and our usage is pretty consistent
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I checked out my electric bill and my actual energy usage was at $120 for January. But if you look below the fold I see a a fuel surcharge that took it to $260. So apparently due to the drought they have to ruck in coal for the plants instead of using a barge so that is costing me more and they are now also raising the fuel surcharge again and adding another $50 per 1000Kwh used. what a fucking scam but I want to see it go down as we have had a shit ton of rain and everything is full of water so now they should barge it again.
 
Average usage is ~900kwh/mo. For an extra $140 at $50/1000kwh, you'd be at 2800kwh for January..?
 
As part of our remodel, and as we have solar, went with a 40 gallon heat pump electric water heater to replace our 50 gallon gas water heater.

There's only two of us so 40 gallons should be plenty and we aren't selling the house so my daughter and husband will eventually live here and they have no kids.

Gas is still the "cheapest" to run of course, unless you have solar, but this thing uses negligible electricity, especially compared to a "normal" electric water heater.

Late night power use when we are in bed using the hour by hour usage available on the solar app via Sunpower shows no increase in power use oddly enough. But maybe it just wasn't "on" in the middle of the night.

Rebates from Sonoma Clean Power and a 30 percent fed tax credit made it a no brainer at $500 but did need to run a 220 volt line to it.

Currently set at 120 degrees; that sounds colder than our old water heater but first shower is later today as it was installed yesterday.

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How does a "heat pump" water heater work?

I was always under the understanding the heat pumps required drilling deep holes in the ground to be use as a temperature differential.
 
Uses refrigeration cycle. Refrigerant is compressed and fed through a condenser coil that is used to heat the water.
 
berth said:
How does a "heat pump" water heater work?

I was always under the understanding the heat pumps required drilling deep holes in the ground to be use as a temperature differential.
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As it heats the water it exhausts 51 degree air so basically we have an a/c unit in the garage, albeit some guy calculated only 500 BTU/hr or so.

I was a bit surprised at the cold exhaust dumping into the garage which will be nice in summer. Does make a weird whirring sound when doing so though but can't hear it in the house.

To understand the concept of heat pumps, imagine a refrigerator working in reverse. While a refrigerator removes heat from an enclosed box and expels that heat to the surrounding air, a HPWH takes the heat from surrounding air and transfers it to water in an enclosed tank.
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https://www.energystar.gov/products/heat_pump_water_heaters/how-it-works
 
I got to tell you guys this. I can in no way recommend semper solaris. The workmen were great. They got everything done smoothly and efficiently. BUT the office sucks. Today there was a $250. charge to my bank account from them sans notification. I call and some rookie takes a message and tells me it will be a week before someone gets back to me.
So I email the last person who I communicated with and ask whats the $250. charge and why wasn't I notified? She gets back to me telling me my battery has been approved. Well it's been approved since August and you charged me $250. then. So she emails me back with some creative accounting trying to make it seem legit YET in my contract it only mentions one payment of $250. I then call my bank and freeze any further payments.
Then I get a phone call from them. I basically say everything I've already written and she brings up the creative accounting and I point out what is outlined in the contract. One payment not two. I finally leave the conversation saying that I will badmouth semper solaris every chance I get from hear on out. So here it is, avoid semper solaris. They will rip you off and if you don't believe me, read their Yelp reviews. Oh yeah, my power bill was $160. this month. That's the only good part.
 
That sucks. Any chance of having a lawyer draft a letter regarding the contract stipulations?

I've been pleased with West Coast Solar. One minor communication issue at the end of the process regarding my access to their online monitoring thingamajig but beyond that everything went swimmingly.
 
So far so good with Sunpower despite their stock cratering after Newsom's little "screw rooftop solar in California" move.
 
Only had our system for 7 months.

Average combined dollars saved (gas plus electric) is $295/month or $3540/year.

We are only using about half the gas we used last year as we are using Envi electric wall heaters to maintain temp once the nat gas inserts have brought the room up to 68; the Envi heaters keep the temp around 66.

Payback should be 6.7 years on a system with twenty 400watt panels based on current savings per month.

If we had a $10,000 battery (which we don't) using the same savings numbers payback would be 9.7 years which is still good enough to warrant someone to consider solar even under NEM3.

Unless, of course, you need two batteries.
 
Thank god for NEM, I started in 2016 so got another 12 years left on this baby!

Delivered price per kw/hr is now about 0.75. PG&E is going to get so pricey, that once these contracts run out, I wouldn't be surprised if people start to completely disconnect from the grid (even in fairly urban areas.) big solar arrays, batteries, and install a small propane generator for the coldest/darkest months when you under-produce with the array.
 
mercurial said:
Thank god for NEM, I started in 2016 so got another 12 years left on this baby!

Delivered price per kw/hr is now about 0.75. PG&E is going to get so pricey, that once these contracts run out, I wouldn't be surprised if people start to completely disconnect from the grid (even in fairly urban areas.) big solar arrays, batteries, and install a small propane generator for the coldest/darkest months when you under-produce with the array.
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PGE by constantly asking for ever more increase, they got another last Thursday, will single handedly resurrect the rooftop solar industry in California and not that far in the future.

And then, I suspect, they will figure out a way to add flat fees to us solar customers even if on Nem 3 under the guise of "only the wealthy can afford it."
 
PGE says they expect an increase of about $50/mo from three rate hikes that started in January and they service 5.2m homes, so...clickity-clackity-clickity-clack...that's over 3 billion a year...billion, with a B, per year. Please refer to post #594.
 
byke said:
PGE says they expect an increase of about $50/mo from three rate hikes that started in January and they service 5.2m homes, so...clickity-clackity-clickity-clack...that's over 3 billion a year...billion, with a B, per year. Please refer to post #594.
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Does it match damage done by all those fires they caused?
 
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