Power from the People
2021 October 28 15:14 winksaville 110854¤ 60163¤
I saw a good article this morning, https://link.medium.com/oV8K4yo2Ikb, and it happens to coincide with my 2 Tesla Powerwalls, charged from my solar panels, becaming part of a VPP. And for the first time yesterday, they provided the grid with 12kwh of power between 6pm and 9pm.
Power from the People!
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2021 October 29 09:11 stuartscott 739¤ 941¤
Congrats 🎉 that's awesome! I love the idea that anyone can harvest renewable energy, export it to the grid to reduce the load on non-renewable power plants, and offset their own usage.
I'd imagine this kind of mesh-style network with many producers would be more fault tolerant and perhaps more efficient?
How does the billing work, is it 1:1 so if you import X kWh and export Y kWh then your bill is X-Y?
The biggest hurdle with solar and wind is what to do at night, or on calm days - are there any initiatives for people to store energy from the grid during high-production periods and release during low-production periods? This might require a dynamic price set by the ratio of supply:demand to incentivize battery owners.
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2021 November 03 20:19 winksaville 1827¤ 56¤
> I'd imagine this kind of mesh-style network with many producers would be more fault tolerant and perhaps more efficient?
That is an interesting question, my own experience with almost 2 years of solar + battery is that my system is more reliable than the grid. I've not been without power during that time. Which is better than my neighbors. On the other hand, I'm not "off grid" so my reliability is dependent upon the grid.
> How does the billing work, is it 1:1 so if you import X kWh and export Y kWh then your bill is X-Y?
More or less, that is how it works up Y < X. When you generate more than you've used on a yearly basis (X > Y) Then the power company pays you a "wholesale" price for the excess, $0.025 to $0.063. This is called "Net Energy Metering" (NEM). See, https://3cenergy.org/nem/ for more info.
If you part of a VPP (Virtual Power Plant) then the VPP will resell your power to the grid at some rate decided between the VPP and the power company. Tesla's VPP says they are going to pay me $1.00kWh obviously much more than the $0.063 for excess power or even the $0.22 for peak power in summer.
> The biggest hurdle with solar and wind is what to do at night, or on calm days - are there any initiatives for people to store energy from the grid during high-production periods and release during low-production periods?
That's why I have a battery and with it I can supply my needs during most nights, always in the summer, but not always in the winter. Also, the VPP can be supply energy to the grid on demand. Especially when prices are high (i.e. there is time variable pricing and even real time dynamic pricing). We PV/EV customers in Ca are on Time Of Use (TOU) rates so we pay more for power during peak periods, evening (1600 .. 2100), and less during early morning (0000 .. 0700).
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2021 October 29 22:13 kaxline 247¤ 889¤
I'm so jealous. I was supposed to have that exact setup by now but Tesla went MIA on the install/permitting and I ended up having to cancel it. Will try again in a month with a more local company. Odd because I'd heard only good things from Tesla.
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2021 November 03 21:01 winksaville 1476¤ 303¤
That's sad, but look around. I found my installer via https://www.energysage.com and that worked very well. I got 5 quotes and chose the one I felt was best overall, https://megapower.solar a. But I'd start with energysage or one of the other quote services so you can get multiple quotes.
When I got my solar 2 years ago Tesla wasn't competitive on warranty, 10y - 12y IIRC and panel performance wasn't as good. So there are lots of potential gotchas. For instance, I wanted a 8+ kw system but my roof is "cutup" so I had to go with more expensive panels to get the 7+ kw I have.
The other consideration is your sun exposure. Some of the bids suggested having panels on all roofs segments. So they had panels facing north, east, south and west, which is ridiculous. Panels should ideally be facing south, mine are SW and SE which is a compromise, but it's the best I could do.
Getting batteries is great to have, especially if you want protection from power outages. Which solar, by itself, can't help you with as are required to shutdown during a power outage. You can get a "gateway" which provides the capability to automatically disconnect the house from the grid, but let the panels to continue powering the house. Of course without batteries that doesn't help at night :)
If you have questions feel free to ask here or contact me directly using email <; circled a lastname punctuation com>. Do you think we can fool the Bots/AI, probably not but fun trying.
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2021 November 04 13:17 kaxline 471¤ 87¤
Great advice, thanks! I'm excited to get this underway again. I did the quotes and found a good company, but Tesla had the most no-hassle financing. The financing isn't an issue for me anymore so I think I can go back to the pros.
Luckily one main roof panel is completely south-facing, but most of the designs do have panels facing north as well. I'll ask about how likely those are to return on value.
I'll definitely reach out as the process proceeds ... thanks!
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2021 November 04 14:09 winksaville 4¤ 171¤
Nort
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2021 November 04 14:18 winksaville 280¤ 61¤
Whoops, north facing is terrible unless your in the southern hemisphere or close to the equator. If a provider is trying to sell u that use a different provider.
Also be careful of shading from trees or hills. Try https://sunroof.withgoogle.com or other solar estimator sites.
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2021 November 04 18:08 winksaville 117456¤ 53¤
For these interested here are my solar + battery life time number "-3.3 MWh". The negative value means I've generated 3.3MWh more than I've used!
Although, it says I generated 3.84 MWh and used 1.36 MWh and the difference isn't 3.3 so not sure what's up with that. Probably a bug. Nah, Tesla never has any bugs :)
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