Craig's blog

Back in early May we bit the bullet (actually, wrote the check) and had photovoltaic panels installed on our roof by Borrego Solar. So far, we're extremely happy with them. We have a fairly large installation that's capable of putting out about 9 kW. Yesterday we got a check from the state of California for 27% of the cost of the system. :)

If things go according to plan, we should net an electricity bill of about $0 for the entire year. We're expecting to have negative bills during the summer and positive ones during the winter. If you'd like to know how the billing works, here's a quick summary. First, we switched to a "Time of Use" meter. You can do this independent of adding solar (and we probably should have long ago). It allows charging much higher rates during peak hours (noon-6:00 PM Mon-Fri), then during non-peak hours (in our case the difference is roughly 3x). If you use less energy during peak hours, it's a great deal because you buy your electricity at a lower rate. Anyway, we now also have "net-metering" which means our meter can run forward AND backward. When our panels are putting out more electricity than we are consuming, our meter runs backwards. Now if you think about when the sun is at its most powerful, you'll realize that this is during peak hours. So our meter is almost always spinning backwards during peak hours and pretty much only runs forwards during off-peak hours. This means PG&E is buying electricity from us at peak rates, and we're buying it from them at off-peak rates. :)

I truly wish everyone would/could put solar panels on their roof. In fact, it seems to me that all new construction (especially in the southwest) should require a solar installation proportional to the size of the house/business being built. Alas, the problem is the up-front cost. It generally takes 6-10 years to payback the cost of the system (in reduced electricity bills).

Click here for three pictures of the installation.

More technical details:

Click here to see lots of up to the minute graphs of the output of our system since it was installed.

We have 48, 200 Watt Sanyo Modules (Model HIP-200BA3). Each one is 51.9" x 35.2" x 1.4" and weighs 31 pounds.

There are two Sunny Boy inverters (a 6kW and a 3.8kW) and a "Sunny WebBox" that allows continuous access to the status of the system.