Any interconnect regrets?

[SunDave]

Hi good people. As I am about to embark on a pile of paperwork...

Does anyone have regrets that they did and interconnect or sell agreement with their power company?

Does it remove any freedoms you have with your system.

Did they change something a year or two in that made it not worth it anymore?

I look forward to seeing what the consensus is on whether grid tie is worth doing.

 

[400bird]

I don't regret it at all, sure it cost me some paperwork, but I'm far ahead in the long run.

However, this is highly dependent on your location and power company. Sharing those would likely get you more relevant information.

 

[OzSolar]

As 400bird says, it's highly dependent on your location.

For me it was a no brainer when I did it. 1 for 1 net metering throughout the month with excess carried forward at wholesale to the next month. No extra "net metering" fee etc but I'm sure they are less than 2 years away if not a lot sooner for me.

Some folks still have 1 for 1 on annual basis and in those cases it really makes sense.

I can't think of any freedoms I lost but there's no particular zoning, permitting or inspections in my rural county to worry about.

 

[timselectric]

Does it remove any freedoms you have with your system.

Some agreements limit the size of system that you can have.

Did they change something a year or two in that made it not worth it anymore?

They can change the agreement anytime they want.
And it's never in your favor.

 

[SunDave]

Thanks. I figured the agreement was worth about what a warranty on a product is worth... Sad to hear it though!

I believe they have something called an average rate which should pay net metered at 12 cents/kWh. I have to go through more of the fine print to see what that means, and if there are other gotchas. I did find one in the previous read through. They offered a small "incentive" towards your system, but you had to sign paperwork that says you can't produce much over 100% of usage. So I was told by a local installer to avoid those particular incentives.

Right now I have a Sol-ark 15k and a test setup of just 2000 watts. Turns out it works really well with no shading at all. 210kWh so far this month. Scaling that up about 7x is what I am considering.

 

[bandgap]

I figure you can always disconnect or install a battery and self consume

 

[DougfromdaUP]

My utility would have limited my array size to less than half of what I need for reliable winter backup power, and pays $.08 per kWh while charging $.25. So I bought batteries and save $.25 on every kWh I produce.
So make sure you understand exactly what the charges and reimbursement will be.
And like Tim says, that can change at any time.

 

[nathandeb]

Probably a waste of time for me but there was almost no paperwork and no additional cost/permits. I'm limited to 100% of use per month for sell back, no carry over and sell back price is 2/3 of buy price so I try very hard to consume all the system makes

 

[Ampster]

I have no regrets. I have done two NEM agreements on my own and had installer do two other systems. I have three of those systems remaining, one on my current home and two on some rental properties.
I am in the process of upgrading the system at my home by adding a SolArk and batteries. I actually have been running the SolArk for a year with DIY batteries and ran a Outback Skybox for a couple years befor that without a building permit. . I just got a building permit for the Skybox and some Pytes batteries. I had considered applying for an SGIP grant because I may qualify for the medical rate with those grants but that grant would have been administered by PG&E and would have subjected me to oversight by PG&E. I concluded that I was better off not applying for permission to install batteries with PG&E. I will run them behind the meter and not export. I will maintain my existing 8 kW GT system under NEM 2.0

 

[SunDave]

Thank you for all the responses. So far positive. Which gives me some energy to press on with the reading anyhow!

I talked to them once on the phone, and they were already struggling with where to put some type of additional meter. Most of the systems are directly to grid, then the customer buys everything they use. So with that being the baseline, there is some struggle on their part understanding a Sol-ark install.

I wanted the backup though, so there is no way I would do a grid tie inverter right to a revenue meter, and have zero control of the whole system.

 

[Brett V]

Pennsylvania has a very generous net metering program and I’ve done well with grid tied production. My only regret is going with SolarEdge because the panels on my roof are locked in to a proprietary architecture. Hybrid inverters didn’t exist when I went with solar and now if I wanted to go that route, I’d have to pay someone to go on the roof and remove all the SolarEdge optimizers.

 

[millsan1]

Like @Brett V said, PA is pretty good. 1 to 1, and in my case, electric is the same price all the time.