We're slowly building a new house in rural Maine (probably habitable late 2024). It will be our retirement home and I hope to make it net zero (double stud R40 walls, R60 ceiling, R20 floors) and I'd like to avoid using fossil fuels except for the backup generator if possible. I'll also have a small barn with less robust insulation but a need for at least some heat, but I'm not overly worried about that - it's the house that I'm really trying to "solve for". We're planning on about a 15-20Kw solar system, likely ground mount to make snow clearing easier, but the big question is whether to tie it to the grid and do net metering, or keep it off grid. And if we go with net metering, can I stick with Victron equipment, which I really like?
I've been using Victron equipment for the past year in some buildings on our current property and am thrilled with it. So, if we go off grid, I'll likely go with a couple of Quattro 10K units and the necessary SCCs. But CAN Victron equipment support net metering? Has anybody here done that, and if so, can you comment on your experience? Those are my big questions, if you want to stop reading here. Thanks in advance for anything you can contribute to my thinking on this situation.
Some additional background/stream-of-consciousness rambling in case anyone cares to read it: Winters here mean very little sun from about Nov-Jan, with late December having only about 3-3.5 hours of truly usable sun on a clear day, and many overcast days. Combined with a need for heat in those months, that makes the cost of going off grid, using no or few fossil fuels, and not relying on wood heat ridiculously high because we'd need a huge amount of battery storage and even then we'd need to run the generator fairly often. I could just install propane heat (in-floor hydronic and low temp radiators) and I have many acres of forest so I could do wood heat, but keep in mind that this is a retirement home, so we want to minimize and predict our retirement year expenses and minimize the physical labor required to live as we get older and less physically fit. The volatile and likely increasing cost of propane and other fossil fuels, and the labor necessary for wood, work against those goals. So, this leads me to think about net metering as a means to go all-electric, and use credits built up in summer to offset our winter need for grid-supplied AC. We would probably produce more than enough excess electricity in summer to offset the cost of winter electric use, so as much as I love the idea of being off grid, the economics don't seem to favor doing so when our state has reasonable net metering and we can build up lots of credits for 6-7 months of the year. And if I can't stay with Victron, what's the next bet option? Sol-Ark looks good, but I don't really want a Chinese-built unit that relies on a cloud connection, to be frank. I'd much prefer to stay with a US or European manufactured unit that has no reliance on the cloud for monitoring or programming, and for which spare parts might be more readily available if we (heaven forbid) end up in a conflict with China one day.
I've been using Victron equipment for the past year in some buildings on our current property and am thrilled with it. So, if we go off grid, I'll likely go with a couple of Quattro 10K units and the necessary SCCs. But CAN Victron equipment support net metering? Has anybody here done that, and if so, can you comment on your experience? Those are my big questions, if you want to stop reading here. Thanks in advance for anything you can contribute to my thinking on this situation.
Some additional background/stream-of-consciousness rambling in case anyone cares to read it: Winters here mean very little sun from about Nov-Jan, with late December having only about 3-3.5 hours of truly usable sun on a clear day, and many overcast days. Combined with a need for heat in those months, that makes the cost of going off grid, using no or few fossil fuels, and not relying on wood heat ridiculously high because we'd need a huge amount of battery storage and even then we'd need to run the generator fairly often. I could just install propane heat (in-floor hydronic and low temp radiators) and I have many acres of forest so I could do wood heat, but keep in mind that this is a retirement home, so we want to minimize and predict our retirement year expenses and minimize the physical labor required to live as we get older and less physically fit. The volatile and likely increasing cost of propane and other fossil fuels, and the labor necessary for wood, work against those goals. So, this leads me to think about net metering as a means to go all-electric, and use credits built up in summer to offset our winter need for grid-supplied AC. We would probably produce more than enough excess electricity in summer to offset the cost of winter electric use, so as much as I love the idea of being off grid, the economics don't seem to favor doing so when our state has reasonable net metering and we can build up lots of credits for 6-7 months of the year. And if I can't stay with Victron, what's the next bet option? Sol-Ark looks good, but I don't really want a Chinese-built unit that relies on a cloud connection, to be frank. I'd much prefer to stay with a US or European manufactured unit that has no reliance on the cloud for monitoring or programming, and for which spare parts might be more readily available if we (heaven forbid) end up in a conflict with China one day.
