Did I do OK? Less than 2% of power from grid in less than a year.

[Zwy]

Just looking at some figures, I turned my system on in mid March 2023 and used 13,666 Kwh since then. My grid usage in that whole time frame was 256 Kwh which comes to 1.87% of total Kwh thus far. As we are now past December/January, this might actually decrease over an entire year.

They always say the first 90% is easy, it is the last 10% that gets expensive. One additional benefit was propane usage, normally the house takes about 800 gallons of propane. This winter has been mild but we heated mainly with solar power thru the heat pump as a dump load until mid December mainly. During the -20°F weather, the sun was bright with clear skies and we heated during the day with excess solar and the propane furnace didn't run all day. I checked the propane tanks the other day and we have only used 350 gallon of propane this winter to date.

 

[B-Mod]

That is great! It is so cool to see how much power can come from a bunch of panels on a rack in the sun.

 

[green mountain boys]

That great!
What is the size of the array?
Orientation?
Tilt angle?

 

[timselectric]

That great!
What is the size of the array?
Orientation?
Tilt angle?

It's all in his signature.

 

[BryceFreeman]

Amazing! Only 1% power from grid for such a huge power consumption, ultimate goal of off-grid living

 

[green mountain boys]

It's all in his signature.

Thanks, that light colored text is tough to see with old eyes that don't work so well.

 

[timselectric]

Thanks, that light colored text is tough to see with old eyes that don't work so well.

Yup, I completely understand.
I have to zoom in.

 

[Zwy]

That great!
What is the size of the array?
Orientation?
Tilt angle?

Tilt angle is variable, I seasonal tilt the array.

 

[1201]

This is pretty amazing

 

[Zwy]

Just looking at some figures, I turned my system on in mid March 2023 and used 13,666 Kwh since then. My grid usage in that whole time frame was 256 Kwh which comes to 1.87% of total Kwh thus far. As we are now past December/January, this might actually decrease over an entire year.

They always say the first 90% is easy, it is the last 10% that gets expensive. One additional benefit was propane usage, normally the house takes about 800 gallons of propane. This winter has been mild but we heated mainly with solar power thru the heat pump as a dump load until mid December mainly. During the -20°F weather, the sun was bright with clear skies and we heated during the day with excess solar and the propane furnace didn't run all day. I checked the propane tanks the other day and we have only used 350 gallon of propane this winter to date.

My bad, I didn't see the year it started, it was March 2022.

Went back and looked again as I thought that sure seemed like a huge amount of Kwh per month.

For the year prior from March 2022 thru Feb 2023, we used 6,444.32 Kwh.

From March 2023 to today, it has been 7230.433 Kwh. We increased electric usage by 12.2% and have another month to go so it probably will be close to 15% increase in usage, mainly due to heating dump load.

The 256 Kwh from grid is correct, that makes it 3.9% of total Kwh for the past 11 months from grid. 99% of the 256 Kwh was from last 2 weeks of December and first 2 weeks of January as we only had 3 good days of sun in thos 4 weeks. My guess is it will probably end up at 3% for the year from grid.

I'm possibly adding another battery this next year for a total of 72 Kwh for the house. Usage will be up as I'm adding another heat pump and another 4 Kw of PV. After seeing what shop uses per day, I might have a change in plans, I've been using on average 1100 Kwh per month in the shop. Highest month was June at over 1800 Kwh. Battery bank in shop will be 57 Kwh but usage is mainly during daylight hours. I'm looking for a way to switch PV from one system and feed it to the other. That would help with the shop loads. Other choice is load reduction for the shop. I'll have to push the pencil on it.

 

[ksmithaz1]

The second year is the one to look at. By then your system is more stable, you've figured out all the dumb stuff, tweaked up the system. Good thing to track, I'll have to work up the numbers. There are actually two I should figure total power and $$$. The latter is somewhat more difficult because of TOU, and I had a couple of stupid's last fall charging cars on-peak from the grid when I thought it was coming from the grid. I'll post when I get something.

 

[ksmithaz1]

I've been online with solar since 2023-07-02, but I don't have great data at this point, going to work this into my database. Based on my SRP billing from 2023-07-16 - 2024-01-15 and the output numbers from the inverter:

Total: 14391.2 KWH
Inverter: 12892.5 KWH - 80%
Grid: 2843 KWH - 20%

I had a dramatic decrease in grid use in October when I picked up an extra 30KWH of batteries. How much was due to cooling remains to be seen.
7/16-10/15: 2222
vs
10/16-01/15: 621

I expect the grid percentage to drop to around 15% by July this year, and 60KWH of battery is going to be real close at getting me through the night. Just need to figure out the car charging. To the point 90% is straightforward, the last 10% is a b*tch. My target is < 5% maybe $35-40/mo on the electric bill.

 

[Madcodger]

What really impressed me was the reduction in propane needed. Many people talk about reducing their need for grid electricity, but are offsetting only lighting and other modest loads in winter. That's great, but when you can use solar for heating, you're really extracting some value. Nicely done!