How to size based on usage + location?

[jasonhc73]

You mentioned you don't have gas heater right? Steve pointed out a lot of excellent other energy hogs.

Let's talk about your energy bill and reducing it by adding just solar panels, and what that will give you.

In order for you to actually "back feed" the grid, you are going to have more panels than usage.
Do you want to risk going rogue? When I had my net-meter installed, they(the power company) told me that there are probably 10 solar installs in the county for every net-meter installed. They really don't care, because those panels never make enough power to actually back feed.

The odds of you actually turning the meter backward with a 5 KW solar system are very slim, especially in a valley in southern Ohio, but not at all impossible. I am only 2° south of you (assuming you are about 39° N latitude). I have near-zero shade when the sun is shining and a perfect 180 azimuth setting.

My panels are on my 180° facing roof, tilted at 15° (I am 37.6° N Latitude; this gives me a great summer bias; way more solar summer production). I have 20 panels of ~310 wHp panels. Mission Solar and a 5kW Solar Edge inverter. The solar energy is after the meter and before the panel. My house only sees 240V, it doesn't know or care if it's grid or solar.

Are you able to "DIY"? If so, there really is not much to do this except the actual labor of installing everything. connection to the panels, the inverter, and the loads' panel, is really rather trivial.

Here you get the equivalent of what I paid $16.7K to have installed. (I think Enphase is the only way to go honestly because you are getting 240V from the panels with the microinverters, it's a much simpler design, and far easier to scale) The only way I can add more to my system is to add another inverter, and then I can add more panels. My 5K inverter with 6.2 K of panels is at its optimal max. I has clipped production, but what would actually be a trivial amount on my utility bill, like 80 cents worth.

6.5 kW Grid Tied Solar System with Enphase IQ7+ Microinverters and 20x Mission Solar 325w Panels

UNBOUND Enphase IQ7+ Inverter Gridtie System for 20 Mission Solar 60 Cell Modules

www.wholesalesolar.com

Just review my dashboard to see how much the same(kWp) system is producing for real.

SolarEdge

monitoringpublic.solaredge.com

 

[solarflare]

Holy. Crap. Thats a lot of power going somewhere. You have a 5kw base load never mind your usage spikes - thats 120kwh a DAY. In comparison I have a gas furnace/hot water here in the pacific northwest and we use 830kwh a MONTH and thats actually kind of high.

How much do you pay for your gas / what are your monthly gas costs in the dead of winter and what temps do you see at that time?

 

[Maast]

How much do you pay for your gas / what are your monthly gas costs in the dead of winter and what temps do you see at that time?

Our monthly gas bill is about $100-120 in the middle of winter, I dont have this months bill anymore so I can't tell you how many cubic feet of gas that is though. Our average daily highs are about 45F in Dec-Jan even though every few years it'll get down into the teens for a few days.

 

[MagicToolbox]

You have clearly shown that you have large usage. I agree with most everyone else, find out where your power is going before you try to generate your own.

I'm pretty new here myself, but most everyone seems nice, I don't think anyone is going to run you out of town. There may be a bunch of questions that you don't want to post the answers to publicly that need to be asked to get to the bottom of your usage - understand that aside from the normal curiosity, I don't think anyone really cares what you are using your power for - grow lights, bitcoin farming, or CNC machining. As long as the numbers you see make sense to you, we don't care.

I would start with the largest breakers and work your way down. It looks like the sub panel is fed by a 100 amp breaker in the main. The secondary panel has a 60 amp breaker in it. What does that breaker power? Does your TED system break it down to the circuit level? If your home office server system is using 4k KWH, are all of them necessary? Can you lease servers from Amazon for less than your power costs?

A systematic approach should allow you to understand what your base level is, then you can start hunting that redonculous periodic peak energy hog.

 

[Santa]

I'm just curious where all of that energy is going. Are you running a factory in the back? Is someone leaching your power to mine Bitcoins? To me this seems extraordinary in a way that it must be wrong... I can't believe this is a regular family home. It seems it's not too hot, nor too cold where you're at if I see that right.

How would you know if someone was leaching your power or computer to mine bitcoins?

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

@Santa Essentially you add up all your power consuming devices and see if it makes sense. Take some parts of the electric circuit offline and check your meter. Usually it's not hard to figure this out if someone starts this since your bill suddenly spikes.

 

[Andy M]

Just a thought, your thermostats may have improper cycle rate adjustment for electric heat forced air furnace. All thermostats are factory set for gas forced air. If not set correctly, electric heat elements could cycle on with no blower for a few minutes.
Also available for forced air furnaces is an after market ECM blower motor, soft start. No more high start amps.

 

[NeilPorter4u]

I would shut off every breaker and then check and make note of your consumption for perhaps an hour for each one individually. You need to know exactly what is happening on every individual circuit. Then list all of them in descending order with the highest consumption at the top. That's where you should start analyzing why the consumption is so high and what can be done to reduce it. The spikes look ridiculous but you appear to have an almost constant 5 kWh consumption. 5 kWh * 24 hours is 120 kWh per day - 3600 kWh per month. What is running non-stop 24/7?

A mini-split unit in each room was already mentioned. That is a great idea for several reasons. * For air conditioning mine has a SEER rating of 22 BTU cooling per Watt consumed. I believe that code only requires SEER 13.
* Heating is reverse-cycle (heat pump) instead of resistive heat elements. The warmer the outside air is, the more efficiently it heats.
* The compressor is variable speed.
* Every room can be individually controlled. Set a schedule for each room according to when it's occupied or turn it on and off like you would with lights. Or set the AC at 85° and the heater at 60° when the room is unoccupied.
* My Pioneer has three fan speeds and an adjustable louver. Living in southwest Florida air conditioning is its major use. I've installed it in a location where it can blow on me if I want to utilize the wind-chill effect. In that way I still feel comfortable with the thermostat set a bit higher. On high speed, the fan itself only uses 30 Watt. At peak cooling load, my 9000 BTU unit consumes 700 Watt and then drops when the set temperature is reached.

If heating is a major cost, check your windows and doors. Are they single-pane glazing? Fit poorly and allowing cold air to come inside? Get an infrared thermometer and check the temperature of the interior surfaces of the exterior walls. Cold walls would indicate deficient or inadequate insulation. When I took the paneling off my walls, I found that the batt insulation had settled to the bottom and basically left my walls uninsulated.

If you have a shingle roof, it will absorb most of the sun's heat in the summer. Get a very good roof coating that can be applied to shingles and apply two coats. Look for a product with the highest reflectivity and emissivity percentages.

 

[Dhowman]

I found this presentation of a "Net Zero" off-grid house solution fascinating. Includes how to calculate solar capture #s for different geographies and implementing a solar solution using a product he designed and built, cost/benefit of alternatives, and how to design/size battery and thermal mass storage and panel capture to expected consumption and the vagaries of your local sun exposure (or lack thereof). There's a PDF of the solution that he talks you through in the video. If nothing else, it'll get your creative juices flowing.

 

[Rola]

Hi,
I am new to all of this. I am trying to build off grid system an d I really need help with which way to go. I thought about 2 tesla car batteries . This is my usage from my electric company. need help please!!!
Thanks
Rola

 

[cryptosager]

I'll be frank here. I've been scratching my head and fighting electricians for years. Every time I talk to someone in a forum (kinda like here) I get laughed out of town and I usually just go away. I'm not saying anyone's outright rude - it's just that I don't know what to do. I've literally had fights with AEP over this situation. We do use a lot of electricity with an office at home (many computers and servers, but even these only average out to around 1kw max it seems when they're all on) and a 3200 sq ft home that's single story. We poured a bunch of money into insulating the attic to very little avail.

The only real odd thing that I'm seeing (and I've argued with others about this locally) is that when my primary furnace heating elements circuit kicks on, it jumps to about 10k watts with another 4-5k watts on the "blower" circuit. This 14-15k watt surge tells me that there's something weird going on, but frankly it's back off after a matter of a minute it appears.

Again, I've had folks locally tell me again and again and again (for about 10 years now) that my energy usage for this size house is "normal" for our area. I have a very, very hard time swallowing that.

But yeah, here I am. AEP is going to bankrupt me. I'd like to figure out another option, but I cannot for my very life figure out what is actually going on.

I'm about to say "eff it" and rent a dozer and excavator and cover my house in plastic sheeting and BURRY most of it! I'm really trying to figure something out out of desperation at this point. I wouldn't mind throwing a few hundred dollars a month towards resolving this issue such that perhaps by this next summer I've got some of this monkey off of my back, but yeah, it's a very very hard nut to crack.

You'll have to forgive me, it's been a rough day.

Hello guys,
I am new to this forum but I find it very interesting and informative. I have read most of the thread to your case and I might add to all the previous useful notes, hints and advises. If your house is older than 15 years and running old equipment or devices, there might be a possibility of an 'electricity leakage'. Due to old wiring in the house and in the devices. I would suggest that you do a leakage test of all your circuits by an ammeter clamp and also do another test at each device level and write down your amperage to compare it with each device data sheet required amps. You will be surprised of the findings if you already have an issue with excessive power consumption. Most of the time it is due to old equipment or device consuming more amps than it should. You have a classical power consumption issue, please share your feedback here to enrich this forum members. Good luck.