diy solar

diy solar

Local power company solar tax - can this be avoided?

Certainly a PITA.
I agree. I still believe that we have the right to self generate behind the meter without needing to get permission from the power company. Codes can be different from state to state. I will leave that interpretation to someone in Alabama.
 
That's what I though at first too, then deleted those posts... See the last quote in #13...they were kind enough to spell out an example (sorry, didn't get added/edited in time before your post).

I have to hand it to the @Ampster for his comprehension into the minds of the Alabama's state regulators (no insult intended dude, you rock).

I read the rate schedule backwards. I now think it says,

1) If your generation capacity is no more than 6% of your peak consumption, you can remain on your previous rate schedule.
2) The $5/kW (more or less) fee is based on nameplate capacity of your generator
"The Customer may request the Company to calculate its actual capacity requirementto which the Capacity Reservation Charge shall be applied if the Customer believes the nameplate capacity of its installed on-site, non-emergency electric generating capacity exceeds its actual capacity needs."
3) Alternatively, agree to pay $0.70/kWh for the peak rate window.

Looks to like even if you don't export power, these apply.

In my case I'm happy with a high rate per kWh because I mostly spin the meter backwards during those yours. At least I used to when Noon to 6:00 PM was peak, more difficult now that it's 4:00 to 9:00 PM, just have to minimize consumption. (California)
 
Looks to like even if you don't export power, these apply.
Yes they would like you to self report so they can charge you. I have only extensively researched this for California and I still believe we have the right to do whatever we want behind the meter as long as we comply with building codes.
Alabama may be different.
 
After some more "rate adjustments" here in So Cal. Southern California Edison has managed to get my electric bills back up to almost where they were before I installed the solar panels. As far as I can tell, I do not see any direct charge for how much I can generate, but the "non bypassable charges" have gone up 3 times in just a year, and the forced "Time of Use" rates have also all increased a bit. True it has been very hot so I used a lot of A/C, and with the fires' smoke and ash etc. my solar production has been down, but my last 2 bills both topped $200 which is not good. I used to just top $200 on very hot months before solar. So it is pretty silly now. There is no doubt they are working hard to make people NOT install solar.

With that being said. It would be very difficult to try and work around it all and put in solar without having some agreement with the electric utility. If you did make absolutely sure it never exported any power, you could try and get away with it, but if you do end up getting caught there could be fines involved.

One idea I thought of was to build basically a full off grid system that runs the house, and if all goes well, you never have to buy any power from the grid. But just in case.... Have the grid only connected to a battery charger. If the battery get's too low, it can turn on and charge your battery far cheaper than any fuel generator. I have a 600 watt charger, 10 amps into my 14S pack, and I could line up a few of them and just turn on as much as I need to get by, and of course, only at the cheap rate time.

Using a system like this, I do not see any legal way they could say you are violating any codes or laws etc. Make sure the off grid system meets any electrical safety code and zoning and you just have to pay Big Electric Co. a monthly connect fee, and once in a while, when you kick on a charger, a few KWH's here and there. No chance of any back feed ever, they can't charge you to have access to your power, and the only bad thing is when you do top up your batteries, you have to throw out any excess power, because you can't sell it to the grid. Maybe add an electric water heater that it can power to save some gas when you have a lot of solar and don't use enough.

Of course, this is not cheap, as an off grid system for a normal family home is going to be pretty big and expensive. Batteries are still going to be the biggest part. I only have 17 KWH's which is clearly not enough if I want to run my A/C at all. To truly go this off grid route now, I would need 3 times the battery, and maybe a second inverter. 6,800 watts just might not be enough to take it if I fire up the welder and the AC happens to kick on.

I wonder what would happen if I went back to So Cal Edison and said.... "Thanks to your crappy rate schedule, I have disconnected all my solar gear, I want to go back to no Net Energy Metering, and go back to tiered power billing." But then the next month, I only use 50 watt hours total as I am running off grid?? It would not be a lie if I "disconnected" all me gear from their meter, right?
 
That's essentially what I have here. My solar setup never goes anywhere near the mains. I have some red power sockets set up for the inverter output with the only permanent wired things moved to solar being water heater (not connected to the inverter anyway) and an air conditioner. I'm not a normal use case of course but that works quite nicely for me. I already had free standing lamps in the house and tended to use them for lighting anyway rather than turning on ceiling lighting so it was a case of unplug from white outlet, move to red outlet and done.

The government operated electricity retailer I use here (QLD Australia) is still solar friendly so it's more of a case of 'because I can' rather than having to put up with commercial entity trying to rip the bottom out of my wallet.
 
non bypassable charges" have gone up 3 times in just a year,
The more you self consume outside you solar generation window the lower those will be. They only amount to a rate adder of $0.025 per kWh but they are $120 to $150 per year for me. I rationalize that as EV charging and I don't want to wear out my batteries charging EV batteries. I am trying to pick off some of the afternoon solar ocassionally to add a few kWhs to my EVs. I have plenty of NEM credits to last until True Up so now it is a balancing act.
It does sound like you might need more generation. You could do it with more micros or by a charge controller for your Schneider. Do you have to roof space?
 
It would not be a lie if I "disconnected" all me gear from their meter, right?
In one sense you have already disconnected your gear when you AC coupled. Now all you need to do is set your inverter to non export. I do think that would leave you with some curtailment unless you increased your battery capacity. Look at your consumption at peak rates and figure how much you can cut back. That will be your biggest payback.
 
Yes, in my case, I probably should add a few more panels.
I can easily fit 4 across my garage roof. These would lay flatter and give more summer energy to help run the A/C.
And maybe 2 more on the lower roof, but they will have a bit of shadow in the morning from the second floor. They would get full sun starting about 10:30 am, so not a huge loss. My closest panel now also sees the shadow of the upper floor, and goes into full sun about 9 am, so it is only down 5% of it's neighbor. New ones closer tot he upper floor wall would likely be down another 5%, but will still be making full power for over 4 hours.

To add more Enphase micro inverters, I would need to run a new feed as 16 is the max that can parallel on a single breaker due to the #12 awg enphase cable. The maximum current on the #12 cable is only 8 amps. The 8 panels from the upper roof and the 8 panels from the lower roof currently splice together to #10 wire for the rest of the run at up to 16 amps to the Envoy. But it has to be breakered at 20 amps to be legal on the cables. The 4 on the garage could be DC coupled and won't have much of a shade issue, but the Schneider charge controller is stupid expensive. And if I add the other 2 on the lower roof, I know the shading would cause a balance issue. Maybe the Enphase iQ8's will come out and I can use those and the new 6 can help the Schneider XW form a stiffer grid. I could bring those 6 down on a new feed to an additional breaker in the Envoy Combiner.

It just really bothers me that under my pre solar power arrangement, I was on tiered power with the first about 300 KWH's per month only being billed at $0.15 per KWH. And now under "Time of Use" the cheapest rate is nearly $0.25 per KWH. That does not sound like a lot, but it is a 66.66% rate increase from my old tier 1 power. And most months I could keep under that tier 1 rate with the solar, but it is no longer an option and I think it is a rip off. I have to go back to my August - Sept. 2018 bill to find one that went over $200 That's a full year before my solar went live. This month is going to be $229 for power, not including the taxes and other "non bypassable charges" that will be about $20 on top of that. No wonder that want to do the yearly billing, so they can hide behind these rates. Make the bill so confusing, no one can really see what they are doing without using a spreadsheet. They are sending far less power to my home, and getting almost as much money. Needless to say, the pay off time I calculated for my solar investment was about half of reality. I had originally figured it would pay off in about 7 years. Not a chance now.
 
Redid the math in #14, I seriously can't be trusted with a calculator and net metering in Alabama looks dreadful. Sure hope battery day has some good news for folks with agreements like that. State politicians ought to relook at those policies.... it's fair for solar owners to pay some portion of the line maintenance, but those types of agreements either give them energy for free or charge them more to do so.
 
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