Owning Your Own PV System

[Hv&Lv]

I'll preface this by saying that I know little about PV systems but I have some questions. Just about every time I'm in Lowe's or Home Depot the pushy, wandering solar salesman seems to find me. It got me thinking that the last thing that I would want is a long term contract with some third party company.

So for my needs I'm curious about installing a system that you would own outright with something like a battery backup for grid power failures. Do these exist? Also when sizing the system is it possible to have one that is large enough so that you really don't use very much of the grid power? A sparky told me that the POCO will not allow a system that is larger than your demand so that you're always buying some power from the POCO.

A common sales trick is to say something like,”you won’t need the power company”
Or “your power bill will go to 0”

It’s all a lie. You will always have a power bill. If you don’t ever use power again you will have the fee just to be connected and have a meter.
UNLESS! You go off grid.
Personally, I’m not tough enough nor knowledgeable for that type of living.

If it’s attached to the grid for export, then voltage following devices monitor the grid. When the power goes off, so do the inverters. Batteries can run some stuff in your house for a while.

 

[infinity]

UNLESS! You go off grid.
Personally, I’m not tough enough nor knowledgeable for that type of living.

If it’s attached to the grid for export, then voltage following devices monitor the grid. When the power goes off, so do the inverters. Batteries can run some stuff in your house for a while.

Off grid is not an option. The thought was in a prolonged outage the PV array would provide power and charge the batteries during the daylight hours. Are you saying that this type of system is not feasible?

 

[ggunn]

A common sales trick is to say something like,”you won’t need the power company”
Or “your power bill will go to 0”

It’s all a lie. You will always have a power bill. If you don’t ever use power again you will have the fee just to be connected and have a meter.
UNLESS! You go off grid.
Personally, I’m not tough enough nor knowledgeable for that type of living.

If it’s attached to the grid for export, then voltage following devices monitor the grid. When the power goes off, so do the inverters. Batteries can run some stuff in your house for a while.

Residential PV systems have changed dramatically over the last 10 years with the advent of more affordable Li ion batteries and spurred on by widespread power outages like the Snowpocalypse of 2021. The design manager for a local PV company told me a couple of weeks ago that nowadays half of the residential systems they are building include batteries.

Depending on the size of the batteries, the amount of connected PV, the weather, and the magnitude of the load being powered by the system during grid outages, it can be possible for such systems to run sustainably during an extended outage.

The down side of these newer systems is that unlike traditional grid tied PV, they are not simply "set it and forget it". They require that the customer understand how their system works. They need to monitor their battery usage and manage their loads so that they have power when they need it.

 

[electrofelon]

A common sales trick is to say something like,”you won’t need the power company”
Or “your power bill will go to 0”

It’s all a lie. You will always have a power bill. If you don’t ever use power again you will have the fee just to be connected and have a meter.
UNLESS! You go off grid.
Personally, I’m not tough enough nor knowledgeable for that type of living.

If it’s attached to the grid for export, then voltage following devices monitor the grid. When the power goes off, so do the inverters. Batteries can run some stuff in your house for a while.

Well actually, where I am you could have a zero bill. Annual surplus is given as a bill credit and will go toward the monthly service fee. I have enough of a surplus that I get about 5 months of a zero bill. But no it's not really cost effective to do that because the surplus is paid at a wholesale rate. You are best off meeting all your KWH and paying the monthly fee . Beats buying and maintaining batteries!

 

[Joe.B]

this type of system is not feasible?

I'm jumping in late, so I'm not answering for anybody else, but I just had a question for you. Are the big 4 appliances in the house gas or electric? If you're using gas for the high demand stuff, it's very feasible and affordable. The more electric appliances you want to use during an outage, the less affordable it becomes.

 

[infinity]

I'm jumping in late, so I'm not answering for anybody else, but I just had a question for you. Are the big 4 appliances in the house gas or electric? If you're using gas for the high demand stuff, it's very feasible and affordable. The more electric appliances you want to use during an outage, the less affordable it becomes.

All gas except for the wall oven.

 

[Joe.B]

A friend of mine recently got a Tesla battery installed. In his case it was basically free because he needs a CPAP machine at night and lives in an area that gets frequent outages. Most of his high demand appliances are gas. During an outage, if he's conservative with his use, he can last well over a week. Basically that means not running the laundry or dishwasher.