I want to do something like that but just have the solar circuits entirely disconnected from the grid, running stuff like fridge, freezer, water heater, car charger, etc (depends how many watts my panels can actually manage in practice; I don’t have a ton of space). all without being able to draw from the grid at all.
My state is pretty shitty about solar, and I don’t particularity want to give the electric company my surplus power for free for them to turn around and profit from, so fuck ‘em, ill figure out how to perfectly balance my use with my capacity and just save the spend.
Yes, thats exactly what they do. No net metering, no discounts or rebates, nothing, but if your power flows back into the grid, they sure will charge for it at the exact same rate as if they created it themselves, and charge you as much as they can get away with to eat into your savings (some utilities around here even make you pay a monthly fee to have your own solar on “their” grid…). No surprise hardly anyone here has solar; it’s generally not worth having unless you can guarantee you use all of the power yourself.
My locality is mostly hydro power, we don’t even really have peak/off-peak rates, just pay the same all the time regardless because they can’t easily adapt to demand anyway. And like yay renewables and stuff, I’m super on board with that aspect, but I’m not on board with having a monopoly on the renewables, since my area is not typical of the state.
That’s absurd. People should use repurposed EV batteries and just power their homes on solar without connecting to the grid. I get that it’s probably a legal requirement to connect your solar to the grid, but that’s bullshit and nothing short of state-sanctioned theft.
I’m technically too urban to be entirely off-grid, legally, but I see no reason I can’t minimize my draw with a separate breaker system. Whole place needs to be rewired anyway because it’s ancient. Knot and tube ancient.
But most people aren’t willing to go through that, and I cant blame them because there aren’t any incentives to doing so, and most people don’t realize how much cheaper used solar farm panels are, so it just seems like a really bad deal. And for most, who would have it installed for them, new, maybe thats true. Used with mostly-self-install is much cheaper. Even better if the whole deal needs to be re-wired anyway.
I want to do something like that but just have the solar circuits entirely disconnected from the grid, running stuff like fridge, freezer, water heater, car charger, etc (depends how many watts my panels can actually manage in practice; I don’t have a ton of space). all without being able to draw from the grid at all.
My state is pretty shitty about solar, and I don’t particularity want to give the electric company my surplus power for free for them to turn around and profit from, so fuck ‘em, ill figure out how to perfectly balance my use with my capacity and just save the spend.
With the current prices of panels you might install a few more than needed.
That’s so fucked up. Even people who install solar have to give free energy to the utility company, who probably still charge them for energy…
Yes, thats exactly what they do. No net metering, no discounts or rebates, nothing, but if your power flows back into the grid, they sure will charge for it at the exact same rate as if they created it themselves, and charge you as much as they can get away with to eat into your savings (some utilities around here even make you pay a monthly fee to have your own solar on “their” grid…). No surprise hardly anyone here has solar; it’s generally not worth having unless you can guarantee you use all of the power yourself.
My locality is mostly hydro power, we don’t even really have peak/off-peak rates, just pay the same all the time regardless because they can’t easily adapt to demand anyway. And like yay renewables and stuff, I’m super on board with that aspect, but I’m not on board with having a monopoly on the renewables, since my area is not typical of the state.
That’s absurd. People should use repurposed EV batteries and just power their homes on solar without connecting to the grid. I get that it’s probably a legal requirement to connect your solar to the grid, but that’s bullshit and nothing short of state-sanctioned theft.
Exactly why basically that is my goal :)
I’m technically too urban to be entirely off-grid, legally, but I see no reason I can’t minimize my draw with a separate breaker system. Whole place needs to be rewired anyway because it’s ancient. Knot and tube ancient.
But most people aren’t willing to go through that, and I cant blame them because there aren’t any incentives to doing so, and most people don’t realize how much cheaper used solar farm panels are, so it just seems like a really bad deal. And for most, who would have it installed for them, new, maybe thats true. Used with mostly-self-install is much cheaper. Even better if the whole deal needs to be re-wired anyway.