diy solar

diy solar

States/Cities Attempting To Limit You Self Produced Power...

SamG340 said:
Also the not that many people go off grid , even now hardly anyone has battery storage

I'd guess less that 1% of the population has a meaningful sized solar & battery set up

It's just the man stamping down hard on those of us who want a little freedom.
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Huh. I finally made it into a 1% club!

We have a coop here, which is a whole different animal and they aren't regulated the same or very much at all. I tried for six months to get someone to call me back about solar so I could try to do it the right way and make them happy. Never returned one call. The "solar guy" never once answered his phone when I called. I was talking to a local commercial electrician and he told me to give it up. They claim they are solar friendly but they're going to throw every roadblock possible in front of you. He recommended off-grid. Fortunately, we're rural and in Texas so you can do just about whatever you want. That's how I ended up here and I'm SOOO glad I did. I'm not 100% off-grid and don't really want to be but I've eaten into a chunk of their income from me and keep doing so. If push came to shove I'm finally at a point I could tell them to pull their meter and get their ass off my property. I really, really don't want to do that, but I could in a jam. It's a good feeling.

But yeah, I think a lot more regulations are coming and it will be poorly camouflaged as being for the good of the public. Gonna be ugly, I'm afraid.
 
Hedges said:
That is the California way.
Apparently the plan to be imposed shortly is distribution costs allocated over all customers, regardless of kWh usage.
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Where did you see that?
Hedges said:
Sliding scale, from $20 for the poor to $85 for the rich, per month. Reduced rate per kWh actually consumed.
(Many articles say it is a flat rate electric bill, but the words I see indicate only the infrastructure fee is flat rate.)
Click to expand...
 
EastTexCowboy said:
Huh. I finally made it into a 1% club!

We have a coop here, which is a whole different animal and they aren't regulated the same or very much at all. I tried for six months to get someone to call me back about solar so I could try to do it the right way and make them happy. Never returned one call. The "solar guy" never once answered his phone when I called. I was talking to a local commercial electrician and he told me to give it up. They claim they are solar friendly but they're going to throw every roadblock possible in front of you. He recommended off-grid. Fortunately, we're rural and in Texas so you can do just about whatever you want. That's how I ended up here and I'm SOOO glad I did. I'm not 100% off-grid and don't really want to be but I've eaten into a chunk of their income from me and keep doing so. If push came to shove I'm finally at a point I could tell them to pull their meter and get their ass off my property. I really, really don't want to do that, but I could in a jam. It's a good feeling.

But yeah, I think a lot more regulations are coming and it will be poorly camouflaged as being for the good of the public. Gonna be ugly, I'm afraid.
Click to expand...
We may live thousands of miles apart ETC but man oh man your situation is SOOOO much like mine, i mean I could write exactly the same post, and just put Ontario instead of Texas. LOL
yeah a good feeling to not need them 'too much' I am with ya there too!
 
OffGridForGood said:
Typical utility rates are super low/ middle of the road/ super high? ( to me low is under 10 cents, mid is 15-ish high is over 20 cents but this is just my perspective)
Click to expand...

It's variable across the country. My rates ($A) are:

Code: 
Service:         $1.5024/day
Peak:            $0.4193/kWh
Shoulder:        $0.3676/kWh
Off-Peak:        $0.2758/kWh
Controlled Load: $0.2090/kWh
Feed-in credit:  $0.1300/kWh

OffGridForGood said:
Going forward, you see the grid getting a significant portion of its' energy from all the users themselves, feeding into the grid, so what does happen on a poor solar day, when all those home PV system suck, does a huge Nat Gas generating plant get kicked 'on' how does this system deal with variations in production efficiently?
Click to expand...

Also this is variable by region/state.

In South Australia for instance they experience days when 100% of total grid demand is being met by rooftop solar PV alone. It's never that high in my state but across the nation it is growing and is a significant contributor to supply. Nationally, rooftop solar PV contributed over 10% of the entire grid demand in the past 12 months.

As to what happens when solar PV is not generating so much, well it depends on what else is in the mix at the time. Wind power is also a big generator, so if the wind is blowing then supply stays largely renewable.

But for times when VRE is unable to meet demand then they:
i. have large battery storage facilities for short term fluctuations
ii. import energy from a neighbouring state
iii. use gas peakers to manage periods of supply shortfall

Even so, the use of gas (and fossil sources in general) in SA keeps falling. Over last 12 months it relies on gas for ~25% of supply, with 70% of supply coming from solar PV and wind.

In other areas, like my state of NSW, coal is still the dominate source of grid supply, but it is declining. We had another major coal power station close the other day, with the largest one scheduled to close in 2025.

On a national basis we are ramping down fossil and ramping up renewables. That change is accelerating:

Screen Shot 2023-05-07 at 9.40.00 am.png
 
OffGridForGood said:
The last bit, what does the grid do, when there is a poor solar day, you noted coal fired plants, but to my understanding these can't just 'switch on' on a moments' notice. Meanwhile, no matter how sunny it is during the day, night time loads exist, and since few umes have batteries, what does the grid do during nights?
Click to expand...
Stuff ramps up and down as required. Last three days nationally aggregated data:

Screen Shot 2023-05-07 at 9.47.22 am.png
 
wattmatters said:
In South Australia for instance they experience days when 100% of total grid demand is being met by rooftop solar PV alone. It's never that high in my state
Click to expand...
I am wondering how they achieve this, since it is only sunny during the day, but loads continue into the night. You pointed out that very few people use battery back up personnally, do does the grid have some massive battery bank to be able to be '100% solar' day and night?
 
OffGridForGood said:
does the grid have some massive battery bank to be able to be '100% solar' day and night?
Click to expand...
I didn't mean 100% solar day and night. I meant there are days when solar PV at times supplies 100% of demand. Apologies for any confusion on that. Those periods might last an hour or so. But it is significant because it's quite the challenge for grid operators.
 
We had this long period of transition as well: when you live in a country with oil coal and gas 'everywhere', it is tough to get the ball rolling on shutting down these major industries. I mean, when a whole industrial sector of the economy is mining processing delivering and using coal, it takes a lot of pressure, time and money to get this changed.
In Ontario we closed our last coal fired plants a few years ago, and put an end to any new natural gas plants. The Province is still using Nat Gas for about 25% of electricity production, but like your situation, these are the units that can quickly scale to demand. We are prettly lucky to have abundant hydro-electric capacity, but these units I am told do not do well to be played with, better to let them run steady all the time.
Thanks for all the insight into Australia's system,
I sure wish we had low cost Solar installation industry like you guys have, I mean from what were told, you guys get a full professionally installed PV system for about the same as what it cost us just to buy the parts/panels/equipment! But then again, I may not have gotten to this point in DIY if we did have that available.
 
SignatureSolarJames said:
This is one of the key topics to prepre for in the coming years, they will start treating us all like charter schools vs public schools and attempt to infringe the rights of off-gridders to prop up a broken government sponsored monoopoly.

One of the things that honestly make me passionate about earlier adoption and organization of this community as an interest group before rights are taken away without the proper fight.
Click to expand...
Just like the Homeschoolers, we will organize and fight them to the death, or at least to the "Leave us the hell alone"
 
EastTexCowboy said:
Huh. I finally made it into a 1% club!

We have a coop here, which is a whole different animal and they aren't regulated the same or very much at all. I tried for six months to get someone to call me back about solar so I could try to do it the right way and make them happy. Never returned one call. The "solar guy" never once answered his phone when I called. I was talking to a local commercial electrician and he told me to give it up. They claim they are solar friendly but they're going to throw every roadblock possible in front of you. He recommended off-grid. Fortunately, we're rural and in Texas so you can do just about whatever you want. That's how I ended up here and I'm SOOO glad I did. I'm not 100% off-grid and don't really want to be but I've eaten into a chunk of their income from me and keep doing so. If push came to shove I'm finally at a point I could tell them to pull their meter and get their ass off my property. I really, really don't want to do that, but I could in a jam. It's a good feeling.

But yeah, I think a lot more regulations are coming and it will be poorly camouflaged as being for the good of the public. Gonna be ugly, I'm afraid.
Click to expand...
When I talked to my local co op, they tried to discourage me, said it was not worth it, then changed course when they saw I was determined and said to sell back to them.....they charge 12.5 cents and want to pay me 4 cents......hello batteries, here I come.....still use them as the back up battery.
 
OffGridForGood said:
from what were told, you guys get a full professionally installed PV system for about the same as what it cost us just to buy the parts/panels/equipment!
Click to expand...
Professionally installed grid-tied solar PV costs ~A$1.00 ± 0.30 per PV watt. A$1 = US$0.68.

Screen Shot 2023-05-07 at 10.40.52 am.png
www.solarchoice.net.au

The Cost of Solar Panels - Solar Panel Price | Solar Choice

Solar Choice publishes the average cost of solar panels broken down by each state of Australia. Updated every month! Read more to save on solar today.
www.solarchoice.net.au www.solarchoice.net.au
 
I paid more than those rates just for the PV panels. DANG!
okay I guess this makes no damn sense since my utility rates are 8-14 cents (half of Aus rates) but the cost of solar is triple your costs.
AND your solar potential is 160% of mine.
I see why I am 'all alone' on this solar journey in my neck of the woods, everyone else just pay the utility rates.
Not really alone on this, there are lots of solar farms and private solar set ups around here, just spouting off.
 
SolarScott said:
When I talked to my local co op, they tried to discourage me, said it was not worth it, then changed course when they saw I was determined and said to sell back to them.....they charge 12.5 cents and want to pay me 4 cents......hello batteries, here I come.....still use them as the back up battery.
Click to expand...
We get off on this topic and I start getting all antsy, wanting to buy a couple of those EG4 18K or maybe some of those Deye inverters like @timselectric snagged, and a bunch more batteries. I need to stop hanging out here until I recover from the last massive cash hemorrhage. Y'all are a bad influence. Or good, I suppose, depending on the perspective.
 
EastTexCowboy said:
We get off on this topic and I start getting all antsy, wanting to buy a couple of those EG4 18K or maybe some of those Deye inverters like @timselectric snagged, and a bunch more batteries. I need to stop hanging out here until I recover from the last massive cash hemorrhage. Y'all are a bad influence. Or good, I suppose, depending on the perspective.
Click to expand...
yeah instead of self help, were all feeding off each others' addictions here! LOL
there are worse things to spend time and money on!
I do want to get my hands on one of those EG4-18K's too! Wasn't "The Plan" to use the MPP's for at least five years ?? Testing my resolve I can feel it!
 
OffGridForGood said:
yeah instead of self help, were all feeding off each others' addictions here! LOL
there are worse things to spend time and money on!
I do want to get my hands on one of those EG4-18K's too! Wasn't "The Plan" to use the MPP's for at least five years ?? Testing my resolve I can feel it!
Click to expand...
I thought the plan was 2 years. And we start counting when we bought them, not when we installed them. Or was it 18 months? I'm old. Hard to recall.
 
SolarScott said:
When I talked to my local co op, they tried to discourage me, said it was not worth it, then changed course when they saw I was determined and said to sell back to them.....they charge 12.5 cents and want to pay me 4 cents......hello batteries, here I come.....still use them as the back up battery.
Click to expand...
I figure if the DIY batteries really last 4000 cycles, or lets just say "days" -then the cost per kWh of battery should be about 3-4 cents. ie a good deal.
 
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