Spread Sheet to Help Plan For Solar

[fnnwizard]

Here's a Google spreadsheet I made to help me plan my solar journey. I thought I'd share it to help with anyone contemplating installing solar.

Feel Free to make a copy and play around with it.

Fill out the 12 month cost and consumption first. You enter your data anywhere it is green, then fill out the daily generation/consumption data and check any/all checkbox'es for useage.

I've included a sample (my actual useage) so you can see what it looks like filled out.

The savings are based on your avg grid price, but this can be a bit skewed if you are a heavy user during peak hours. It's likely your savings will be higher if you can shift peak useage with solar or have ESS.

Let me know if there are any errors or issues.

Enjoy!

DIYSOLAR Energy Consumption Analysis

12 Month Cost and Consumption Previous 12 Month Consumption and Cost and Estimated Cost @ New Pricing,Avg $/kWh TOU-D- Prime,Summer (Jun - Sep),Winter (Oct - May),Estimated at Current Rates and Previous Consumption,Actual Totals On Peak (4pm-9pm),Mid Peak (Weekends 4-9),Off Peak (9pm-4pm),Mid Pe...

docs.google.com

 

[fnnwizard]

Ok, have some time to further explain some info on the spreadsheet.

For 12 Month Cost and Consumption Sheet:

This should be your actual historical consumption taken from previous bills. The more data here the better. You can use 2,3 or more years of history here. We have Southern California Edison so bills only go back 3 years. Just average the monthly consumption over the last X number of years and then enter the info into the spreadsheet.

The Avg $/kWh is the weighted, average cost of your energy for all the hours of consumption' taking into account all the various peak, and non-peak periods and their respective rates.



For Daily Generation/Consumption Analysis Sheet:

Cell B3 = Effective battery size is Nominal capacity from 20% to 85% SOC. Giving you 65%.

Daily Cost = takes into account the various rates during the 24hr day, but doesn’t take into account the weekend/holiday rates. This is to keep it simple.

Rows 11 and 12 = How many instances of 15 min periods the appliance or electronic device is on.

Check Boxes = A hint here to use is to select multiple or all cells ( shift key + arrow or page down key) and hit just the space bar as many times as needed to check or uncheck selections.

Daily Consumption, Cell Z8 = should be less than the estimated Daily PV Generation, Cell AA12. Of course this can only be an estimate since time of year and weather will create variance. With solar panels being very favorably priced currently, it pays to oversize.

Savings Calculation, Row 2, P-AA: This area takes into account an ESS to use during peak hours. I’ve been meaning to create a section for energy needs without an ESS but the numbers don’t make sense without an ESS, at least for CA with the avg consumption data that I've seen.