I have Solar!!!
Aug. 5th, 2018 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Solar electricity, that is.
The friendly workmen finished installing it yesterday. Now I have 18 panels on my roof, three new boxes in the garage (the inverter, the gateway, and the battery) and a new app on my phone. The app is the Tesla Powerwall app (the battery) which not only shows the status of the battery (charging, discharging, % full) but also the way the power is flowing between the solar, the battery, the grid, and my house. It is SO COOL! Right this minute, with the lovely blazing winter sun, the solar is generating 3.4kW, the house is using 0.7kW, and the battery is being charged with the rest. Squee! Whee! (dances a virtual sun-dance)
Even if I don't generate enough to put it back into the grid (and thus be paid for it), it does look as if I will be pretty close to self-sustaining, at least on sunny days. Because the battery charges during the day, I'll be using it at night instead of taking power from the grid. I'll have to look at the pattern of it, how long it takes to fill the battery completely -- it's currently at 44%, the time is twenty minutes past noon, and it's wintertime, so the light will be fading around 5pm, so I don't think it will fill up completely today, and then it's going to be being drained tonight, but I don't know if it will be drained completely... as I said, I'm going to have to observe the pattern of it. Which of course will also vary depending on the weather.
But it is SO COOL!
The friendly workmen finished installing it yesterday. Now I have 18 panels on my roof, three new boxes in the garage (the inverter, the gateway, and the battery) and a new app on my phone. The app is the Tesla Powerwall app (the battery) which not only shows the status of the battery (charging, discharging, % full) but also the way the power is flowing between the solar, the battery, the grid, and my house. It is SO COOL! Right this minute, with the lovely blazing winter sun, the solar is generating 3.4kW, the house is using 0.7kW, and the battery is being charged with the rest. Squee! Whee! (dances a virtual sun-dance)
Even if I don't generate enough to put it back into the grid (and thus be paid for it), it does look as if I will be pretty close to self-sustaining, at least on sunny days. Because the battery charges during the day, I'll be using it at night instead of taking power from the grid. I'll have to look at the pattern of it, how long it takes to fill the battery completely -- it's currently at 44%, the time is twenty minutes past noon, and it's wintertime, so the light will be fading around 5pm, so I don't think it will fill up completely today, and then it's going to be being drained tonight, but I don't know if it will be drained completely... as I said, I'm going to have to observe the pattern of it. Which of course will also vary depending on the weather.
But it is SO COOL!
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Date: 2018-08-05 04:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-05 07:49 am (UTC)Mind you, the battery was just as costly as all the panels.
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Date: 2018-08-05 07:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-05 08:03 am (UTC)(icon love)
(I want new fic with Romana in it, dammit!)
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Date: 2018-08-05 05:49 am (UTC)We get peanuts for selling back to the grid which is why we're not getting more panels till we have the batteries to store power. However on sunny days we pretty much operate free (servers, washing machine, cooking...)
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Date: 2018-08-05 07:59 am (UTC)I'm more interested in being self-sufficient than selling back to the grid, so I wasn't really paying attention when they were talking about the sell-back rates. Just the fact that I won't be paying much for power is a financial win anyway. 8-)
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Date: 2018-08-05 08:57 am (UTC)Apparently the batteries are on hold while they put more resource into car manufacture. I'm not sure why we've missed out though when you have batteries. I do get sick of living in the arse-end of the world.
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Date: 2018-08-05 09:12 am (UTC)Cool.
I'm not sure why we've missed out though when you have batteries.
Yeah, I would have expected us to miss out too.
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Date: 2018-08-05 07:30 pm (UTC)There is a house in our neighborhood that's got a sign up advertising the place that installed their solar panels. Something to look into.
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Date: 2018-08-05 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2018-08-08 07:20 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2018-08-08 07:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-08-08 07:23 am (UTC)Unfortunately our current government is attacking renewables because they're in the pockets of the mining giants. *headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*