I read all these posts on here about SGIP and load vs efficiency. My brain hurts. Are you guys overthinking or am I underthinking?
I told Tesla I want four Powerwalls to go with my 10kw solar already installed. I'll get the 30% fed rebate and charge the batteries off the panels. I don't want to have to hunt down an installer that may or may not be able to deliver. Then when the big quake hits, I should be completely grid independent for a good 4-6 months of the year if need be. Considering how few homes there are in our neck of the woods, about 130 on our 10 mile street, we'll be pretty low on the PGE repair list. I could see a month of no power, easily. Longer if some of these elderly bridges collapse. No home generator would handle that. If the quake hits in deepest, darkest December, we're still making about 8.7kwh of power per day on average. Turning off the heat pumps and everything unnecessary should still get us by. We can bundle up.
We also get power outages 1-3 times a year from car crashes into power poles or trees falling. We have propane on one water heater and electric on the other, so we could turn off the electric and cut the power use even more. With 20kw of batteries, there's a good buffer. We can run the whole house since our largest branch circuits are 100 amps. I won't have to maintain or manage a generator anymore, which is a huge pain in the butt and unreliable. I also have the option of adding more solar some day. No more dragging the garage door open. No more unbolting the front gate. Actually, we stopped closing the gate partly for this reason.
I told Tesla I want four Powerwalls to go with my 10kw solar already installed. I'll get the 30% fed rebate and charge the batteries off the panels. I don't want to have to hunt down an installer that may or may not be able to deliver. Then when the big quake hits, I should be completely grid independent for a good 4-6 months of the year if need be. Considering how few homes there are in our neck of the woods, about 130 on our 10 mile street, we'll be pretty low on the PGE repair list. I could see a month of no power, easily. Longer if some of these elderly bridges collapse. No home generator would handle that. If the quake hits in deepest, darkest December, we're still making about 8.7kwh of power per day on average. Turning off the heat pumps and everything unnecessary should still get us by. We can bundle up.
We also get power outages 1-3 times a year from car crashes into power poles or trees falling. We have propane on one water heater and electric on the other, so we could turn off the electric and cut the power use even more. With 20kw of batteries, there's a good buffer. We can run the whole house since our largest branch circuits are 100 amps. I won't have to maintain or manage a generator anymore, which is a huge pain in the butt and unreliable. I also have the option of adding more solar some day. No more dragging the garage door open. No more unbolting the front gate. Actually, we stopped closing the gate partly for this reason.
