Annual true up - follow up questions

[Wannaretire]

Hi Folks,

I’ll paste my true up bill below.
Wondering what else I can tweak to improve next year. Overall I’m ok with the roughly $300 true up/overage.

1. Should I change my rate plan? I dunno. Would like to get some input from the experts. No electric car yet. Perhaps in 2023 when my cybertruck arrives

2. Live in NorCal. Should I get my panels cleaned? They are all on the second story, so this is not easy. If anyone has recommendations of folks/companies that do a good job, I’m all ears.

Cheers!!

 

[Wannaretire]

True up pic

 

[Ampster]

The important question for me would be to do a comparison of rate plans. You are on a TOU plan with a 4-9 Peak. In your case, it really boils down to the two TOU plans available to you and specifically the slightly different time periods.
Look at your bills and the amount of power you are using at peak rates. It may be more beneficial to shift loads from Peak to Partial Peak or Off Peak to reduce you True Up balance due. I have to track my monthly usage on a spreadsheet to get an annual total and I use the running total to manage my load shifting and my consumption during peak times.

 

[Wannaretire]

The important question for me would be to do a comparison of rate plans. You are on a TOU plan with a 4-9 Peak. In your case, it really boils down to the two TOU plans available to you and specifically the slightly different time periods.
Look at your bills and the amount of power you are using at peak rates. It may be more beneficial to shift loads from Peak to Partial Peak or Off Peak to reduce you True Up balance due. I have to track my monthly usage on a spreadsheet to get an annual total and I use the running total to manage my load shifting and my consumption during peak times.

Thanks! Sounds like a lot of work, lol.
Appreciate your post. I know you help a lot of folks here. Happy holidays!!

 

[Ampster]

I did not answer the question about the value of cleaning your panels because it depends on a lot of factors unique to your specific location. Dust and pollen are the two main culprits.

 

[jjrandorin]

As for point number 2, I believe @sorka did an analysis of dusty vs clean panels, in a thread here somewhere. I believe their findings match what I found on my own system, which is, unless you are doing it yourself, the cost to have the panels cleaned more than likely outweighs the amount of money the increase in production generates.

Said another way in more plain language, where I am, it cost me about $200 to have my 34 second story panels professionally cleaned, by the same company that cleans my windows. The increase in production does not = $200 worth of energy, so from a money perspective, this doesnt work out. I do it anyway, once a year, when the company is out cleaning my windows, simply because:

1. I like the slightly higher production number
2. I like supporting this small business window cleaning company, because they do excellent work and really take good care of their customers. Thats worth a lot in my book.

Point #2 is the real reason why I tack on the PV cleaning when the window cleaning company is here. Its a small company, (owner + 2 others), hes been in business a long time, and does EXCELLENT work, and is very personable.

If you are asking "will hiring someone to clean my panels save me money", it depends on how bad the pollen / dust on them is, but it probably doesnt pay if you hire someone. If you can do it yourself (which on a 2nd storyroof many are not going to do) then thats another story.

 

[Wannaretire]

As for point number 2, I believe @sorka did an analysis of dusty vs clean panels, in a thread here somewhere. I believe their findings match what I found on my own system, which is, unless you are doing it yourself, the cost to have the panels cleaned more than likely outweighs the amount of money the increase in production generates.

Said another way in more plain language, where I am, it cost me about $200 to have my 34 second story panels professionally cleaned, by the same company that cleans my windows. The increase in production does not = $200 worth of energy, so from a money perspective, this doesnt work out. I do it anyway, once a year, when the company is out cleaning my windows, simply because:

1. I like the slightly higher production number
2. I like supporting this small business window cleaning company, because they do excellent work and really take good care of their customers. Thats worth a lot in my book.

Point #2 is the real reason why I tack on the PV cleaning when the window cleaning company is here. Its a small company, (owner + 2 others), hes been in business a long time, and does EXCELLENT work, and is very personable.

If you are asking "will hiring someone to clean my panels save me money", it depends on how bad the pollen / dust on them is, but it probably doesnt pay if you hire someone. If you can do it yourself (which on a 2nd storyroof many are not going to do) then thats another story.

Thanks!!

 

[wwu123]

Hi Folks,

I’ll paste my true up bill below.
Wondering what else I can tweak to improve next year. Overall I’m ok with the roughly $300 true up/overage.

1. Should I change my rate plan? I dunno. Would like to get some input from the experts. No electric car yet. Perhaps in 2023 when my cybertruck arrives

2. Live in NorCal. Should I get my panels cleaned? They are all on the second story, so this is not easy. If anyone has recommendations of folks/companies that do a good job, I’m all ears.

Cheers!!

Your true-up bill looks a lot like mine in terms of the seasonal usage, except since I have EV's already, I have quite a bit more off-peak usage all-year round for EV charging. I'm also on E-TOU-C, it is very likely to already be the lowest rate plan for you, followed by E-1. Much higher will be E-TOU-D, and lastly EV2-A (which would murder you given your seasonal usage). You can log into pge.com and use their electric rate plan comparison to see based on your actual 12-month usage to confirm.

One peak kwh is not equal to another, it accrues each month at the seasonal rate. Since most of your peak usage is in winter, not summer, it's probably lighting, TV, and running your HVAC fan - so probably hard to load-shift. But it doesn't really matter, peak and off-peak are within $0.02 for 8 months of the year, so load-shifting is not worth it, it's almost as flat as non-TOU E-1. Then in the four summer months, you hardly have any net peak usage - less lighting needs in the late afternoon and maybe still a bit of solar production after 4 pm. But summer 4-9 pm is where you might look to load-shift further, even if you go below 0 kwh (net generator), because you bank 1.5-2 hrs of off-peak usage for night or later in the year.

 

[Wannaretire]

Your true-up bill looks a lot like mine in terms of the seasonal usage, except since I have EV's already, I have quite a bit more off-peak usage all-year round for EV charging. I'm also on E-TOU-C, it is very likely to already be the lowest rate plan for you, followed by E-1. Much higher will be E-TOU-D, and lastly EV2-A (which would murder you given your seasonal usage). You can log into pge.com and use their electric rate plan comparison to see based on your actual 12-month usage to confirm.

One peak kwh is not equal to another, it accrues each month at the seasonal rate. Since most of your peak usage is in winter, not summer, it's probably lighting, TV, and running your HVAC fan - so probably hard to load-shift. But it doesn't really matter, peak and off-peak are within $0.02 for 8 months of the year, so load-shifting is not worth it, it's almost as flat as non-TOU E-1. Then in the four summer months, you hardly have any net peak usage - less lighting needs in the late afternoon and maybe still a bit of solar production after 4 pm. But summer 4-9 pm is where you might look to load-shift further, even if you go below 0 kwh (net generator), because you bank 1.5-2 hrs of off-peak usage for night or later in the year.

Wow, this is great analysis! Much appreciated. I will login into pge.com and play with their calculators. Cheers!

 

[sorka]

I was cleaning panels every two weeks but finally gave up on that. When the air is not ashy from fires, it maxes out around 6% loss. The problem is right after you clean them, the loss racks up non linearly towards that 6% so that it's really like 4% within just a week and 6% after a month.

So not only is it not worth paying someone to clean your panels, depending on your situation, it may not be worth your time if that time comes with opportunity costs that could either make you more money or give you more time to finish other worthwhile projects that have permanent ROI on time investment with lower or no continuing effort to reap those benefits.

The big exception is if there's an ash event from forest fires. In those cases, you could see production cut in half or even more.

My daughter's high school has about a megawatt of panels. Basically every parking spot for a 1500 student high school is now covered with solar. About 2 months ago, they finally cleaned them for the first time. I watched the company on their scissor lifts spend the entire weekend cleaning them with a crew of about 10. I suspect it costs thousands. Within a week, the dust was quite visible again and then the rains came a few weeks later and cleaned the panels and to this day, they remain clean because the storms have kept them washed and kept the air very clear in between. There's no way that commercial sized cleaning was cost effective.

 

[slcasner]

So not only is it not worth paying someone to clean your panels, depending on your situation, it may not be worth your time if that time comes with opportunity costs that could either make you more money or give you more time to finish other worthwhile projects that have permanent ROI on time investment with lower or no continuing effort to reap those benefits.

My biggest concern is spending water.