Random:
It appears those living in Ca have quite a few limitations. I suppose I'm not surprised. I'm in Illinois, as are you, although I'm in Ameren territory. Many of the things a Ca solar owner will tell you don't apply or have diminished rational here.
Just in case you or future readers don't understand 1:1 netmetering, it essentially means I can put power onto the grid, for free, and take a matching amount off, at any time, also for free. I don't "sell" my power, I give it away for a right to reuse a matching amount at any time. Should I run out (won't happen to me for now) I would pay market rates for whatever I then consumed for that month. My balance is reset to zero each April.
I produce a LOT more then my annual consumption showed. My son (I did the design for his and my house and we both bought systems) makes an absolutely insane amount of power over what he uses.
Looking back over 5 years my home used 22MW as a max annual demand. I installed what should make 28MW. My son installed 42MW. I wanted to support an EV, which I've since purchased, and a PHEV. I'll be short for the second PHEV/EV. I'd have installed more but was out of quality roof exposure. My son didn't want to ever care about it again, just filled his optimum roof exposure and called it. I didn't check his annual consumption but he's making something like 170% of his historic demand. He's since bought a PHEV minivan and is thinking about an "S".
If installing max sized systems residentially here in Illinois you do have a rated panel output limit to manage to get paid easily via "Shines". The discussion of "Clipping", max solar radiance, and etc is too much for a post, but basically we undersized his microinverters one step. IRL he makes stupid power anyway. It amounts sort of to this: in Illinois no panel is every going to make rated power for more than a few minutes a day in the dead middle of summer. The rest of the time they won't output anything like max rated power. He installed as many panels as we could fit, derated via a smaller microinverter size and laughed ourselves sick at the actual power output relative to other Illinois systems (mine included). Of course this only works when you have a very large optimum roof area (he installed 88 panels).
Here is an article on clipping that's good enough:
Solar Inverter Clipping: What it is and when it could be a good thing
If not clear yet, we both make a lot more power than I need for a year. Since I get to netmeter Ameren is my power store. In fact I only pulled more power from the grid than I produced in the months of December, January, and March. My "balance", built up in the months previous, was much more than I needed. I pay just under $11 a month for meter rental and that's it. Once I get a second EV I'll probably end up with a bill in March, maybe even February.
V2L: Tesla does not, yet, support this. That will change soon enough whether Elon likes it or not. This too is too complicated to explain in detail here, but basically something called the "Duck Curve" is forcing the utility industry to adjust to how renewable energy is managed. Not an issue in the midwest yet, most certainly is in the west. Probably why they have some of the rules they have about solar. Wrong answers of course, but leave it Ca. to demand we kill flys with biodegradable magnets. The right answer is obvious to engineering types and the utility industry. It's this:
1) We must develop, incent if needed, EV charging at the daytime work place. Basically we need to charge EV's while we're producing renewable energy (wind, solar).
2) Require Mfg's to support V2L. This will allow the now charged-during-the-day EV to power our homes at night when out renewable energy source is down/degraded. Perhaps not fully, but to a very large degree. (yes, I know appts create an issue). This would likely mean DC output from the EV, so when I talk about DC vs AC later keep this in mind.
3) Implement distributed Billing/Netmetering. You know how a Tesla identifies itself and starts charging automatically when plugged into a supercharger? Do that at the office but integrate it into your home account. Otherwise businesses won't want to pay for the charging cost.
It's this simple: There is no better answer, and all the crutches in the world, (see Ca rules) aren't real solves. The utility industry knows this and any deep reading on this will show you they are lobbying, correctly IMO, for above.
What does Tesla solar allow re installers? I've no idea. Again, I picked installer first, panel mfg next based on warranty and power density. Tesla never entered the picture. Stuff might be fine, perhaps a solid Tier 2 product, but I was demanding Tier 1. That gets into panel design details that affect both power density (not per panel, but per inch) and warranted annual degradation. Tesla panels just never came up. For all I know they aren't sold in my area.
I mentioned I used micro inverters (AC output). Better warranty and easier to wire, but 10 years from now might have been a mild mistake. Microinverters convert to A/C at the panel AND allow panel performance segmentation such that one panel, even a panel segment, with a low output (lets say shade) won't pull the entire array down (array, really string, panel output must, without optimizers, degrade to the lower common output of the panel of panel segment. DC optimizers, a more recent creation, allow the same panel optimization a microinverter does and keeps the panel at it's native DC output.
When using native DC output you bring the power down via DC (more costly to wire), to a larger inverted (called a string inverter). Those have a much shorter lifespan and aren't entirely cheap. On the other hand you're still DC. This would make integrating to an EV for V2L easier and cheaper. Or a powerwall. I don't know anything about Tesla's solutions, but they are likely string inverter based. If so, for goodness sake make sure they include DC optimizers. If not drop that direction dead.
Again, I used Microinverters. Enphase IQ8A's.
The canadian wildfires? Not helping my production darn it!
At some point it might be easier to just PM me your phone number. I'm happy to call and chat w/you if it helps you.
-d
