My First Solar Electric Bill

[h2ofun]

I have a little $1,000 LP 4000 watt portable generator. Had it for 2 years have not needed it yet. I had gas 4000 watt portable before that for 10 years. Only time I really needed it was when I bought it and lines to our house were down, so we were last in line to get fixed. 4000 watts was plenty to be comfortable. But we do have natural gas. So it didn’t take much electricity to keep us going. But if we had electric heat you’d need that much more battery.

If there are incentives, great. With out it just doesn’t make financial sense in our situation. I wish it did, because it would be kinda cool

A friend of mine in MA but not on Eversource has a rotten deal. She had cheap electricity. But she really wanted solar. Her Net metering won’t carry over more than 30 days and it’s at 50% cost. Her electric bill was $100/mo. She already paid $25k (before tax breaks) for solar. To make it work “better” she is gonna get a power wall for another $11k. That’s $100/mo for 10 years. Which is when she will need a new battery. Her original bill was $100/mo. And even with battery she can’t carry the summer overages into winter. And it’s not enough battery to cover for a long power outage with no sun in the winter.

One cannot look at the ROI on this stuff. It is just cool and one can tell all their friends they have solar and batteries. Yep, for most, does not make sense but boy is the marketing good. Look at your friend

 

[Two-rocks]

Massachusetts Eversource is NOT 1:1 net metering. You lose 20% when you push to the grid and pull it back. I forget where it’s applied (I think as you push you don’t get every kWh you push as fully credited). It’s not easy to figure out by their web site or your bill. And you have look at exactly what you generated and used from system. It actually took a positive month and a negative month to figure it out.

I thought it was 1:1 for quite a while. But even at 20% cost, no limit on overage, no limit on length time, 80% efficient battery with infinite capacity, no maintenance, no degradation, no phantom losses, cost nothing and unlimited backup (if your solar doesn’t cover your need). It’s a pretty good deal.

In MA Eversource you pay about $0.26 / kWh (DELIVERED). You will not accrue at a rate of $0.26 / kWh of overage. It will be 20% less than that.

That’s why it makes very little sense to get a power wall in Massachusetts’s. It would never pay for itself unless there is a SREC like deal for batteries.

I also get the SRECs for 10 year as well.

Wrong,

the $7 monthly fee... and the fees for:
Energy efficiency $.02829/kwh
renewable energy $0.00050/kwh
distributed solar $0.00097/kwh
are not accounted for in the net metering....you got that correct.

Those fees are about 18% of my last bill (solar not active yet), but close enough to your 20% ;-). However, add the $0.086/kwh SMART payment and it's NET +$0.04924/kwh from the above fees (not accounting for the $7 fixed fee).

So for 10 years its better than 1:1 if you make more than 82 kwh surplus to cover the fixed fee, plus some to offset the SMART payment income tax penalty.

SMART solar has incentives for a battery (different that the SRECs of before), for my system it would have been about $1500 for the 10 years. There is also the connected solutions program if you allow the power company to leverage your battery. Opted out as we have a backup in place already.

 

[CrazyRabbit]

So, I received my first full month electric bill for my new solar system. Have to say I am pretty happy.....



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nice, i'm on tri county, they just take the excess i produce...

wish i was on reliant now. but they probably would not have approved my 17.9kw of solar and 8 powerwalls...

 

[SMAlset]

nice, not like CA. If negative on the annual true up it goes away. Of course our rates are 5 times yours

Not for us with SVCE aggregate here in Bay Area. Full retail rate for their NEM program. Billed monthly. Excess credits rollover month-to-month. Credit balances over $100 for surplus generation are automatically paid to you in April of each year, up to a maximum of $5,000.

 

[mswlogo]

Wrong,

the $7 monthly fee... and the fees for:
Energy efficiency $.02829/kwh
renewable energy $0.00050/kwh
distributed solar $0.00097/kwh
are not accounted for in the net metering....you got that correct.

Those fees are about 18% of my last bill (solar not active yet), but close enough to your 20% ;-). However, add the $0.086/kwh SMART payment and it's NET +$0.04924/kwh from the above fees (not accounting for the $7 fixed fee).

So for 10 years its better than 1:1 if you make more than 82 kwh surplus to cover the fixed fee, plus some to offset the SMART payment income tax penalty.

SMART solar has incentives for a battery (different that the SRECs of before), for my system it would have been about $1500 for the 10 years. There is also the connected solutions program if you allow the power company to leverage your battery. Opted out as we have a backup in place already.

If your adding SREC’s or what ever incentive program your on. Sure, I’m way better than 1:1. My ROI will be about 6.5 years. But Net Metering itself is not 1:1. And I have not paid a dime to Eversource (that does NOT include the the SREC checks they send me on top). Which probably equates to 3/4 year of what I used to pay for electricity. So for every kWh I produce I get about 1.75 back. And that .75 extra is in the form of cash (not credits).

Later programs are not nearly as generous. Some states even have generous incentives than I got. But I can’t complain.

 

[Redhill_qik]

Not for us with SVCE aggregate here in Bay Area. Full retail rate for their NEM program. Billed monthly. Excess credits rollover month-to-month. Credit balances over $100 for surplus generation are automatically paid to you in April of each year, up to a maximum of $5,000.

One clarification, SVCE pays the full retail generation rate ($0.05-$0.07 currently for winter) which is much better than the PG&E wholesale rate of $0.02-0.03/kWh, but a far cry from the PG&E distribution+generation+fees of $0.29-0.32/kWh.

 

[solarAddict]

With National Grid in New England they only rollover the credits for one month. So not much incentive to over generate here. Luckily lots of other credits and multiple incentive programs make up for that stinginess.

Are you sure about that? If yes - could you share the source pls? I'm awaiting my second bill with credit I hoped it would grow so I could use it later...
This is what I was expecting:

What will happen to my National Grid net metering bill credits?
In months when customers generate excess energy that is sold back to National Grid, net metering credits are determined by multiplying the excess kWh generated by a customer’s solar panel system by the applicable rate. These credits are calculated and credited to the customer’s account where they accrue as a dollar-value credit on the bill. If these net metering credits are not allocated to National Grid accounts, unused credits will accrue on the account indefinitely. This means that customers should not expect to receive a check or payment as compensation for accrued net metering credits as these credits do not expire.

Source: 2021 National Grid Net Metering | EnergySage

 

[BrianBigNFun]

So, I received my first full month electric bill for my new solar system. Have to say I am pretty happy.....



View attachment 655557

in about 2200 years you'll be a millionaire!

*congrats and well done

 

[getakey]

One clarification, SVCE pays the full retail generation rate ($0.05-$0.07 currently for winter) which is much better than the PG&E wholesale rate of $0.02-0.03/kWh, but a far cry from the PG&E distribution+generation+fees of $0.29-0.32/kWh.

So, any excess on an annual basis is paid back at the generation rate, not the PG&E retail rate? I still don't understand the end game for the Community energy services?

 

[robmich]

nice, i'm on tri county, they just take the excess i produce...

wish i was on reliant now. but they probably would not have approved my 17.9kw of solar and 8 powerwalls...

I think Reliant has a 25kw limit so it should work. If you decide to go, PM me and I can give you more info.

 

[Locash]

There are two things about the whole utility interconnection that I don't like:

1. The 110% limit on the solar unit capacity. Why should the utility dictate how big of solar install I can have? If they really don't want to pay much for too high excess generation, they can have a limit or tiers on the buy back rate of excess generation. But simply telling me that my solar unit HAS to be a certain size is not good.

2. When the utility service is out, you can't use your solar generation unless you have batteries. The reason given for this - if the utility service men are working on their grid to restore the power, they don't want to be harmed by the flow of excess solar generation to the grid. But cutting off customers totally from their solar generation at the time of an outage does not seem to be the right away to handle this risk of service men being harmed by solar power flowing into the grid. I was quite shocked when I realized that in a situation like recent Texas where people were out of power for several days, they couldn't use their solar generation even if they had solar installed, if they didn't have battery backup!

Two things..

#1, I'm way over 110% in APS territory, and I plan to keep it that way, until I get a nastygram, and then I'll think about reducing generation, or move it off their generation meter. I'm on month 7 of overgeneration, 26kw array, allowed ~16.

#2. This is called rapid shutdown and is required on all inverters these days. The inverters monitor grid frequency, and if it goes away, they shut down.

 

[aswami]

#1, I'm way over 110% in APS territory, and I plan to keep it that way, until I get a nastygram, and then I'll think about reducing generation, or move it off their generation meter. I'm on month 7 of overgeneration, 26kw array, allowed ~16.

Now that you are already installed, up and running, I don't think they will ask you to shut down excess generation. That will be bad for their reputation. What I am afraid they will do - at some point in the future, they will decide that all the excess production is too costly for them to purchase, and they will come up with some way to reduce how much they will pay you for it. Won't be surprised if they do one or more of: (a) Decrease the per kWh price at which they buy excess generation. It's currently 10.45 cents. (b) Bump up the mandatory daily minimum charge. (c) Not pay at all for excess generation beyond a certain limit! The only thing we can hope for is that those of us who are locked into the 10-year contract will be able to retain that truly until the end of those 10 years. My ROI is closely tied to that.

 

[h2ofun]

Two things..

#1, I'm way over 110% in APS territory, and I plan to keep it that way, until I get a nastygram, and then I'll think about reducing generation, or move it off their generation meter. I'm on month 7 of overgeneration, 26kw array, allowed ~16.

#2. This is called rapid shutdown and is required on all inverters these days. The inverters monitor grid frequency, and if it goes away, they shut down.

so, how do you have 26kw if only allowed 16? And what does allowed 16 mean?

 

[jhn_]

@solarAddict
I think my situation may be different because my system is over 10kW and not covered under the net metering cap for smaller solar generators. Any generation that does exceed what is used for the month from the grid is also credited at the wholesale rate. Attached is part of a letter Tesla sent us during the planning process...

 

[Locash]

so, how do you have 26kw if only allowed 16? And what does allowed 16 mean?

I climbed my happy butt onto the roof and added more. They only approved 16kw, but I have a large enough electrical service that I'm sure I could get approved for more if I asked, but it would lower my buyback rate. I'm about to bump it to ~30kw once I get my next garage building assembled..