I am pretty new to thinking about getting solar, but I am in the very early stages of renovating a house which includes lot of additions, new roofing, and new electrical. The house also has a back roof facing south. Seemed like the perfect time to add in solar during that construction process. However, I don't really know what I need/want yet because there doesn't seem to be a ton of info online that doesn't just say to call an installer. My goal is simply to offset as much of my electrical use with solar as I can. I would also like to have a battery back-up, but it doesn't need to last a super long time off grid. Located in Charlotte, NC with my power through Duke Energy. Our energy costs are also fairly low here if that impacts your answers.
Here are my questions:
I appreciate the help.
Here are my questions:
- It seems like just straight forward buying of a powerwall 2 is something you can't do. If battery storage is a secondary concern, does it make sense to set the whole system up to 100% utilize net metering and just leave space for the batteries to be added later? Do you think it is worth waiting for powerwalls to become available versus just using a different companies whose batteries I can get now? The powerwalls seem like a best deal out there assuming you can buy them in the next year or so. Batteries in general seem like a waste of money here (no peak pricing), so I would be doing it entirely because I want to and like the idea of having the back-up.
- If you were building a new house and planning to add solar, would you make everything you could electric? For example, should I make sure to use electric home heating, electric tankless water heater (would do this anyway), and an electric pool heater? The stove top, fireplace, and grill are the only things I can think that I would probably have to keep as natural gas. Any disadvantages to doing this?
- How much should I worry about roof pitch? I am still in the architectural design stage and I could try to force the issue. However, I really like the interior design so far and I don't want to mess it up by making roof pitch requests if it doesn't even matter that much.
- Should I try to limit my array to <10kW? Duke Energy seems to have rule changes on net metering and rebates at the <10kW and <20kW tiers. Would you just go for as much solar as I can fit or would it make sense to limit it?
I appreciate the help.