Newer to Solar, Deposit Placed & Tesla is Currently Engineering Solution: Colorado

[MorrisonHiker]

Update: I spoke with someone with the city last Friday and got some more details to shed some light or further confuse things. lol

For starers, our city rates are:
Winter $0.085/kWh
Summer $0.10/kWh

The good news is our rates are low so our bills are also low. The bad news is this makes it more difficult to recoup initial investment costs of our solar system. She also informed me that rates would increase 4.7% next year and likely even more the following year as we start to move to a higher renewable production model. Around 5% increase each year would certainly help to recoup solar investment costs quicker but that's difficult to predict for so I'd like this to all make sense w/o even factoring this in since it's unpredictable at this point since there's no guarantee of a ~5% increase each year. Heck, if our city gets onboard with solar/power packs we may even see an eventual decrease in costs.

Early in the conversation her opinion was that my estimate of production seemed low for the # of panels. She suggested I have Tesla "show me a PV watts output" before I make a decision. Does anyone have any thoughts here as to whether this is around what we should expect or not? I'll post a photo of the proposed layout so you can get an idea. We have no shade currently nor will we likely have any in the future either.

We also currently pay about $15/mo access fee which goes up to about $42/mo for our size array. She explained that a small portion of the monthly access fee was also built into the kWh rates historically so they increased this access fee for those who were going to solar since they wouldn't be recouping this fee spread out over usage. Makes sense. She said that they still run an ancient billing software that is DOS based (yikes!) and that they anticipated an update by the middle of next year. She said lots of changes and updates were coming once that is completed. As of now though there's no provisions for ToU.

They would install a bi-directional meter which measures how much you use and how much you send back. Retail value 1:1 is paid for what you send back. So 100% of what you produce is returned in terms of a credit. No wholesale buy-back the way I've seen others report. That seems like good news to me. She mentioned that within the next couple of years that 100% buyback would likely change to roughly a 2-cent per kWh difference decrease. That's still far less than what I've heard others report their wholesale buyback figure is so I'm still alright with that.

She did say though that it makes more sense if you can use the power you produce at the time of production rather than selling it back to them during the day and using at night. That part didn't make as much sense to me since 1:1 should mean that it would be a wash but she said it had something to do with the way the meter read and how their ancient system accounted for it. This part didn't make much sense to me. If anyone has a better understanding on this I'd appreciate a different approach to the summation of what that is. To me it seems like the choice to not add a Powerwall now is still the best move. She said that they would likely have ToU in the next few years at which point I'll revisit that decision.

If I'm using 1,800kWh/mo on average (taken from previous utility statements) and my production is roughly 1,100kWh/mo I'm putting my "savings" at somewhere around $75/mo which is a far cry from what I was originally estimating based on arbitrary figures since I didn't have real numbers. At that rate we're talking more in the realm of 20 years of so to pay off our initial investment or nearly double what I was estimating. The only difference is if our array produces more than estimated and does so consistently and if that ~5%/yr increase is also consistent. Those two things may lower that recovery period to about 15 years or so but that's still a long time.

I'm just not sure that this is the best solution for me unless there's something I'm missing here. Anyone care to add their input based on the above? Any insight that can be offered would be greatly appreciated.

Are you sure the winter/summer rates that you were given represent the total cost per kWh? Normally there is also a Delivery charge as well as other charges which are on top of the actual charge for the energy. These additional fees would increase the kWh rate by several cents and represent the true cost you are paying. I would estimate they are probably an additional $0.03/kWh. If you look at a current bill, you should be able to see the additional charges and true cost per kWh.

You can use PV Watts to estimate your production here: PVWatts Calculator. When I checked our proposed system with PV Watts, I calculated numbers that were very close to what Tesla's numbers were, like within 300 Watts. Fortunately, we actually already beat the estimated yearly production nearly a month early. Based on your 1800 kWh average, it still looks like your system would offset about 63% of your annual usage. Is that about what Tesla estimated your offset would be?

I'm surprised that Xcel is so different for your town vs. ours. I don't believe our "access fee" changed at all when we installed solar and we do have ToU available where we live. ToU, especially when combined with Powerwalls, helps to greatly reduce your bills and helps solar pay for itself a lot faster. If you can't get ToU then you won't be able to always use off-peak and shoulder rates like we do. That does reduce the benefit of having Powerwalls somewhat. You'll still be able to bank your credits for over-production in the summer (if you have any) but wouldn't be able to power your house or use your solar if the grid was down.

When we first signed up, we were confused by Xcel's documentation as well. It's like they try to confuse you and convince you not to get solar. Imagine that.

 

[Akikiki]

Ostrichsak, sounds like you talked to someone with the local utilities/power company, not someone from the city. Unless where you live the city owns the power company.

Here, we have a contract with the utility that defines the 1:1 use or send it back to the grid method. That contract is called a NEM - Net energy Metering agreement. I have added to my PV system 5 times now. Four of those times, I had to sign a new NEM agreement. Each time it got a little better for the utility and a little worse for me, as the utility got a little smarter from their first dive into NEM. Did your city person talk about you signing an agreement for what to expect?

Go back to "She did say though that it makes more sense if you can use the power you produce at the time of production rather than selling it back to them during the day and using at night." Yes of course this makes sense, but you have two choices, send it back to the grid so you can use that credit at night, or store it locally like in Powerwalls.

When you were running your recoup your investment numbers did you factor in the 30% federal tax credit in 2020 for 2019? And did you know that it includes the Powerwalls if you do it in conjunction with your PV installation? The % falls 1 Jan 2020,. My tax people tell me that it's not guaranteed you can claim the federal tax credit for energy storage/Powerwall later separate from the PV tax credit.

 

[Ostrichsak]

Are you sure the winter/summer rates that you were given represent the total cost per kWh? Normally there is also a Delivery charge as well as other charges which are on top of the actual charge for the energy. These additional fees would increase the kWh rate by several cents and represent the true cost you are paying. I would estimate they are probably an additional $0.03/kWh. If you look at a current bill, you should be able to see the additional charges and true cost per kWh.

You can use PV Watts to estimate your production here: PVWatts Calculator. When I checked our proposed system with PV Watts, I calculated numbers that were very close to what Tesla's numbers were, like within 300 Watts. Fortunately, we actually already beat the estimated yearly production nearly a month early. Based on your 1800 kWh average, it still looks like your system would offset about 63% of your annual usage. Is that about what Tesla estimated your offset would be?

I'm surprised that Xcel is so different for your town vs. ours. I don't believe our "access fee" changed at all when we installed solar and we do have ToU available where we live. ToU, especially when combined with Powerwalls, helps to greatly reduce your bills and helps solar pay for itself a lot faster. If you can't get ToU then you won't be able to always use off-peak and shoulder rates like we do. That does reduce the benefit of having Powerwalls somewhat. You'll still be able to bank your credits for over-production in the summer (if you have any) but wouldn't be able to power your house or use your solar if the grid was down.

When we first signed up, we were confused by Xcel's documentation as well. It's like they try to confuse you and convince you not to get solar. Imagine that.

Yes, that was the total charge per kWh based on all of the fees. There's basically an "Energy Charge" as well as a "PILT charge" which I believe is all of the other items you discussed. There's also a $15ish per meter monthly service charge that also goes into the delivery and other various maintenance costs. This is the fee that increases to $41.48 (going to be higher after next year as they're going to add a higher production tier which we likely will be in based on the proposed system) when we go to solar because the difference between those two numbers is also built into the kWh fee which we won't be paying for or at least as much.

Tesla didn't really get into offset specifics and what you see is basically about the only #'s that we've received from them to date other than the total cost of the system. If they do have any sort of "offset" based numbers they haven't provided us with any of them to this point.

BTW, I think there was some confusion based on what I said earlier based on who our provider is. Where we live, we have Xcel for gas only. Our electricity and all other utilities are handled by our city.

I'm not as concerned about powering our house via a Powerwall if/when power goes down because our electricity has been super reliable. We built this house nearly 15 years ago and I can think of twice that the power has actually gone down and both instances were for a very short duration. Thanks to being in the city we have several circuits capable of supplying power to our neighborhood so if a transformer goes down the grid automatically re-routes the circuit based on load calcs and what not. Part of the perks of living in a city versus more rural areas I guess. For us, with no way to work in ToU Powerwalls just don't make sense being as they would primarily be for power outage since they almost never happen.

Our City is a little bit confusing as well but I feel it's more of a function in our case of horribly dated software rather than an intentional play to make things convoluted. Other for-profit type providers probably have far better software so that feels little more intentional to me. Talking with the representative with the city I could tell though that she was super frustrated with their DOS based platform.

 

[Ostrichsak]

Ostrichsak, sounds like you talked to someone with the local utilities/power company, not someone from the city. Unless where you live the city owns the power company.

Here, we have a contract with the utility that defines the 1:1 use or send it back to the grid method. That contract is called a NEM - Net energy Metering agreement. I have added to my PV system 5 times now. Four of those times, I had to sign a new NEM agreement. Each time it got a little better for the utility and a little worse for me, as the utility got a little smarter from their first dive into NEM. Did your city person talk about you signing an agreement for what to expect?

Go back to "She did say though that it makes more sense if you can use the power you produce at the time of production rather than selling it back to them during the day and using at night." Yes of course this makes sense, but you have two choices, send it back to the grid so you can use that credit at night, or store it locally like in Powerwalls.

When you were running your recoup your investment numbers did you factor in the 30% federal tax credit in 2020 for 2019? And did you know that it includes the Powerwalls if you do it in conjunction with your PV installation? The % falls 1 Jan 2020,. My tax people tell me that it's not guaranteed you can claim the federal tax credit for energy storage/Powerwall later separate from the PV tax credit.

Correct. Where we live the city also provides power. Other than gas (Xcel) all of our utilities come on the same city bill. Not only are our rates fairly low compared to others I've seen an compared to but if I get my system producing enough juice to create a credit those credits will actually apply to other services in our case such as water/waste water, trash, etc. Due to being a not-for-profit City provided situation they actually limit the size of system you can place to avoid people trying to put larger systems than their usage trying to make a profit. Understandably they wouldn't be able to make any profit to maintain the grid if everyone did this.

She didn't mention any sort of agreement to me. She did touch multiple times on how far behind the times the city was with this whole solar thing and other related technologies.

Your take on the sending it back to the grid during the day as a 1:1 credit to use it again at night when I need it was my exact take on a non-ToU based system. She was adamant though that it would benefit me greatly to use the power I made during the day rather than at night as there was some significant difference in this. I was completely confused because, to me anyway, 1:1 buy-back means I can literally sell the power I make back to them that I don't use and then use it when it's not being made at the same rate... 1:1. I don't know but this is still confusing to me since the way you see it is exactly how I see it and it shouldn't matter.

Yes, I did factor in the federal tax credit and that's been one of the motivators to expedite this adventure. In the grand scheme of things though, even on a "large" system w/o a Powerwall, the difference between 30% this year and 26% next year is only about $1,200. The way I've seen these systems get less expensive and more efficient we could likely get the same system late next year for roughly $1,000 less anyway so I'm not sure that's a massive motivator at this point. our neighbors who just had a very similar system installed earlier this year by Tesla paid almost $2k more than we're paying so my figures might even be conservative. Basically, even at 30% less there's no way a Powerwall would ever recoup any of it's investment since we don't currently have ToU and based on how long it seems to take them to advance anything at our local utility I'm not dumping that kind of money into something that someone tells me "may" happen in a couple of years while they still use DOS based software.

 

[MorrisonHiker]

BTW, I think there was some confusion based on what I said earlier based on who our provider is. Where we live, we have Xcel for gas only. Our electricity and all other utilities are handled by our city.

Ah, that explains it. I know you mentioned Xcel earlier so I assumed it was for both gas and electric. That explains why your billing structure, costs and service plans are so different from ours. Too bad there's no ToU!

 

[Akikiki]

Your city agent seem to be knowledgeable. But I think she so used to explaining some things her way that she doesn't see the same you see. Sure it would be grand if you could use all you make during the day. But what''s the point of using more just to use it unless you gain ample benefit from it. Its almost as if she's thinking you can simply increase the flow of your electric spigot and fill a bucket now to use tonight. You are describing it as I would your "to me anyway, 1:1 buy-back means I can literally sell the power I make back to them that I don't use and then use it when it's not being made at the same rate... 1:1." is correct.

I have one of those bi-directional meters you speak of. Well, in 2009-2011, I had an analog bi-directional. It still had the traditional wheel that turned. They replaced it with bi-directional analog. It was quite a hoot to see it turn backwards when the sun was shining. I used to set a buck of buds out next to it with a lwan chair and stop my neighbors to show my system running backwards to them. At first, when no one understood solar, they could not understand what was happening. Later my utility swapped it for a digital, no wheel, not as much fun to watch. And because I am on this EV pilot rate program, it has a label under the glass dome that shows "ToU".

We too pay a gird connection/maintenance fee. It didn't start until a couple of years ago. As the utility got smarter about PV and how the customer benefited, they changed the rules. For several years, we not only had zero electric bill, we earned a credit and they refunded money. They saw we were "winning". They convinced the PUC to let them charge a maintenance fee $19.00. Then a year or so ago, they talked the PUC into letting them increase it. So now about $25. Don't kid yourself, they will keep doing this until they are earning the same fee as when they were making and selling the juice as they will when we are making the juice.

Here we make and send back to the grid. They credit us at retail for what we send back. Then we use it at night using the credit we earned today or yesterday or whenever. I'm fortunate to have jumped on an EV rate pilot they offered 6 years ago. I proved I had an EV via my VIN. They put me under a rate that I pay 6 cents less per kWh using after 9 p.m. until 7 a.m. than retail. This pilot doesn't acknowledge that I am "selling" them back (actually just getting a credit) at retail 30 cents kWh because of my PV. End result is, I am selling/credited at 30 cents and buying back/using credit at 24 cents a kWh.

One of these days they are going to realize I am gaining/gaming them and squash me like a bug. But its their system, not mine that allows me to do this.

 

[Akikiki]

We were having a similar to this thread conversation over under a different thread recently. Not knowing if you folks had seen that thread, here's a link to it Can you buy too much Solar?
I don't want to just copy and post the same comment here that already been said over there.

My own thinking is we can't do to much solar. And we certainly can't while there are tax credits encouraging us to do so.

Our state has committed to get on renewables 100% by 2045. And to that end, our utility is partnering with private companies to by the juice generated by multiple solar farms. They are working towards shutting down our fossil fuel plants making electricity. Private residents and companies are making more than 15% of electricity used via our PV systems. The utility is taking credit for the amount as though they made it.

 

[Ostrichsak]

We were having a similar to this thread conversation over under a different thread recently. Not knowing if you folks had seen that thread, here's a link to it Can you buy too much Solar?
I don't want to just copy and post the same comment here that already been said over there.

My own thinking is we can't do to much solar. And we certainly can't while there are tax credits encouraging us to do so.

Our state has committed to get on renewables 100% by 2045. And to that end, our utility is partnering with private companies to by the juice generated by multiple solar farms. They are working towards shutting down our fossil fuel plants making electricity. Private residents and companies are making more than 15% of electricity used via our PV systems. The utility is taking credit for the amount as though they made it.

I just read your response to that thread. I saw where you plan to bank up the credits for the next owner but I don't believe we can do that here. The way I understood it is that those credits are tied to the owner so if we move they go away. Not sure that making 150% more than we use would benefit us and would cost a lot more in initial investment to do so.

 

[Akikiki]

I must have done a poor job of explaining. We no longer can bank $$ credits. They took that away from us as they got wise to the benefit.

And you are correct, the system is tied to the owner. Let's take that another step. We've considered moving our system if we sold the house and bought another. The utility would not allow new NEM system, as they have a new method called Self Supply, but we can move it and retain our original rates/grid connection permissions.

 

[Ostrichsak]

I must have done a poor job of explaining. We no longer can bank $$ credits. They took that away from us as they got wise to the benefit.

And you are correct, the system is tied to the owner. Let's take that another step. We've considered moving our system if we sold the house and bought another. The utility would not allow new NEM system, as they have a new method called Self Supply, but we can move it and retain our original rates/grid connection permissions.

Ah, now I follow. To be fair I didn't read the entire thread but gave a few posts a cursory glance. Once I get more time I plan to give it a more thorough once-over.

 

[Ostrichsak]

Ah, that explains it. I know you mentioned Xcel earlier so I assumed it was for both gas and electric. That explains why your billing structure, costs and service plans are so different from ours. Too bad there's no ToU!

Tell me about it. Also explains why my outlook as swung so massively all of the numbers (other than the solar system) have changed.