Solar Panels in Washington state (West side of course)

[PWlakewood]

Looking to add solar panels and battery storage. I dont know of anyone personally that has this setup and was hoping to talk to someone that has a setup on there house. I own our townhouse and have lots of roof available and would love to charge my Telsa and other EV using solar but I have heard so many different stories about there not being enough daylight in this part of the country. I emailed Tesla and havent been able to get any type of response from them and the local solar companies seem kind of mis informed about EV charging. Anyone have any first hand knowledge?

 

[ewoodrick]

Before you even think about it, check with the HOA, I highly suspect that they may not allow it. Too different from the other units.

If you approach the concept from just the "I want to charge my cars" viewpoint, well, that may not be the best way to do it. You'll probably want to integrate the entire unit into the solution where your costs can be better amortized.

If you are getting 3 miles / kWh (333 watts/mile) and power is $0.30 (it probably is a LOT cheaper) and drive 24,000 miles/year then the vehicle would cost $2400/yr in energy. It would then take 5 years to break even. But both cars together will probably cost less and make payback even longer.
By including the entire unit in your plan, you get a chance at a payback. All you need to do is add the average number of kilowatts that you'll use to charge the cars daily, as an additional load.

Looking up the Washington State general data. Average cost it the cheapest in the nation at $0.0863 and you have a high mix of hydro, the country's highest.
The standard cloudy/drizzly Washington state, combined with exception hydro and lowest rates is probably the reason you don't see much solar, just not cost effective.

 

[PWlakewood]

HOA cannot block the installation of Solar panles. I have already looked into the HOA rules in my state. I undersatand that I already have really good rates I would still consider installing them as I see a huge benefit to storing electricity and charging multiple EV's nightly. Im averaging around 318 watts/mile and I drive 50,000 a year. Our last electricity bill had our rate at just under .11 cents. And we actually have pretty nice spring/summers around here with not alot of rain or drizzle. Winter time is different though and I figured my solar use would be down significantly during those months. I do see quite a few homes in my area with solar but I dont know who they are.

 

[nwdiver]

Before you even think about it, check with the HOA, I highly suspect that they may not allow it. Too different from the other units.

If you approach the concept from just the "I want to charge my cars" viewpoint, well, that may not be the best way to do it. You'll probably want to integrate the entire unit into the solution where your costs can be better amortized.

If you are getting 3 miles / kWh (333 watts/mile) and power is $0.30 (it probably is a LOT cheaper) and drive 24,000 miles/year then the vehicle would cost $2400/yr in energy. It would then take 5 years to break even. But both cars together will probably cost less and make payback even longer.
By including the entire unit in your plan, you get a chance at a payback. All you need to do is add the average number of kilowatts that you'll use to charge the cars daily, as an additional load.

Looking up the Washington State general data. Average cost it the cheapest in the nation at $0.0863 and you have a high mix of hydro, the country's highest.
The standard cloudy/drizzly Washington state, combined with exception hydro and lowest rates is probably the reason you don't see much solar, just not cost effective.

WA has laws protecting the rights of people to be self-reliant.

(1) The governing documents may not prohibit the installation of a solar energy panel by an owner or resident on the owner's or resident's property as long as the solar energy panel:
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In terms of cost-effectiveness it's definitely not NM but annually the average site in Western WA will generate ~75% as much as the same array if it were located in San Diego. Solar works a lot better than you would think since the summers are usually cool and sunny. Perfect conditions for solar. I have a 8.4kW array on my home in Bremerton, WA. Haven't had an electric bill in ~6 years.

 

[AudubonB]

Do you have a battery bank as well, Diver? Does your utility perform an adequate/stellar/abysmal job in showing you your inputs to the grid versus the times when you're making use of grid-derived electrons?

 

[nwdiver]

Do you have a battery bank as well, Diver? Does your utility perform an adequate/stellar/abysmal job in showing you your inputs to the grid versus the times when you're making use of grid-derived electrons?

No battery. WA is a net metering state. Didn't realize there was a difference in tracking grid inputs. They all seem to do a good job from what I've seen.

 

[MarkBrokeIt]

HOA can find any number of legit reasons to block what you want to do. Your best bet here is going to be getting some neighbors interested in it too. There's strength in numbers

What local solar companies did you call, and why does EV charging have anything to do with it? No need to complicate the situation. They should be able to run the numbers on the total power output you can expect in optimal conditions. You'll still need to be on the grid. Some of the solar in the summer can be used to charge the car, probably mostly grid power in the winter.

 

[taldric]

I’m interested in solar in the PNW as well. I’d like to put in solar with battery storage so that during power outages I can run at least some parts of the home, and lower my power bill year round.

Additional information from West of the Cascades users of solar is much appreciated.

 

[PWlakewood]

HOA can find any number of legit reasons to block what you want to do.

HOA cannot block the install of solar panels. See below comment.

(1) The governing documents may not prohibit the installation of a solar energy panel by an owner or resident on the owner's or resident's property as long as the solar energy panel:

the ones that I have emailed either were very unfamiliar with storage options or they were hiking the price up because I told them what my plans were. Just like when you call an electrician and tell them you want a 240v outlet for your car they will charge a higher price unless you tell them you are using it for a different application like a welder. Either way you look at it it seems really difficult to get a decent estimate in WA state.

 

[marksvend]

I’m interested in solar in the PNW as well. I’d like to put in solar with battery storage so that during power outages I can run at least some parts of the home, and lower my power bill year round.

The cost of adding storage to a solar system is around $15k-$20k and the only benefit you will get is during power outages. Since WA has no time-of-use rates (yet), you won't get any benefit to storing power during the day and draining it in the evening. In fact, you'll lose ~10% in the process.

Power outages here are usually caused by wind or ice storms during the season where my panels only make 1 to 5 kWh per day. That's not really enough during the winter when you could get a small inverter generator for $1k that can easily produce more than that.

 

[MarkBrokeIt]

HOA cannot block the install of solar panels.

Read the RCW again. They can't say "no, you can't install solar panels". There are other restrictions/reasons that could be used.

Also don't see anything in there with respect to timing. They could just not approve or deny your request while they figure out what they want to do (like update their governing documents). Unless there's some other RCW/governing doc limiting the amount of time they have to act. Long story short, you can't fight HOA's. If you make it adversarial from the start (YOU CAN'T DENY ME!), it won't happen.

 

[PWlakewood]

Read the RCW again. They can't say "no, you can't install solar panels". There are other restrictions/reasons that could be used.

Also don't see anything in there with respect to timing. They could just not approve or deny your request while they figure out what they want to do (like update their governing documents). Unless there's some other RCW/governing doc limiting the amount of time they have to act. Long story short, you can't fight HOA's. If you make it adversarial from the start (YOU CAN'T DENY ME!), it won't happen.

If they try to block it by saying its because another reason then they are still saying no and if thats the case I have no problem going above there heads to get approval. Also as I have experienced with my current HOA I can add/change what I want they just wont fix or maintain what I have changed/modified. At some point before I purchased our home the rear upper deck was modified therefore its on the homeowner to maintain the area as it is considered to no longer be a common element. I tried to get approval to replace our garage door but they wouldnt respond to many emails so we just went ahead and replaced it. We also replaced all our outside lighting and removed some bushes out front. They dont even have a system to issue a fine so were not too worried about it.

 

[ChadS]

I agree with marksvend that without TOU rates, battery backup around here just ends up being an expensive generator for power outages. I was interested (even just for that) and looked in to it a few years ago, but decided against it.

But as far as solar panels go: my old house in Issaquah (it's going on the market tomorrow) has 15kW of solar. The builder included a ~10kW system (39 250W Canadian solar panels) that covered all house usage including heat, and I added a ~5kW system (18 270W iTek panels) for our EVs. For the last year (7/1/17 to 6/30/18) PSE reported that our house (both systems) generated 15,630kWh. The year before we generated 15,759. In the 2014/15 year, the house system alone generated 11,202kWh.

Obviously output varies by weather each year, as well as your location's siting. My house doesn't have any trees, but a neighbor's house blocks the 5kW system at peak times during the winter. And we have a hill behind us that makes sunrise notably later than the horizon time.