We have had our solar power going in our home for about a year now and we could not be happier. It has given us a sense of empowerment we were not really expecting. It has also caused us to change our electric consumption habits, because it is become a bit of a game to see if we can live within the electric budget that is set by the system's production.
Sure, we are still on the grid and CAN consume as much electricity as we want. And, at night or during the winter when the panels are covered in deep snow, we need to pull electricity from the grid. But, once the Sun begins hitting the panels again, our goal has been to make up for anything we have taken from the grid by putting at least that much back to the grid. The results have been spectacular. We have not had an electric bill since April, which was for the March period (which included a bit of February). And, if anyone remembers Feb/March 2019, they remember the massive snow we had covering everything, including our panels.
Look at the solar production graph and February for a reminder of how terrible the snow was back then! Anyway, since the the snow came off (in a giant avalanche - which is a topic for another post) we have been producing more electric than we have been using, which is great, because when we got our FREE solar estimate, we were not expecting our system to produce as much electricity as we use. But it is.
The reasons for the difference between the estimate and the real-world experience we are having are simple: First, the estimates All Energy Solar give are very conservative. Our system is producing about 25% more than they said it would, in spite of the unusually snowy/rainy weather we have had in the last year. Second, the solar power has inspired us to find ways of conserving our electric consumption. Collectively, the impact of our decision to go solar has been profound. We have offset nearly 8,800 lbs of CO2 emissions, which is the equivalent of having planted more than 200 trees!
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This is so amazing to hear! We've been researching solar for a while. What happens if the grid goes down? Do you still get power from the cells?
That is a great question! Legally, we are required to be connected to the grid and, in a power failure, the whole system needs to go down, because the power company cannot have electric production going to the grid, or people working on the lines could get electrocuted. So, by law, they need to go off. The inverter does that automatically in a power failure. That being said, we got a small customization to our system for a small amount of money. We had previously purchased a portable solar electric generator from Goal Zero. Along with our solar installation, we had our Goal Zero generator integrated into hour home electric. We have 2 small dedicated panels on the roof that feed directly into the generator. The simplified version is that 4 circuits in our home (refrigerator, furnace/hot water and a few lights/outlets) have battery backup that is recharged from those small dedicated panels. The backup system works great. We have only needed to use the backup power once since it was installed. But, we appreciated having power, including computer and wi-fi.
If anyone is interested in adding the backup to their solar install, we would be happy to show them the ropes. Its pretty simple.
This may seem like a weird question but if the grid were down for an extended period, would there be any way to disconnect and still use your power? Figuring this out is one of the many transition/preparedness items on my very long list :)
THAT, as they say, is the $10,000 question. The simple answer is both yes and no. The "no" is the official answer. It is not allowed. The "Yes" is unofficial and not fully defined in our world. But one thing I do know is that a) there is an emergency shut-off switch between the panels and the inverter so that you can manual cut power to the inverter to work on it and b) All kinds of electricians have worked out unofficial hacks to make that work. Should a real collapse of the power grid happen, we plan to have our array up and running. The other thing to consider: in the event of a long-term collapse of the grid, the Goal Zero generators are scalable and affordable. You can daisy-chain multiples of them together to expand your storage capacity and you can add more and more (very affordable) panels to that system, too. So, scaling your production and storage would be easy. Getting the infrastructure established is the first step in that direction and the fact that we have all of those bases covered helps us feel more secure about a future we believe is going to be much less stable.