solar and water capture update

Hello Everyone!

I thought it might be interesting to you interested in solar and water capture to see how things are going out here in Argyle, Texas!  The solar has been online since just before the new year and the chart below is a monthly report we have generated to see how much energy we are producing.  We generated an average of 25 kilowatt-hours per day during February, with a high of 36.38 kWh on the 28th.  As the days get longer and we have more sun, more power is being generated.  You can tell when we had either rain or an overcast day.  I am pleasantly surprised that even on an overcast day we generate a bit of solar energy!  Chuck has been checking the meter to see what our output is and we are generating about 50% of electrical usage thru the solar panels!  Now that we are having more nice days and the heat runs a bit less that percentage should go higher!  It was interesting to note that Chuck charted our usage and was perturbed to find a day (a nice day that normally would have seen less usage) had a somewhat higher than expected usage.  After thinking about it we figured out it was due to Chuck mowing (we have an electric mower and trimmer instead of a pollution spewing gas ones) and trimming the yard!  Amazing how much power those buggers use!  I found the chart below to be interesting, so wanted to share it!  Crazy how many "miles" we "saved" and the number of barrels of oil!

This chart shows the daily electricity production from January 15th through February 28th.  The green bar is the electricity produced and the tan bar is the additional amount that we used.

Ok, on to the water capture tank....I have to say, I look at rain and thunderstorms (here in Texas we call these a "gully washer"!) much differently.  Knowing a good ole downpour is going to fill up that tank makes up for the fact we have no energy being produced by the solar panels.  So, basically it's a win-win situation (really overcast days make me ornery, I must admit, because no sun, so solar, no rain, no capture).  We have calculated that for each 1/4 inch of rain, we get about 6 inches of water in the tank.  We had a beauty of a storm and got about 22 inches one day which was cause for a happy dance!  We use the tank water mainly for irrigation.  We figures out it takes about 2 inches of tank water to irrigate each zone in the yard (we have 8 zones). The tank can hold approximately 6 1/2 to 7 feet of water, so we can irrigate the entire yard several times with tank water.  I have no doubt there will come a time in July or August when the tank, runs dry, but a few fabulous summer storms can provided a good watering or 2!

Hope this post finds you all healthy, happy and recycling!

Love and composting (next on my list),
Lori

Sunshine and Double Rainbows

The honor of a "guest" post has been bestowed upon me, the hubby, for one of our final entries.  As this will likely be my one and only direct contribution to the documentation of our journey, I have splurged on an abundance of technical descriptions and jargon not previously seen.

The latest development, and the last major component of the house, is the installation of the solar panels.  We've installed three strips of six SunPower Model 327 panels each on our back roof, for a total of 18. They run through two SPR-4000m inverters to connect to the grid, with six panels on one inverter and 12 on the other.  The inverters are tied directly to CoServ’s grid, but we’ll use the power that the panels generate throughout the day, with the excess going back to CoServ, our electric service provider, for a credit.  During the peak of the day, you can watch the electric meter run backwards, and, yes, it’s a pretty good feeling.

Each module is capable of generating up to 327 watts, or 5.8 kilowatts total for all 18.  Pending some final changes to our breaker box, we currently only have the one inverter with 12 panels online, but it's been running for a few days now.   And just as we’ve only had a couple good rains since putting in our water capture tank in November, we’ve only had a few clear sunny days.  Based on the results that we’ve seen with 12 panels active, we should be able to generate about 27 kilowatt-hours (kWh) on a clear day, and even more in the summer, when the sun’s at a better angle for the panels.  Cloudy days can still produce 5-10 kWh for the day.  As you can see from the morning and afternoon production on  the graph below for the past three days, the angle of the sun is important.  Did I mention that we get some pretty cool monitoring tools?  The red dots represent the amount of power being generated at the given time and the yellow dots represent the cumulative power produced to that point in the day.  You can see the red dots fluctuate on cloudy days (Friday was really overcast, and it was partly cloudy in the morning yesterday, while today was a beacon of efficiency!).

The goal was to produce about 60% of our electricity use.  CoServ uses the default net-metering, which essentially means that while they’re happy to take back as much power as we feed to them, we will only be reimbursed up to a certain level.  Hopefully, as solar becomes more mainstream and as they get more incentives to look for alternate sources of energy, they’ll work on modifying their systems and policies to remove these limits and encourage more homeowners to participate.  We were, however, able to participate in CoServ’s rebate program, which reimburses us $5,000 for the cost of the equipment and installation.  We also expect to receive several thousand dollars in tax credits to offset the expense, but we don’t have specific numbers on that yet.

As it stands now, the inverters are connected to the grid.  So if the power goes out, the panels do too.  But if we start seeing signs of the eventual zombie apocalypse, we’ve got some options.  One of the two inverters is set up to be connected to a battery pack that can power a couple of specific circuits in the house.  If we end up purchasing and installing it as spec’d out, it will provide power for a day or two without being recharged.  It will be kept at a full charge by the 12-panel inverter, and if grid power goes out, the battery pack kicks in to supply power to part of the house.  The inverter will continue to keep it charged, even while the grid is down.  Future options also include adding more panels.  The roof layout and current inverters will allow us to double or triple the number of panels that we’ve currently got in place.

May 2013 bring each of you a year of sunshine and may your cloudy days be filled with double rainbows.

Chuck

POSTSCRIPT FROM LORI:  For those of you who glazed over or dozed off during the Hubs spiel due to the technical BS he provided, I will put it in Lori terms (which is considered normal people terms, but hey, the geek talk pays the bills in this house and is therefore not a dirty word).  Sun good, rain good (because the tank fills up), overcast, not so wonderful.  Suffice it to say, we are excited to cut down on our electric bill, use rain water to water the lawn and fill the pool and to do out part for the environment!

Happy New Year to Everyone and may your 2013 be the best year yet!!!!!!!

Love and recycle

Lori