Hello from the East Bay of Rhode Island

[Rade]

Hello!

We are relatively new to solar - about 5 months into a full, hybrid installation. Our provider is Generac, and they designed us a rather comprehensive system of 32 panels capable of producing 13.2kWh of power, going into 18kW of PWRCell batteries. The system has a some problems that seem to have been mitigated through code changes by Generac. All in all, everything is working as designed.

Rade

[azdave]

Welcome! Sounds like an expensive system. What's your ROI?

[bcroe]

13.2kWh of power, going into 18kW of PWRCell batteries.

Power can be measured in KW, energy in KWH. Do you mean

13.2kW of power, going into 18kWHour of PWRCell batteries.

[Rade]

Welcome! Sounds like an expensive system. What's your ROI?

Right now, we have generated about $500 in power credits since May. In high summer, I had our inverter set to "Self Supply" meaning that after the sun set, the home would be powered off the batteries. This was fine and dandy in the high summer - sunset in the 8PM hour, sunrise sometime before 5AM. For the most part, we lasted all night on the battery charge, then those would get recharged by 10AM with the remainder both powering the house and rolling over into the grid for the credits. The house essentially used zero grid power with all net credit.

Then we had a really WET and humid August, and the days started getting shorter. A lot of fog and overcast in the mornings, sun setting around 7PM. Taking a lot longer to charge the batteries in the mornings into the early afternoons. Switched the system over to "Clean Backup" where the batteries are kept 100% charged and we start shipping power out to the grid around 8AM.

Our home is (now) all electric, and seems to quiet down around 7PM (recharging the water tank, AC/Heat goes into night mode, etc.) so since the last meter read (7 days go), we have already generated 100kW back to the grid, and that is using the grid power for overnight. The summer humidity has eased a lot (mornings are clear) and we seem to not be in the continual weather "train" of storms (about once a week now), so the sun is out in force.

[Rade]

Power can be measured in KW, energy in KWH. Do you mean

13.2kW of power, going into 18kWHour of PWRCell batteries.

Yes, got a little ahead of myself typing.... kW

[azdave]

Right now, we have generated about $500 in power credits since May...

Okay. I assume you'll burn through a lot of that credit in the winter since that's the whole point of being grid-tied but still curious what ROI is expected.