Building Reserve and Using KWH

[azdave]

My POCO just zeroed out my account yesterday because it is the end of their fiscal year. I'll get a credit for about $85 for the 3150 kWh I banked. I have one month to bank before the real heat hits in June.

With strategic vacations during the hottest months and further conservation measures around the house, I've had zero net billable energy every month for the last 36 months and paid under $10 per month for the connection fee.

My POCO (SRP) is now offering up to $1800 rebates on battery storage systems but since they let me stay on the basic plan when I went solar there is no incentive or reason for me to load shift.

[bcroe]

I do encourage you to do the minisplit route. Except for the high installation markup they are hard to beat.

The big trick with minisplits in winter is set them and forget them. They are good at maintaining a space temp but struggle to catch up

I may not have a reset date on net metering but March is usually the cruelest month for determining if I need to reign back on minisplit use. I made a big dent in my surplus this winter and got surprised by a month long cold and stormy stretch in late February and most of march.

Thanks for the mini split info. I did get to experience them with my cousin hundreds of miles north,
I found no fault and she likes them. The very good COP and operation to 13 F below zero should
be a big improvement over what I have.

I figure a minimum of three (at 9000 btu) should be immediately installed on this strung out
ranch, 2000 sq ft. Of course the basement is the same size and treated like another floor,
fully heated. After a year, will decide if there is a place another mini is needed. The first one
will have the compressor hung on my brick wall, above the snow. I believe everything
needed for the job is here, have done other air conditioning years ago. DIY I expect will
REALLY save a lot of $. Already done is a new power distribution center in a good location,
and with plenty of space for those mini double breakers. Bruce Roe

[peakbagger]

I am lucky as my POCO doesn't have reset date, but they will gladly write me a check for my surplus generation at some very low rate every year

I do encourage you to do the minisplit route. Except for the high installation markup they are hard to beat. Being in northern NH, I don't tend to use the AC often but even in this extreme climate I get a lot of "free heat" on mild days in the winter and where it really saves me is in the "shoulder seasons" where I don't need to run my wood boiler and eat standby losses. It also is nice option when I am going to be gone for several days and cant put enough heat into my hot water storage tank to cover the heating demand. In this case I run the minisplit for primary heat with the wood boiler storage as secondary. I tend to run the minisplit when the overnight temps are above 30 and use it for supplemental heat during the daytime in the winter if the temps are over 20 and its sunny. I have done my own installs and have posted about it a few times but that's your call.

The big trick with minisplits in winter is set them and forget them. They are good at maintaining a space temp but struggle to catch up from a temperature setback. The air is just warm not hot going out of it and if you use it on high output the coils tend to frost up quicker which means more defrost cycles. I don't have snow baffles on mine but its located on the lee side of the house from the prevailing wind with a slanted roof with some overhang over the top of it to keep snow out. It usually stays snow free unless I accidentally aim my snow blower chute at it.

I may not have a reset date on net metering but March is usually the cruelest month for determining if I need to reign back on minisplit use. I made a big dent in my surplus this winter and got surprised by a month long cold and stormy stretch in late February and most of march. My surplus got down quite low and I had to ramp up wood use. That time is hopefully past and I am happily cranking out surplus for next winter. The only down side is without standby losses from my wood boiler and storage my basement temps drop down to ground temps. Probably a good place to hang meat and a root cellar . I sometimes fire the boiler if I am working down there and warm things up with big unit heater.

[bcroe]

My PoCo earlier mass customer emailed me that adding PV solar might be advantageous if I had the
roof space. Now a similar suggestion came with the latest bill, it also mentions community solar. A
little snooping indicates the terms may be similar to mine from 5 years ago, don't know
about gov rebates or what inspired this.

Fine, but my net metering annual reserve reset to zero about 1 April. So with cold weather, clouds, and
no reserve, April is my hardest month to stay ahead and avoid buying any KWH. A look at the weather
reveals that reading the meter on today, the last day of April, would really help with maybe 400 more
KWH added to my reserve in the last 3 days. Just as if to make it harder, the PoCo read my meter
remotely, 3 days before the end of April, but I managed to be ahead by 600KWH anyway.

The major conservation effort for a while will be about adding enough mini split heat pumps to take care
of the house almost all year. The electrical distribution center is prepared, more about that later.
Bruce Roe