Pricing in Bay Area - Compared to DIY

[Willaby]

In the mean time I need to figure out which model of EVSE L2 car charger I want to go with. For our 2015 LEAF we need a 30A charger to provide the maximum charging - however for just a bit more I could get a 50A charger (40A output) and future proof things a bit more.

I went with the Clipper Creek LCS25 for my Volt. Has been a year and a half with zero problems. The local vendor said he had one problem and CC told him to give his customer a new one on the spot so he wouldn't need to wait for a replacement to ship.

The 25 amp was the max that would work with my standard dryer plug, but even if I had a Tesla I wouldn't go bigger. With the Volt I can always fall back on gas, but if I had 80-100 miles of range like the Leaf, adding 10-20 mi per hour of charge time would be more than enough. Especially with Tesla ownership, I think the mentality is you gotta get that $3k fast charger installed (50A, I think?), but unless you drive +200 mi/day, it's not necessary.

[w00dy]

Thanks everyone.

I decided to go with the OpenEVSE unit.

It will be a great project for my 6 year old "engineer" son! He loves to make things - I can only imagine him building the car charger. He is already all in on the EV car and the solar panels...

Should be fun!

[MADforSolar]

man where the hell are you guys finding deals for 3.5/w. Can someone please send me their installer information.

I'd like to get the installer info as well. I'm getting quote at more than $1 more before FTC...

I live in the southbay

[w00dy]

PTO Received today from PG&E - So this is the end of this project...

I am very happy with how quickly everything went - I figured it would take me till March-April 2016 to get me all in and at a price I wanted.

My builder is still not on the Solar Reviews Site - if he ever does end up on the site, then I will come back and mention the company in this thread.

Thanks again to everyone on this board for the advice, help, and suggestions. It made it much easier for me to do this so soon!

[solar_newbie]

PTO Received today from PG&E - So this is the end of this project...

I am very happy with how quickly everything went - I figured it would take me till March-April 2016 to get me all in and at a price I wanted.

My builder is still not on the Solar Reviews Site - if he ever does end up on the site, then I will come back and mention the company in this thread.

Thanks again to everyone on this board for the advice, help, and suggestions. It made it much easier for me to do this so soon!

Congrats I got mine today also

[w00dy]

Just wanted to drop back in with an update. Last year is when I started seriously contemplating Solar. I don't think I would have been as confident and knowledgeable without the help from this site.

We are on PG&E E-6 TOU and NEM 1.0

With around 1 month until our True-Up we are at a cumulative electric total of $14.00

Looks like we might overproduce slightly for the year when the rest of August and September are factored in.

We have only driven our Nissan LEAF EV about 2,995 mile in 11 months. We are averaging around 3.9 miles per kwh for our driving which will equal around 12,870 for a year. Gas savings are around $495 plus $100 less maintenance. If we use the LEAF more in the next year and/or charge more at home we will easily use up any excess solar production.

In addition, we are still looking at adding a ductless mini-split HVAC unit to cool and heat our living space, which would also use up any additional excess solar generation we may have.

Overall we are very happy with the size of the solar setup we went with. I looked at the total generation we have had and it is quite interesting to look at each panel and how it has produced. Below is an image from our Envoy for much of the year. We had it off for several weeks but it does show how each panel produces and how the top row of panels produced less. The other interesting discovery is how much the adjacent roof shading affected the 2 solar panels in the left corner.

[w00dy]

I also see that the company is now listed on Solar Reviews - so I can link to them here.

Green Power Installers did an excellent job and working with a local business owner is always a plus!

[J.P.M.]

Just wanted to drop back in with an update. Last year is when I started seriously contemplating Solar. I don't think I would have been as confident and knowledgeable without the help from this site.

We are on PG&E E-6 TOU and NEM 1.0

With around 1 month until our True-Up we are at a cumulative electric total of $14.00

Looks like we might overproduce slightly for the year when the rest of August and September are factored in.

We have only driven our Nissan LEAF EV about 2,995 mile in 11 months. We are averaging around 3.9 miles per kwh for our driving which will equal around 12,870 for a year. Gas savings are around $495 plus $100 less maintenance. If we use the LEAF more in the next year and/or charge more at home we will easily use up any excess solar production.

In addition, we are still looking at adding a ductless mini-split HVAC unit to cool and heat our living space, which would also use up any additional excess solar generation we may have.

Overall we are very happy with the size of the solar setup we went with. I looked at the total generation we have had and it is quite interesting to look at each panel and how it has produced. Below is an image from our Envoy for much of the year. We had it off for several weeks but it does show how each panel produces and how the top row of panels produced less. The other interesting discovery is how much the adjacent roof shading affected the 2 solar panels in the left corner.

Thanx for the update. As expected, the higher rows produce less energy, probably/mostly due the lower tilt. The lower output in the SW corner from the SW roof is no surprise either. Any other glitches since startup ? What, if anything would you do differently based on what you now know ?

Regards,

[w00dy]

We haven't had any real problems with the panels or production. I think the only thing I might have done differently, looking back, is trying harder to get the panels situated a little differently. I have another free roof area I could use If I ever want to get max production from my 16 panels. I could move 6 panels to that roof and get a 10% boost compared to the top row and even a little more for the ones that are sitting in the shady corner. I was thinking I would save that other roof area for something else in the future, but who knows if that will ever happen. I really don't think i will ever need pool solar, and even though I have water pipes plumbed up to the roof for thermal hot water I am not sure it would gain us enough to justify the cost...it is highly unlikely.

I am not sure how the Envoy and my other PowerLine communication devices are getting along - I had it off for a while to troubleshoot that problem, it remains to be seen if I have fixed that problem entirely.

[J.P.M.]

We haven't had any real problems with the panels or production. I think the only thing I might have done differently, looking back, is trying harder to get the panels situated a little differently. I have another free roof area I could use If I ever want to get max production from my 16 panels. I could move 6 panels to that roof and get a 10% boost compared to the top row and even a little more for the ones that are sitting in the shady corner. I was thinking I would save that other roof area for something else in the future, but who knows if that will ever happen. I really don't think i will ever need pool solar, and even though I have water pipes plumbed up to the roof for thermal hot water I am not sure it would gain us enough to justify the cost...it is highly unlikely.

I am not sure how the Envoy and my other PowerLine communication devices are getting along - I had it off for a while to troubleshoot that problem, it remains to be seen if I have fixed that problem entirely.

As much as I have a love affair w/solar thermal, if you do not use CH4 to heat your domestic H2O, @ this time it may well make more sense, both economically and practically to consider a heat pump H2O heater (HPWH) if/when your current heater fails/needs replacement. My guess is in Santa Cruz a HPWH will be equally or more cost effective than solar thermal. If you heat /CH4, stick with it - easier and cheaper than other methods w/proven tech. and fewer hassles.

Thanx for the update.

[w00dy]

We do heat with Natural Gas (as you state CH4) - both our domestic water, and water for our radiant floors and radiators...if we switched to a HPWH it would certainly increase our solar needs - hopefully our 5 year old Polaris high efficiency water heater lasts a few more years!

[solardreamer]

It's great that it looks like you won't have too much NEM credit at true-up. Do you have some idea about the ratio of actual vs projected solar production?

I have PG&E EV-A plan and will likely have quite of a bit NEM credit at true-up even after extra AC usage. So, I now plan to use some electric heaters to supplement my natural gas central heater to use up more of NEM credit in the future.

Just wanted to drop back in with an update. Last year is when I started seriously contemplating Solar. I don't think I would have been as confident and knowledgeable without the help from this site.

We are on PG&E E-6 TOU and NEM 1.0

With around 1 month until our True-Up we are at a cumulative electric total of $14.00

Looks like we might overproduce slightly for the year when the rest of August and September are factored in.

We have only driven our Nissan LEAF EV about 2,995 mile in 11 months. We are averaging around 3.9 miles per kwh for our driving which will equal around 12,870 for a year. Gas savings are around $495 plus $100 less maintenance. If we use the LEAF more in the next year and/or charge more at home we will easily use up any excess solar production.

In addition, we are still looking at adding a ductless mini-split HVAC unit to cool and heat our living space, which would also use up any additional excess solar generation we may have.

Overall we are very happy with the size of the solar setup we went with. I looked at the total generation we have had and it is quite interesting to look at each panel and how it has produced. Below is an image from our Envoy for much of the year. We had it off for several weeks but it does show how each panel produces and how the top row of panels produced less. The other interesting discovery is how much the adjacent roof shading affected the 2 solar panels in the left corner.

[J.P.M.]

We do heat with Natural Gas (as you state CH4) - both our domestic water, and water for our radiant floors and radiators...if we switched to a HPWH it would certainly increase our solar needs - hopefully our 5 year old Polaris high efficiency water heater lasts a few more years!

Flatulence can also be considered natural, but I haven't flared any of that off since my Bevis/Butthead days.

CH4 from the POCO is, in all likelihood at least as cost effective as a heat pump at your location. Besides mercaptan has a more consistent smell.

[w00dy]

It's great that it looks like you won't have too much NEM credit at true-up. Do you have some idea about the ratio of actual vs projected solar production?

I have PG&E EV-A plan and will likely have quite of a bit NEM credit at true-up even after extra AC usage. So, I now plan to use some electric heaters to supplement my natural gas central heater to use up more of NEM credit in the future.

I originally wanted to target about 80% of our usage - and was looking at 12 panels. However, at the time we had just added a pool, were contemplating buying a Nissan LEAF (and did buy one the same week we had the solar installed!), and still plan to add a Mini-Split heat/cooling unit for our main living are...so we felt like adding the 4 extra panels would afford us much of that luxury.

We have been pretty careful with our peak and non-peak usage, but once we saw that we would have some excess generation we have been a little less regimented with things like when we do laundry in the past month.

I think if we had gone with 12 panels it would have easily met about 80% or more of our previous usage - but with the unknown of a new EV and new pool having the extra 22% or so of solar generation put us just over of 100% of usage. Now many people might say that is a mistake, since chasing the last % of generation costs more than it is worth - for us in our situation it seems like a good use of our cash and will pay more than if it was sitting in a bank.

[w00dy]

Flatulence can also be considered natural, but I haven't flared any of that off since my Bevis/Butthead days.

CH4 from the POCO is, in all likelihood at least as cost effective as a heat pump at your location. Besides mercaptan has a more consistent smell.

HA HA...

[w00dy]

Our NEM True-Up bill was just sent to us - and for the year we overproduced by 30 cents...

That is crazy - I am pretty sure that will never happen again...getting it that close in year one is quite surprising.