Questions about new system under production

[sunnyguy]

All the solar energy you make between sunrise and noon goes to off peak. Usually the flat rate plan is the most expensive. So did you ever use the "compare rate plans" feature? And was your yearly total on the flat rate plan $2900?

[solar pete]

Yum, time to head home!

Your photos... are Making me, hungry

[Markinphoenix]

Sorry, no I never used the compare rate plans.

I just had a 3 way call with APS and the owner of Harmon. It's a mess and the two of them are talking the finer techinical points of my billing and my system.

Just to put some things straight. My plan is called "EPR-6"
My OFF PEAK is from 7PM to Noon next day. Any electricity I use at night, I pay for to APS. My off peak now is a few dollars a month, but its winter. APS estimates that during my A/C months, 5 actually, i'll be paying APS at least $100 for OFF PEAK electricity, plus my $96 to SunPower AND another $100 to $250 to cover what my system will NOT produce during the day to cover my needs.

My ON PEAK is from noon to 7pm. It is the highest cost of electricity IF I were buying from APS. BUT, my solar should be carrying me through that time. According to EVERYONE except Harmon, it will not do it! Based on my conversations with APS and people on here, I most likely will end up paying for additional electricity at the high ON PEAK rate because I will not have banked enough to even, according to APS, get me past June before burning through what few credits i'll have by then.

I am in no way trying to argue with my own very limited knowledge of the "time of use" plan, but just trying to now re-learn the "time of use" and off and on peak rates work since all of this was NEVER mentioned in the pre-lease signing. After we signed on the dotted line, it all changed and it's totally different. My system, as my lease states, is capable of producing 5.8 what evers. APS, using my 2015 numbers, says I need a 900 to 1100 what ever system.
According to APS, I just flat need more panels.

But it's been almost 3 more hours on this and i'm beat. I'm going to shut up for a couple more months, keep a '15 to '16 cost per month log and do a spread sheet and see where the trend goes as summer fires up and I flip the switch on TWO A/C units! Gonna be interesting for sure.

[Markinphoenix]

Well, i've digested all of yesterday the best I can. Bottom line is the owner of Harmon says I'm on track to save at least $800 for the YEAR. APS says I will owe money by July. (crap!)

With all you have read, what say you? anyone!
I needed 16,223 whatevers in 2015.
I have a 5.8 whatever system.
I have 18, 327/345 whatever panels.

Please just post your selection from below.
A. Save $800.
B. Break even, maybe hopefully
C. Owe money before the year is over.

And now it's time to get my 20 foot window scrubber out and clean my dirty panels so they can catch every photon that hits the rascles!!!

[Markinphoenix]

The feast and the frustration! LOL

[Stopsignhank1]

And now it's time to get my 20 foot window scrubber out and clean my dirty panels so they can catch every photon that hits the rascles!!!

Make sure to follow the recommendations here when cleaning your panels.

I also think your contractor and APS have been very kind to spend as much time with you as they have.

https://www.solarpaneltalk.com/forum...-Solar-Panels=

[Markinphoenix]

Make sure to follow the recommendations here when cleaning your panels.

I also think your contractor and APS have been very kind to spend as much time with you as they have.

https://www.solarpaneltalk.com/forum...-Solar-Panels=

I'm not quite sure how to take the statement about spending as much time as they have with me. Because I cannot see you or read you body language or hear your voice inflections I can take it as humorous or as a "shut the heck up, stop whinning and go away" kind of statement.
Could you be a little more specific on that statement for me please!
I don't want to respond with a reply based on speculation, uhhhh, wellll, kinda like my whole pathetic solar array is. har har. funny funny.

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After making a quicky month by month, last year actual cost vs my new lease+crapolafees+actuabought from APS fees, I'm out of pocket $58.27. Yep, i'm feeling all warm and fuzzy about this thing! LOL Can't wait till I throw two A/C units on and my shop fires up on a cabinet job!

But baby!! I"m a go'n GREEN!!!!

[sensij]

Well, i've digested all of yesterday the best I can. Bottom line is the owner of Harmon says I'm on track to save at least $800 for the YEAR. APS says I will owe money by July. (crap!)

With all you have read, what say you? anyone!
I needed 16,223 whatevers in 2015.
I have a 5.8 whatever system.
I have 18, 327/345 whatever panels.

Please just post your selection from below.
A. Save $800.
B. Break even, maybe hopefully
C. Owe money before the year is over.

And now it's time to get my 20 foot window scrubber out and clean my dirty panels so they can catch every photon that hits the rascles!!!

I'm not sure why A and C are mutually exclusive. It is possible to save money, but still owe to APS. You'll just owe less than you otherwise would have. How that relates to your lease payment isn't clear at this point, but if you keep a spreadsheet as you suggested, it should become clearer. Make sure to keep track of your consumption too, not just the cost. A trap that some fall into is seeing higher electricity bills after installing solar, because they use much, much electricity more thinking it is "free".

[sunnyguy]

I made some quick very rough calculations for you and I say your yearly total cost including lease and APS payments will be around $2100. Yes there will be a few $100-$200 bills in the summer, but most will be low. This is based on a rough estimate of your peak/off peak usage since your data doesn't show it for last year. So if you were paying $2900/yr then yes you might save $800. However I'm still not convinced you were on the best rate plan and wouldn't have saved almost as much switching rate plans without solar.

[FFE]

I made some quick very rough calculations for you and I say your yearly total cost including lease and APS payments will be around $2100. Yes there will be a few $100-$200 bills in the summer, but most will be low. This is based on a rough estimate of your peak/off peak usage since your data doesn't show it for last year. So if you were paying $2900/yr then yes you might save $800. However I'm still not convinced you were on the best rate plan and wouldn't have saved almost as much switching rate plans without solar.

I already basically picked A on an earlier post when I claimed your savings will be closer to $1000 than $360. I'm going to stick with it and I am glad to see someone else did some estimates also. I think your idea about being patient and seeing what happens this summer is a good idea. At least you should save money as long as you don't increase your electric useage. There are some people that claim to have had higher bills with the same useage after switching to solar.

I am not familiar with how APS works, but maybe someone more familiar can chime in about the following:
Can you change the date APS resets your useage from December to October? This might allow you to bank on peak better instead of losing the ones you make in late fall/early Winter.

I doubt someone can go from $2900 to $21000 just be switching to a TOU in AZ even with major changes to your lifestyle. Been there done that. Saved $200 a year off a $1500 a year bill on SRP.

Remember, often you get what you pay for and my opinion is free.

[Markinphoenix]

I received another email from Harmon yesterday. All I can and will say is the leadership at Harmon Solar is as pathetic as the salesman. Truly embarrassing for sure. I have also called APS yet again, after talking to them at length AFTER Harmon spoke with them with me on the line. I cannot and will not repeat what I was told, but I fully understand APS's response to Harmons later email to me. Laughable!

With that said, I made a very simple cost comparison from '15 (no solar, flat rate, using 16,223KWh for the entire year) Verses being on solar full time for over 2 months. The cost comparison is what MY LEASE WAS PRESENTED ON, FLAT RATE, 12 MONTH AVERAGE.
For the last 2 full months. I am OUT OF POCKET $58.47. Yes, i'm saving a NEGATIVE every month!!! It would have been cheaper to just change all my bulbs to LED and turn the A/C up a couple degrees!

I then wondered how my actual overall usage compared, so I called APS again and had THEM tell me exact numbers, '15 to 16" So far, with my roof being shaded with new panels, and a new AC unit. I'm using 12% LESS electricity than I did in 2015!!! But with even that decrease in usage, I'm still PAYING, overall, $58.47 MORE??????? WTF!

And APS still stands by the statement that by summer, or mid summer, I will have exhausted ALL ON PEAK credits and will begin buying the expensive crap for my 4 most screaming high rate plans, for the time I run my dual AC units,Goody.

None of this is about Time of Day, off peak, on peak, angle of the dangle and line of the incline. It's about the FACT that the whole ORIGINAL presentation was base on a 12 month, flat rate comparison that was presented in such a way that we signed a binding lease that takes MY side in this. The whole thing was then, a huge BS load of crap to get us to sign.

[sensij]

With that said, I made a very simple cost comparison from '15 (no solar, flat rate, using 16,223KWh for the entire year) Verses being on solar full time for over 2 months. The cost comparison is what MY LEASE WAS PRESENTED ON, FLAT RATE, 12 MONTH AVERAGE.
For the last 2 full months. I am OUT OF POCKET $58.47. Yes, i'm saving a NEGATIVE every month!!! It would have been cheaper to just change all my bulbs to LED and turn the A/C up a couple degrees!

I then wondered how my actual overall usage compared, so I called APS again and had THEM tell me exact numbers, '15 to 16" So far, with my roof being shaded with new panels, and a new AC unit. I'm using 12% LESS electricity than I did in 2015!!! But with even that decrease in usage, I'm still PAYING, overall, $58.47 MORE??????? WTF!

And APS still stands by the statement that by summer, or mid summer, I will have exhausted ALL ON PEAK credits and will begin buying the expensive crap for my 4 most screaming high rate plans, for the time I run my dual AC units,Goody.

I think you are still missing the point. Looking at the 12 month average make sense... yeah, in winter, you might be paying more, but once the days get longer and summer prices kick in, the amount you save *should* be enough to cover that difference and more. Only until you've looked closely at those actual numbers will you be able to tell whether the PV system saved you money or not.

Your point about credits running out is foolish... the fact that you have credits at all means you've avoided paying at least *some* of the on-peak charges you would otherwise have seen. Even when you are not banking credits, you will still be consuming the solar power generated during the day, reducing the amount you need to buy from APS. Those savings could easily be more than the extra expense you are seeing right now.

Finally... yes, replacing incandescents with LED's and adjusting the A/C temp are almost definitely more cost effective than installing solar. If you are worried that your APS bill is still going to be too high, nothing prevents you from doing those things along with solar. Maybe they mis-represented how much you would save, but that doesn't mean you aren't going to be saving at all.

[sunnyguy]

Don't trust APS to do accurate solar calculations. Don't trust the solar company to do your power bill calculations. Have you looked at the actual rates?? Did you remember that weekends are off peak ALL DAY?

https://www.aps.com/en/residential/a...advantage.aspx
https://www.aps.com/en/residential/a.../standard.aspx

Last year you were paying 14+ cents per most of your kWh in the summer, even at night/morning/weekend. Now you're paying 6 cents at night/morning/weekend.

Your lease says you'll save at least $30/mo and I think you will beat that. You'll save even more by lowering your summer usage during 12pm to 7pm. Work in your shop between 6am to 12pm and on weekends.

[Markinphoenix]

I understand what everyone is saying. What I"m trying to do is see if I will meet the lease estimates, Period!! everything, EVERYTHING boils down to SAVING money, last year to this year. The only thing that counts legally is my lease. I have CUT my usage so far this year by 12%, goody. I"m going to put the white crap on my shop roof because the shingles are loosing grit fast and I cannot afford 2 grand for a re-roof right now. I'm sure that reflective nature of the coating with further REDUCE my usage, But THAT IS NOT THE POINT! I should not have to keep reducing and compromising to meet SunPowers figures. So far, as stated before, first 2 months into 2016, I'm $58.00 OUT OF POCKET on my TOTAL cost of used/purchased electricity. Nothing else matters anymore other than will the system meet SP's pathetic $30.30 a month "estimate" that i'm now locked in.

If I was building my own system and just tossed a system together and now was lookiing for every dime of savings, all suggestions would be right on! But that is NOT what is going on. It's just basic math, will I save money over the year? Or will I not? Very simple. So far, APS, says no. Harmon says maybe kinda sorta on a good day if the creek don't rise and the moon is not tilted more than 20 degrees off its normal axis! This whole experience is just pathetic! I hope someone looking to do the lease thing from ANY company, learns from my nightmare that it's just a crap shoot on everyones part, EXCEPT the poor trusting dude that took the word of a Sh**head salesman that came highly recommended by a good friend and from a company with a "soon to not be so good", stellar reputation. Everyone else gets to skate away from this mess, but I am forced to eat the lease year after year IF IT DOES NOT MEET SUNPOWERS "estimates".
But as I said before, I"m going to ride it out and see where it goes.

A

[Markinphoenix]

I just wanted to add a little something in here from this morning. I noticed two more houses in my neighborhood have gone under solar panels I stopped and looked and I counted. One house is the identical house to mine same bedrooms block Construction south-facing he has dual pane windows I do not. he has no second building. I do. he has a little modest pool I do not. I have a second building is 800 feet with an air conditioner on it and full of tools I counted his panels, maybe I'm off by 1 but I counted 39 panels. They are identical to mine in every way so I'm just going to assume because nobody answered the door that they're SunPower panels.
He has a gas pack on the roof because like me is


His house is full of gas probably has gas everything I don't know for a fact I want to talk to him tonight. The second house has different panels there thinner a different color a different pattern on the glass they have 44 panels. They may have a pool I don't know there is no second building there is no such an air conditioner on the roof all the homes here are all rooftop air the seventy-year-old home so you can't even access an attic to put a air handler in. I got 18 panels Just saying.