Power usage, holy crap!

[Billldg]

Sorry, but this thread is kinda like a person buying a Ferrari and complaining about the cost of insurance. :rolleyes: ;)

 

[Alenya]

Our meter cost is more for service than supply..!

 

[pbrown]

$30K on a generator?!?!?!?!

Is everything in CA that much more expensive?

I live in CA and have solar, a generator (due to our recent fires). Generator was $800 and can run on gas or propane.

My brother also built me a lithium power pack that has 12 large batteries (?) that can run my house for two weeks - including refrigerators and 3 tanks (2 fresh/1 salt). No air conditioning, but everything else. It is the size of a medium suitcase. Heavy as heck but wow...it got me through a week without power in September due to the NorCal fires. I am trying to talk him into selling these.

 

[BZOFIQ]

My brother also built me a lithium power pack that has 12 large batteries (?) that can run my house for two weeks - including refrigerators and 3 tanks (2 fresh/1 salt). No air conditioning, but everything else. It is the size of a medium suitcase. Heavy as heck but wow...it got me through a week without power in September due to the NorCal fires. I am trying to talk him into selling these.

Interesting, can you get more details out of him?

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

Hi there, Ive posted a few times about my current tank its a 150 Gallon SC. My wife recently brought up how much our electric bill is up, and i assumed it was related to covid and the kids and i being home all day.. Today i was doing some cabling cleanup on my tank and i decided to measure specific components to see what the power usage is. Boy was I suprised
Return Pump - 1200GPH 72W
AI Prime Fuge light - 24W
3x AI Prime 16HD tank lights - 84W total
Aqua Ultravoilet Light - 18.4
pair of hydor koralia wave makers - 4W
Bubble Magus Protein Skimmer (c8 i think) - 22W
Transfer pump for UV Light 4000lph - 31W
mini PC for my Seneye (dell mini) - 27W
Heater - 400W
Pair of Jabeo wavemakers - 10-11W each

In total im using around 304W for 12 hours per day
at night when my lights go off im down to 220
this works out to 6.3 KWH per day not including my heater going on and off.

or about 77.34$ per month at californias "reasonable" electric rates. again without my 400w heater even turning on.

yuck

Here in southern California our kilowatt per hour charge is anywhere from .13 cents all the way up to $0.20.
7kw in a month here is $ 44 at .20 a kw.
Most everywhere else in the US it's higher almost double. Bummer

 

[Dr. Dendrostein]

I live in CA and have solar, a generator (due to our recent fires). Generator was $800 and can run on gas or propane.

My brother also built me a lithium power pack that has 12 large batteries (?) that can run my house for two weeks - including refrigerators and 3 tanks (2 fresh/1 salt). No air conditioning, but everything else. It is the size of a medium suitcase. Heavy as heck but wow...it got me through a week without power in September due to the NorCal fires. I am trying to talk him into selling these.

Don't forget I get a patent first. It helps something

 

[((FORDTECH))]

I looked into that and I had 2 reps from SunRun at the house and when I told them the numbers don't add up they both had no answer.

Bottom line, system was $36000 for 22 panels and tax incentive was off equipment cost, which is.....you're ready? $6900.

I asked the guy if the installation costs is $29000 and he didnt know what to say.

I watched somebody across the street getting installed in one day flat. $29000 for installation, I told him he is out of his mind!!!

Paying $36K to save few hundred a month in more productive months is dumb!!!


Better yet, I have friends who refuse to admit that they got conned. They swear it was a great idea to put holes in the roof yada yada yada. They tell me "oh my electric bill used to be $300 and now it's like $30. I ask how much is your lease on solar panels - $279 / month - help me stop laughing.

I just went thru same thing with sunrun came out did there speech and I about had heart attack when I was told 33,000 for the install. I asked to please help me understand why it would be worth it they told me after 14years I would start to see a benefit from it. I laughed and told them who knows if I will even live that long then they try to sell me on how happy the next home owner will. E to buy the house with solar on it as they explain to me the new owner will still have to pay the 150$ a month on top of electric bill. I told them to please leave my house and kept the 33,000 in my pocket

 

[((FORDTECH))]

Oh I forgot to mention that my energy use is so much that they wanted to cover the complete top roof of my house and my garage both have new roofs less then 3 years old and would be completely full of holes after that. Still only getting me at 60% or so. I am also one of the people being told I use 3-4x as much electricity as my neighbors. Somewhere about 4,000kw a month average

 

[BZOFIQ]

I just went thru same thing with sunrun came out did there speech and I about had heart attack when I was told 33,000 for the install. I asked to please help me understand why it would be worth it they told me after 14years I would start to see a benefit from it. I laughed and told them who knows if I will even live that long then they try to sell me on how happy the next home owner will. E to buy the house with solar on it as they explain to me the new owner will still have to pay the 150$ a month on top of electric bill. I told them to please leave my house and kept the 33,000 in my pocket

It blows my mind how many different angles they approach you with just to justify their ripoff practices.

This is why they want to see your usage to see how much they can tweak their prices so that it makes sense to a stupid consumer.

 

[BZOFIQ]

So with record-low energy prices currently in effect, my friends in Brooklyn are seeing $.35/kwh and their bills going from high $300 to mid $500 month to month.

How's it looking for you?

 

[fish farmer]

So with record-low energy prices currently in effect, my friends in Brooklyn are seeing $.35/kwh and their bills going from high $300 to mid $500 month to month.

How's it looking for you?

My current KWH in Vermont is $.172/kwh, Back when this thread was, Summer 2020 it was $.168/kwh and the bill is about the same, high when I run A/C, hot tub. space heaters.

 

[robbyg]

It's funny that this thread popped back up. I had a couple of issues with power outages after I last posted . This lead to some research via a relative of mine in the management side of a power company. He basically said that I should not bank on power prices being the same in a couple of years as their projections on Fuel prices plus the added market of EV's etc had shown massive increases are coming and wont be going away.

A few days later I started to research going solar and getting enough equipment that I could go off the grid, but would start with enough battery power to cut only 50% of my energy bill. Due to the panels needing to be on the roof two stories up I needed an Installer for that and a certified electrician for the final hookup to the Grid.
Everything else from Inverter Installation, Batteries, Trunking and wiring I decided I would do myself during the Covid down time.

Three months later it was all done and I now have 10.2KW of solar on my roof and 21Kw of Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries Installed. I was always a staunch opponent against solar because the prices made no sense but with the massive price drops in solar equipment and with these new kind of LFP batteries it now makes a lot of sense. My batteries have an expected 14 year lifespan with over 6000 full recharge and discharge cycles.

I decided to go first class with the Inverter and bought a Sol-Ark 12K unit. It has a 4ms response time to blackouts so my whole house is literally on a huge UPS. I cannot even tell when a power outage has happened! I can also program it as to when the batteries take over powering the house at night.

I can run everything in my House including the AC's\Heat Pumps from 10pm to 7:30am on battery and the Sun is just up enough at that time to take over powering the House and start recharging the batteries. By 11:30am the batteries are typically recharged and the remaining solar is just powering the house and heating hot water. I am currently 75% off the Grid and only use Utility power between 5pm and 10pm.
If I get another 10Kw more of batteries I will be totally off the Grid and since my system is designed to handle 50KWh of batteries so I could go even further if needed.

Conclusion:
Well I must admit it brings a smile to my face when I see all the houses down the road are in darkness while mine is lit up and we did not even realize when the power had gone is amazing. I have cut my electric bill down to a very small sum and I feel a lot better going into Hurricane season with this in place.
Also it's pretty cool to crank up the AC in the day and know that those Hot cloudless days outside are actually allowing me to cool my house even more and for free.

I just got a recent electric bill and noticed another big price hike on it for fuel charges.
I suspect that given all that is going on and all that is to come this is going to be a very worthwhile investment.

Lastly don't believe all the stuff you hear. I can tell you for a fact that if you put up 10Kw of solar Panels you will get nearly 10Kw out of them if the sun is shinning on them. Even on a blanketed cloudy day I get enough power to keep the house running and charge the batteries. It only those extremely low lying dark clouds passing by that will totally kill the solar power.

As for Prices, that is also not 100% accurate. You can spend anywhere from $10K to $40K and get very comparable systems in performance. It all depends on do you want, top of the line equipment or do you want budget equipment with some manual input needed.

Batteries are by far the most expensive part of the system. I can buy 5.1KWh Lithium Iron Phosphate battery packs anywhere from $3500 to $1500 both with a 10 Year warranty. The difference is I trust the $3500 one a lot more and I know the company will be around in 10+ years.

 

[Dysert]

currently i pay .41 per kwh. the issue is california, not the USA :)

we have something called tiered pricing. my wife and i have 4 kids, so were always in tier 3 :(

I don't miss CA at all!

 

[FurrierTransform]

Your $0.41/kWh must be the cost for tier 3; the lower tiers are cheaper. And you don't say where in California you live, but if you use A/C, that really jacks up the price and usage.

 

[Woodyman]

I'm glad my power cost is low @ ~0.045¢ per kWh. Although I would very much like to get solar and batteries so thank you @robbyg for the informational post above!

 

[ScottB]

It's funny that this thread popped back up. I had a couple of issues with power outages after I last posted . This lead to some research via a relative of mine in the management side of a power company. He basically said that I should not bank on power prices being the same in a couple of years as their projections on Fuel prices plus the added market of EV's etc had shown massive increases are coming and wont be going away.

A few days later I started to research going solar and getting enough equipment that I could go off the grid, but would start with enough battery power to cut only 50% of my energy bill. Due to the panels needing to be on the roof two stories up I needed an Installer for that and a certified electrician for the final hookup to the Grid.
Everything else from Inverter Installation, Batteries, Trunking and wiring I decided I would do myself during the Covid down time.

Three months later it was all done and I now have 10.2KW of solar on my roof and 21Kw of Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries Installed. I was always a staunch opponent against solar because the prices made no sense but with the massive price drops in solar equipment and with these new kind of LFP batteries it now makes a lot of sense. My batteries have an expected 14 year lifespan with over 6000 full recharge and discharge cycles.

I decided to go first class with the Inverter and bought a Sol-Ark 12K unit. It has a 4ms response time to blackouts so my whole house is literally on a huge UPS. I cannot even tell when a power outage has happened! I can also program it as to when the batteries take over powering the house at night.

I can run everything in my House including the AC's\Heat Pumps from 10pm to 7:30am on battery and the Sun is just up enough at that time to take over powering the House and start recharging the batteries. By 11:30am the batteries are typically recharged and the remaining solar is just powering the house and heating hot water. I am currently 75% off the Grid and only use Utility power between 5pm and 10pm.
If I get another 10Kw more of batteries I will be totally off the Grid and since my system is designed to handle 50KWh of batteries so I could go even further if needed.

Conclusion:
Well I must admit it brings a smile to my face when I see all the houses down the road are in darkness while mine is lit up and we did not realize their was an outage until someone looked outside. I have cut my electric bill down to a very small sum and I feel a lot better going into Hurricane season. Also it's pretty cool to crank up the AC in the day and know that those Hot cloudless days outside are actually allowing me to cool my house even more and for free.

I just got a recent electric bill and noticed another big price hike on it for fuel charges.
I suspect that given all that is going on and all that is to come this is going to be a very worthwhile investment.

Lastly don't believe all the stuff you hear. I can tell you for a fact that if you put up 10Kw of solar Panels you will get nearly 10Kw out of them if the sun is shinning on them. Even on a cloudy I get enough power to keep the house running and charge the batteries. It has to be those extremely low lying dark clouds passing by that will totally kill the solar power.

As for Prices, that is also not 100% accurate. You can spend anywhere from $10K to $40K and get very comparable systems in performance. It all depends on do you want top of the line equipment or do you want budget equipment.

Batteries are by far the most expensive part of the system. I can buy 5.1KWh Lithium Iron Phosphate battery packs anywhere from $3500 to $1500 both with a 10 Year warranty. The difference is I trust the $3500 one a lot more and I know the company will be around in 10+ years.

Uh... Where do you live? Gonna guess you are way south of me. Otherwise the math and prices have changed an awful lot in 3 years. I drive a Tesla, so I am not a hater. Just could not make the math work at all.

 

[robbyg]

Uh... Where do you live? Gonna guess you are way south of me. Otherwise the math and prices have changed an awful lot in 3 years. I drive a Tesla, so I am not a hater. Just could not make the math work at all.

Yes much further south but it's kind of a myth that Solar needs super bright sunlight to provide adequate power.

BTW, Yes the math has changed a lot in the last two years! I would have never gotten solar two years ago. The prices of panels, Inverters and Batteries have gone down significantly.
The main change that has hit the market is LFP batteries. Super long lasting with 6000+ cycles of energy. Some companies claim they will last 20 years but realistically I am told it's about 14 years.

Below is the calculator/Bible that everybody should use before investing. It will let you see what amount of power you will produce each month of the year for your location. I found it to be about 95% accurate in predicting what my system would produce each month versus what I am actually getting now that it is running.

https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/

Solar is not for everyone, but it's one of the few investments that you can add to your house that actually pays back money and gives you a peace of mind against blackouts and changes that may happen in the future with energy prices.

I would never cut the utility power to my house but I just want it to be a standby source of power for days when it is totally overcast. I can use my generator but that is more expensive to run than the utility power by a wide margin.