Comments on: Solar support is growing increasingly bipartisan 2019 Trends: A Solar Power World special feature https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2019/06/solar-support-growing-increasingly-bipartisan/ Covering the world of solar power technology, development and installation. Mon, 09 Dec 2019 18:56:53 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2 By: Solarman https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2019/06/solar-support-growing-increasingly-bipartisan/#comment-62392 Sun, 16 Jun 2019 07:43:57 +0000 https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/?p=85890#comment-62392 I’ve used solar PV in two homes now over the last 14 years. I have found personal discoveries and have run across several lies promoted by the electric industry itself. I have found the claim of direct southern facing solar PV is the “best” installation. My first solar PV system’s home had a ridge running North and South. The roof actually sloped East and West. With the proper insolence data from a solar PV installer, it was determined splitting the panels on the East and West sloping roof with 21% more panels installed from a due south facing array would do the trick. Did it, and how. My solar PV production each day in the summer months was from 12 to 14 hours of usable generation and 6 to 8 hours of usable solar PV production in the winter months. Even during those gray days of winter, the solar PV generated enough power to run the home during the daylight hours. Winter power production was in the most part an ‘electricity credit’ every day, the summer months electric bills were taken care of by the winter generation credits, usually in July and August I would have a $60 to $80 dollar electric bill for these months.

My biggest surprise was when I had to replace the 20 year old HVAC with the most energy efficient units at the time. My electricity demand fell for the whole year and my energy credits started to add up to a credit that allowed, NO MORE electric bill for the next several years. When I sold that house, the electric utility refunded money to me.

My home now has a system that has twice the kWh peak production of the old system. Because this home was not my primary residence at the time, I did not get to use the 30% ITC and yet this new system cost the same as the old system installed in 2005 on the old home. At that time the Federal Government allowed a Federal tax credit of $2,000 capped. This is how much solar PV installation and system cost has dropped since 2005. Now we are looking at residential energy storage that can be used to store more over generation from one’s system during the day, that can be shifted to after sundown to use at night.

The race is on, now one who wants to adopt solar PV can actually (overdesign) their system, take the excess solar generation during the day and store it in a ESS that can use the stored energy at night to run the home. This self-consumption is the next big thing in solar PV adoption for one’s home or business. The smart hybrid inverters can also be programmed to take off peak or super off peak electricity and charge the battery for the early morning hours when the solar PV isn’t generating usable power until later in the morning.

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