Personal Energy Independence

[Ajax]

Very interesting numbers.

Yeah, you drive way more aggressively than I do, plus a long distance plus major elevation changes. My weekly power consumption for driving wouldn't be anywhere near yours.
Benno is right, we pay .11 cents per kwh all day, every day, I believe.

It would seem to me that solar and EV's end up being a real cost savings in the long run, in California.

[TheOffice]

Plus in Cali gas is way more expensive than in Edgewater. We are at 2.65 for regular. I bet Cali is another buck a gallon.

[BeauV]

We pay a hell of a lot less for power. I think our rate is on the order of .11 plus fixed costs.

Yes, a lot of folks pay less for power. As you've all probably noticed, we have a massive long term problem with Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E). The level of mismanagement has been astounding. They are now in bankruptcy. A few years back, they didn't maintain a gas pipe which resulted in a massive fatal explosion just south of San Francisco. Earlier this year, various bits of the power grid were literally blown down and started the Camp Fire which killed a number of people and destroyed the entire town of Paradise CA. Both events were caused by massive deferred maintenance.

There are also some regulatory requirements, use of Natural Gas vs Coal etc..., which have driven up costs. But the physical size of California and our tendency to spread cities out over hundreds of miles has driven up infrastructure costs substantially. It's a bit hypocticial of me to complain, typing this in my lovely single family home on a fair bit of land, but our society really can't affod this sprawl.

I am cheered by the migration out of the suburbs and into the cities. It is excatly the right thing to do for many reasons. The social disruption of that, however, is proving to be massive.

[Ajax]

Yes, I've followed most of that on the news. I'm at a bit of a loss to understand what happens when a utility goes bankrupt. Do the lights suddenly go out?

I agree that sprawl is bad...but I'm afraid I'm drawing the line there on the amount of good that I'm willing to do for society. I will not abandon my half acre of paradise near the water to cram into a city.
I'm doing my best to blunt my impact by loading up our land with native vegetation, supporting pollinators, generating my own power, driving less, recycling, avoiding pesticides and fertilizers, not letting pet waste wash into the water table, mitigating my storm water runoff...are you bored yet? Should I continue?

[BeauV]

California Gas prices are about $4.20/gallon - the number I used above. That's higher than winter prices as there is a different blend for CA in the summer. It noticeably reduces pollution. Also, a LOT of that is Gas Tax which is being used to rebuild the roadways which were built back in the '50s and '60s, and are crumbling now. Plus, the state continues to grow steadily, although a bit more slowly. We're down to only about 1% growth now that we've hit 40,000,000 people.

Folks talk a lot about taxes and regulations etc.... as reasons why CA's net population growth has dropped. But the highest correlation is between population growth and housing supply. We are currently about 440,000 housing units short in the state. New jobs are creating demand at a rate of almost 800,000, and that doesn't include companies which have relocated to nearby states to colonize them for additional labor and lower taxes. (EG: Tesla Mega Battery Factory) We have absurdly high housing costs for one simple reason, there is massive demand. This also drives the homelessness problem as poor and crazy folks are pushed out of even the worst housing by richer folks. It is also why something like the high-speed rail system is a great idea, as it would move folks from home to work for far less money than building massive 8 lane freeways (the current solution).

In my life, I've never seen the CA economy growing this fast. It's in numerous sectors and has been going on since we came out of the 2008 crash without too much damage. One needs to ignore the whining and carping about all the "bad stuff" and simply look at population movements and housing to understand that the place is booming.

Ajax, I completely agree. Electric vehicles will be a massive saving to society generally. Yes, we haven't really sorted out the source of electricity. If we burn coal, for example, we won't be helping the environment much and "clean coal" hasn't emerged yet. We also will have to bulk up the grid to deliver power. But all those costs pale compared to what will happen if one assumes we wish to continue the economic growth without doing something (State GDP growth over the last decade has been over 19% and the state provides 16% of all job growth on 12% of the population). Electric power is the right choice for all sorts of reasons.

With respect to what happens to PG&E in bankruptcy, this is all a negotiation to rid the company of massive payments it is making or will make for its negligence and alleged negligence. It is stripping the prior executives of their pensions (which is another big story the press hasn't found yet), and destroying billions of dollars in value for shareholders, but the debt holders will probably get paid back and the entity will re-emerge with a relatively clean balance sheet, having screwed millions of folks.

Never forget, the US is one of the very few countries where the bankruptcy laws were written by the borrowers, not the lenders.

[Ajax]

Well, it's been one year since activation. Here are the stats:

The first 8 months were plagued with record rainfall and cloud cover. In 2018, we had 6 FEET of rain. Even with this amount of cloud cover and short winter days, we have had no electric bill for 6 of 12 months. We have generated a surplus of 10-330 kilowatt hours monthly during those 6 months. We incurred a negligible bill of $8-$40 during the other 6 months. We have generated a total surplus of 1192 kilowatt hours so far. If we don't eat the surplus during the winter, we will receive a check from BGE in April 2020 for reverse metering which we will simply apply to the solar loan.

Our loan payment is $188/month. (Our average utility bill used to be $140/month.) We earn an SREC (solar renewable energy certificate) for every megawatt hour we generate, regardless of how much energy we use. The SRECs are sold at the current market rate as they are generated. We have been generating 1 megawatt hour per month for the last several months. The SRECs have been selling for anywhere from $20 to $70, which we simply plow back into the loan payment. As a result, we aren't even paying our full loan payment out of pocket each month. The system is helping to pay for itself. In less than 9 years, the loan will be paid off and we'll have no utility bill and may be earning a small amount of money each month.

Additionally, with an energy surplus of between 100 and 300 kilowatt hours each month, our extra capacity would easily charge a Tesla Model 3 and still not incur an actual bill from the utility when used for my normal commute to work. Seasonal variation would probably cause me to have a small utility bill in the winter but still run smaller surpluses during the other 3 seasons. I would be generating my own fuel for driving most of the time, which is what Musk envisioned. I can increase our surplus by replacing our aging HVAC and I still haven't eliminated our ancient, stand-up freezer.

Finally, the Powerall has already proven its worth. We've had several summer storms cause power outages already. While I was out sailing, Ranger M lost power for over 12 hours. The Powerwall carried the load all night. She watched TV, had internet, had water and refrigeration and ceiling fans without lifting a finger while the rest of the neighborhood sat in the dark or dragged out noisy portable generators. Needless to say, she's a fan.

I'm not a smart man, but this seems to be one thing I've done right.

[Chris Chesley]

Great update Ajax!

Is Tesla even doing the roofs anymore? or was that division spun off?

[Ajax]

Great update Ajax!

Is Tesla even doing the roofs anymore? or was that division spun off?

Yes, they're still doing it. They eliminated their sales staff and offices though and they no longer have pretty young women hounding you in your local Home Depot. You have to visit their website.

[TheOffice]

Ajax,

I'm jealous!

Speaking of energy independence, what sort of output are you getting from the new solar panel on the boat?

[Ajax]

Ajax,

I'm jealous!

Speaking of energy independence, what sort of output are you getting from the new solar panel on the boat?

Mahhvelous output.

- No matter what I did, the old 125w panel never put out more than 40-ish watts. 2.75 amps at some voltage. Once, for a few seconds, I saw 55 watts in 2 years of ownership. Only once.
- The new 160w panel has produced in the high 120's of watts. I've seen the controller send almost 10 amps to the battery. It might produce more on a cooler day when the heat losses aren't so severe.

[TheOffice]

That's great! I'm holding out for the boat show before I buy my flex panels. They are down to $200 on line, which is about $50 lower than this time last year. Boat show was $200 last year. Hoping the boat show price is closer to $150. Because I want 3, its real money.

[Ajax]

That's great! I'm holding out for the boat show before I buy my flex panels. They are down to $200 on line, which is about $50 lower than this time last year. Boat show was $200 last year. Hoping the boat show price is closer to $150. Because I want 3, its real money.

What wattage are you buying?

[Ajax]

Well, I think I've found the limits of my system.

When ambient temperature reaches 95F degrees or higher, my production equal my consumption at around 40 Kwh per day, thanks to the A/C.
For the billing period of July/Aug, I actually consumed 50 Kwh of electricity which is about equal to 2 days of my "average" consumption. During that period, we had 3 multi-day heatwaves where the temperature was very close to 100F degrees. The morning low temps were around 80F. When I start rolling laundry into the equation on a 100 degree day, the day is a bust.

My A/C is old at 19 years. I'm sure I can reduce my consumption further when I replace it. Panel efficiency drops from nearly 50 Kwh per day on cooler but sunny days, to 40 Kwh on sunny, but blistering hot days.

No complaints. My bill was only $8 and I'm sure to start building more surplus as summer winds down, before the days get too short.

[Benno von Humpback]

Well, I think I've found the limits of my system.

Well there's this...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/20/walmart-sues-tesla-over-string-solar-panel-fires-its-stores/?tid=ss_mail

[Ajax]

Well, I think I've found the limits of my system.

Well there's this...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/08/20/walmart-sues-tesla-over-string-solar-panel-fires-its-stores/?tid=ss_mail

Yeah, I saw that. Sorry for Wal-mart but fortunately, this does not seem like a wide spread problem among residential arrays.

[Ajax]

For 2 months, I have run a slight deficit in energy production. I have been eating into my 1 Mwh surplus, so I have no bill.
I did use 50% less electricity than the same time, last year.

I absolutely love my pellet stove but the fact that it requires electricity has always nagged at me a little bit. This morning, I found this relatively new, electricity-free, gravity fed pellet stove by US Stove Co.:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sherikoone ... 7ce9193b8c

It's almost overkill for my house in terms of BTU's and sq. feet that it will heat. It's compact, powerful and has a 60lb. hopper so it will run even longer without loading it. It's only $500 more than my current pellet stove. I am absolutely buying one of these. Now, I won't have to worry about the Powerwall running out during a winter storm.

[Panope]

Thanks for the heads up about the non-electric pellet stove, Ajax. I'll be keeping that in mind.

Kinda cool piece of industrial art, almost-

[H B]

Hahah...Ajax and I talked about this yesterday. "Industrial" is exactly what Laura said..I think it looks cool as shit!

I'd still need to run a fan somewhere nearby to circulate the hot air..the chimney and hearth are in opposite corners of the house from the bedroom and TV room...but I run a box fan now anyway.

I need to do some more digging around on the Powerwall. I would need a new roof first no matter what, but I'd always thought about solar panels on this house given the southern orientation and the fact it is over 70°F all day long in winter just from solar heating. In summer, this also means the A/C runs all day long. I'd like to get some better insulation in my unvented, vaulted ceiling when I do the roof, and then maybe put solar up on top of that. I have an old school sailing friend that has panels, and a ton of golf cart batteries in the basement. I have a feeling technology has surpassed that set up for terra firma.

So, Ajax, help me with the math..what is the payback?? Basically the length of the loan if you are saving as much energy as your old electric bill? What about the longevity of the batteries which is the same discussion we've had in the Tesla car thread ? ??

[Ajax]

This is a good time to talk about my experience with Tesla Customer Support.

January 18th:
My Powerwall has failed. My diagnosis, is an internal short between cells or batteries occurred sometime in the morning after my wife and I had left for work.
This popped the breaker. I was alerted by my app.

When I returned home, I attempted to reset the breaker. This resulted in a large, hollow "BOOM" from inside the Powerwall and the breaker tripped again.

First, Tesla has done a pretty good job of minimalizing their Customer Support number for their Energy services.
When I called it, no matter what prompt numbers I pressed, I kept getting routed to Roadside Assistance.
Roadside Assistance made no attempt to connect me with Energy Customer Support. They just kept giving me a number to call, saying that they couldn't help me.

Awhile later, I received a call from Tesla apologizing, saying that their "phone tree was broken."

In the meantime, I opened a chat window on their website and was greeted by a limited chat bot.
The chatbot was eventually replaced by a human who directed me to call the same number that has been routing me to Roadside Assistance.
The person in the chat window said that they were unable to help me.

After repeated attempts, the phone tree was finally corrected and I was transferred to Customer Support.
A technician reviewed the online logs and we performed some simple troubleshooting. They opened a ticket and told me that someone from "Scheduling" would contact me that day, to arrange a site visit.

Days passed with no phone call. I called Tesla and inquired about the status of my ticket. This time, I was routed to Scheduling. I was told that the earliest that a tech could be on-site was March 4th. The woman stated that Maryland has had "an unusual number of outages and they are understaffed." She further stated that they are rushing to hire technicians and also transfer techs to Maryland from other states with a lower repair workload.

That's 1.7 MONTHS from failure to site visit. Needless to say, I wasn't pleased, but not entirely surprised.
I knew going in, that all of Tesla's energies were directed at developing and delivering products and that the "service" end of things was not mature. I took a risk that I wouldn't have any major failures before they got their Service act together, but nope. There are a lot of complaints online about Tesla's customer support across the spectrum of their products.

To my surprise, I received a phone call on February 4th stating that a tech would be bringing a new Powerwall to the house on February 13th.
This is much better and less than 30 days from date of failure.

They still have a ways to go to make their support services better, but it seems like they're trying.

[TheOffice]

3 1/2 weeks is still unacceptable. Do they give you a credit for the lost time/energy storage?

[BeauV]

Ajax, WOW! What a mess.

The automotive side of Tesla isn't like that at all in our experience. We've only needed the "shop" twice. But, things like a new tire, were performed by someone driving to our house and doing the work. My Admiral loved that! Appointments are prompt and (unlike FORD) they have realized that giving someone an Uber account is the best way to provide a "loaner".

[Ajax]

3 1/2 weeks is still unacceptable. Do they give you a credit for the lost time/energy storage?

Are you serious? In a word, no.

[Ajax]

Ajax, WOW! What a mess.

The automotive side of Tesla isn't like that at all in our experience. We've only needed the "shop" twice. But, things like a new tire, were performed by someone driving to our house and doing the work. My Admiral loved that! Appointments are prompt and (unlike FORD) they have realized that giving someone an Uber account is the best way to provide a "loaner".

Support appears to be sporadic and inconsistent. There are people like you, who have had nothing but positive experiences, people like me who trend somewhere in the middle and there are people who are reporting that they are unable to get anyone at Tesla to even answer the phone.

I suspect some of the worst cases are people who are calling the wrong phone numbers and are even worse at online research than I am. If only they could make the correct connection, they might get the help they need in a timely fashion.

[BeauV]

Ajax,

You may have touched on the root cause. "Call"

The top search result for "fix my tesla" is the website: https://www.tesla.com/service On that site you can make an appointment, read that 80% of their repairs are done by them driving to you, not you going to the shop, and there is NO TELEPHONE NUMBER on the web site.

I think Tesla has made a choice that I wouldn't have made, but in this era, it's rather bizarre to me to call someone to make an appointment when you can simply click on one on your phone screen or computer. But, I'm sure there are folks who can't get that done and Tesla really should publish a phone number.

[Ajax]

Ok, new Powerwall successfully installed this past Thursday afternoon.

The techs were professional, polite and did not mind me "shoulder surfing" over them to learn more about how the system works.
The old unit will be dissected to learn what went wrong. The techs insist that Powerwall failures are practically infinitesimal and that I was just unlucky. We'll see...

The Powerwall fully charged on Friday and I discharged it through the night, down to 20%. The Powerwall powered the house for 14 hours, including hot showers and cooking breakfast until the sun came up. It was close though, the battery reached the 20% reserve point just as the sun started producing power.

Currently, we only receive 10:44 minutes of daylight. The longer the days become, the shorter the period that the Powerwall needs to carry the house loads.
Basically, December is the most dangerous month for us to have an extended power outage. Between the typically cloudy/rainy/snowy/cold weather, and daylight periods of only 9:26, it would be very difficult to keep the pellet stove continuously powered.

I should definitely investigate upgrading to that un-powered pellet stove some time in the near future.

[BeauV]

Ajax,

Have you considered a separate battery bank and inverter for the pellet heater? I'm guessing it wouldn't have to be all that large.

We have tankless hot water heaters which only need a wee bit of power to ignite the gas. Similarly, I'm guessing that the Pellet stove only has a blower, pellet pusher and some sort of glow plug to get it started. It might be that you could run the entire thing off of two 8D batteries and an inverter/charger combo unit which cuts on when the power fails.

It might be a lot easier to install the batteries/inverter-charger than a new pellet stove.

[Ajax]

So the Powerwall lasts a couple of days. Then the inverter setup lasts a day or two. And when those batteries die? How/where will I charge them?

I mean, it would work for a day or so as an emergency stop-gap, but we go several days at a stretch in the winter where clouds, rain or snow limit my production to 1.5kwh. Maybe even a week.

If we get hit with a bad winter storm that wrecks the power lines for a week, and if that week is very dark, the solar array and Powerwall just isn't going to cut it. If it's that cold and dark, food can be refrigerated in chest coolers outside and I can heat the house with the powerless pellet stove. The only thing I won't have, is running water because I'm on a well. Storms like this usually come with advance notice, similar to hurricanes so I'll fill jugs with water ahead of time, before the power runs out. I have butane and propane camping stoves for cooking and boiling water.

This scenario is very extreme but definitely not impossible. The right kind of ice storm and a cloudy pattern in December/January could do it. Heat is #1 Priority. Either I buy a Honda EU2000 or install a powerless pellet stove. The EU1000 won't cut it. The pellet stove startup current is too high.

Winter is the boogeyman. That reminds me, I need to buy a solar panel snow rake. Last winter, I missed 4 sunny days of production due to snow coverage. In a power outage, that would have been valuable production time.

Summer is an entirely different situation.

We can easily survive without A/C for at least a week, even in the hottest of summer. The priority changes from heating the house, to preserving food and pumping water.
The days are longer, the angle of the sun is much higher. Even on cloudy days, the Powerwall will fully recharge each day. We could even run a window A/C unit in our bedroom for several hours during the daytime.

[kimbottles]

So the Powerwall lasts a couple of days. Then the inverter setup lasts a day or two. And when those batteries die? How/where will I charge them?

I mean, it would work for a day or so as an emergency stop-gap, but we go several days at a stretch in the winter where clouds, rain or snow limit my production to 1.5kwh. Maybe even a week.

If we get hit with a bad winter storm that wrecks the power lines for a week, and if that week is very dark, the solar array and Powerwall just isn't going to cut it. If it's that cold and dark, food can be refrigerated in chest coolers outside and I can heat the house with the powerless pellet stove. The only thing I won't have, is running water because I'm on a well. Storms like this usually come with advance notice, similar to hurricanes so I'll fill jugs with water ahead of time, before the power runs out. I have butane and propane camping stoves for cooking and boiling water.

This scenario is very extreme but definitely not impossible. The right kind of ice storm and a cloudy pattern in December/January could do it. Heat is #1 Priority. Either I buy a Honda EU2000 or install a powerless pellet stove. The EU1000 won't cut it. The pellet stove startup current is too high.

Winter is the boogeyman. That reminds me, I need to buy a solar panel snow rake. Last winter, I missed 4 sunny days of production due to snow coverage. In a power outage, that would have been valuable production time.

Summer is an entirely different situation.

We can easily survive without A/C for at least a week, even in the hottest of summer. The priority changes from heating the house, to preserving food and pumping water.
The days are longer, the angle of the sun is much higher. Even on cloudy days, the Powerwall will fully recharge each day. We could even run a window A/C unit in our bedroom for several hours during the daytime.

I use our Honda EU2000 all the time. Much easier than running long extension cords. Just used it the other day to do some soldering work on one of my ham radio antennas a long way from any outlets. That little Honda generator is a very useful item. Gives you electrons anywhere. (Northern Tool seems to always have a good price for them.)

[BeauV]

Ajax, we have power failures around here in the winter. So far, except for losing some food in the fridge, the lowest cost approach with the highest satisfaction from the Admiral is:

"When the power fails, move into a hotel in town."

I did the math on the number of days without power over the past 5 years, even including the PG&E nonsense about us being in a high fire risk area, which we are not. Without a doubt, over a 20-year life, if a major storm clobbered our power the least expensive solution is to go to a hotel. The fully burdened amortization of the loss of income on the funds used, generator, installation, maintenance, fuel, etc.... costs is about $1,000/year (assuming that the generator lasts that long). If we move to a hotel in town, we'd be hard-pressed to spend $1,000/year on hotel bills for the average of 2-3 days/year (avg. over the last 5 years) that we're without power. This is assuming we'll be in this house for 20 more years. If we are here for only 10 years, one obviously nearly doubles the amount one can spend on hotel rooms. Folks around here don't pay more for a house with a generator and only a tiny bit more for one with solar power.

Our neighbors have put a LOT of money into equipment to deal with the long power failures. It seems to me that they haven't calculated the true cost of all that gear. We'll stay someplace with room service, vs servicing out own power sub-system.

[Steele]

Beau's math works for power outages that leave the hotels intact and not overbooked, but the benefit of the honda generator is the ability to use it in other situations. We are in earthquake country, so having a generator could be a big advantage. Combined with some solar capacity you could last a week or two, although comfort would not be a priority.

My problem has been keeping fresh gas, I tend to forget to change it out often enough and the jets in those honda carbs are so small they do not tolerate even middle aged hydrocarbons. My grand scheme is to head to the boat where I have fuel that lasts (diesel), heat, water and even a toilet that works. We could walk there in an hour or two. Food is an issue. I have a friend with the same boat plan, he bought a case or two of REI camping meals and stored them under a berth. I am thinking that and a sawed off 12 G will get me through the zombie apocalypse just fine.