Image is a graph from the electric company showing my usage for a day this week. From 6:30 AM to 8:30 PM we used absolutely no utility power.

I’m almost at the three week mark for having this system up and running. The first two weeks I only had 3 KW of PV input but I added another 5 panels to bring it up to 4 KW last week. It’s also still running from a transfer switch in “off grid” mode because I don’t yet have the prep work done to move my breaker box and start moving circuits to it. (That means I’m either on full solar+battery or utility, no mixing or load sharing).

Once I get it wired in fully, I’m probably going to switch to time-of-use billing. Unfortunately, I can’t do that ahead of time because rather than just making off-peak use cheaper, it makes peak usage (M-F 7am to 9pm) extremely expensive while off peak dirt cheap. I wish there was a middle option, but it is what it is.

I’m also being very conservative with my battery usage since I want to have at least 50% in “reserve” to cover power outages. That’s especially important during these heat waves. We could easily run 24/7 but would have to take a day off every so often to just let it charge back up since my system is a bit too small to cover all our usage indefinitely (at least if we want to run the A/C for comfort, that is).

  • Iced Raktajino@startrek.websiteOPEnglish
    0·
    3 months ago

    Already checked, and we only have to involve the power company if any of the following:

    1. Feeding any power back into the utility grid (i.e. grid-tied / micro-inverter / “balcony solar”)
    2. Using a “make before break” transfer switch that, no matter how brief, briefly couples locally generated power to the utility provider’s grid.
    3. If the project requires disconnecting the meter or shutting off power upstream of our main disconnect switch

    As is, this system doesn’t touch the grid at all since it’s using a “break-before-make” transfer switch from an old Generac system - it completely disconnects the utility input before connecting the generator/PV’s output into the home wiring. I’m also fine once I have it fully installed because it cannot feed power out of the utility input connection, so it remains isolated (unless I would just happen to hook it up backwards which would be a whole other set of problems lol).