The Solar Year

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of our solar panel installation. 

Our 2.7kW array produced 4024 kW of electricity in one year.  In that time, we drew 3060 kW from the grid.  We produced at least 57% of our electrical needs.  A bit more than the solar installer predicted.

We can make the most of that production by tweaking:

• Go after phantom electrical loads.  We did some of this, but there are little electronic devices around the house that still slurp electricity.
• Finish changing out CFL lightbulbs.  We’re about 70% there.  The hard-to-reach ones in ceiling & hall fixtures are waiting their turn.   
• Put the fax machine on a timer. We run a biz from our home, and leave that machine on 24/7.  I used to turn the fax off at night, but usually forgot to turn it on in the morning…
• Use our “Kill-A-Watt” meter to learn how much power things use, like the obnoxious central vacuum.  

 We could get real serious about this, too:

• Empty the chest freezer that stores forgotten food. 
• Dry clothes without the dryer.  We enclosed part of our west-facing deck.  It has a slate tile floor, perfect for drying…if I remember to get clothes out there during the day.  If I remember to do laundry during the day. 
• Update our 1995 fridge.  Which I still love.
• The hot water heater is due for replacement.  Tankless?  Standard high-efficiency?  Solar thermal?  (There’s some southwest roof just waiting for flat-plate collectors….)
• I’ve been dreaming of an automated smart-house system that could program outlets throughout the house from my computer.  I could set time ranges on outlets we only use during day hours, and zap more phantom load.  Technology is available, but expensive –- intended for high-end home theater and security systems.   
• Finish installing window coverings that insulate.  We installed plantation shutters upstairs to block out cold and heat, but I’m stumped about what to do with the oversized living/dining room windows, which came with useless mini-blinds.  At nighttime during the coldest months, we close the decorative velvet curtains that came with the house. 
• Have our insulation levels checked & increased.  I also dream of an infrared photo of my house, taken on a bitter January night, which shows me where the heat leakage is.  I would frame it, and put it on the mantle. 
• Hook a couple old bicycles to a generator and make the kids pedal if they want to watch TV.  Well, ok, that should probably be for me. 

 The quilt, called “Sun Dance” is by Catherine Kleeman. 

 

Got Sol?

I’ve been fascinated with solar power since I was a girl, when my mother attended classes to calculate what it would take to install photovoltaic (PV) panels on the roof of our middle-class, suburban home.  At that time, there was no option for grid inter-tie.  The decision to go solar meant batteries for electrical storage, and full disconnection from the power grid.  My mother decided the costs and hassles of maintaining the system weren’t feasible.   

Times have changed.  Passage of Amendment 37 in Colorado required local utilities to provide grid-tie options, so that people could install PV panels to produce solar electricity during the day, and draw from the electrical grid at night.  No batteries, no mess.  Just good, clean power.  And no need to install 100% of a building’s electrical demand – a partial solution would work, too.   

I’ve followed the solar industry for about 15 years as an outsider.  Not much a technological type, I’ve simply thought that solar made a lot of sense for where I lived.  In 2006 I attended  the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) national conference in Denver.  Plenaries focused on several aspects of climate change, including a moving presentation by Dr. Jim Hanson of NASA.  This was probably my “come to Jesus” moment for renewables.  Hanson said we had 9 years to make significant changes in order to offset serious and catastrophic effects due to global warming.  I staggered out of Hanson’s lecture, wondering how I was going to prepare my young boys for what might be coming.  If Hanson was right, this might be the dominant issue of their generation. 

 Chuck Kutscher, of NREL, chaired the Solar 2006 ASES conference, and edited a report compiled from the plenaries, called Tackling Climate Change.  This free report has had 500,000 hits since publication, and represents a serious, balanced, solution-charged approach.  It’s possible, if we are aggressive with renewable and conservation solutions, to fill the gap between our current trajectory (what Hanson calls BAU, Business As Usual), and what would be required to lower carbon emissions.   It will be hard work, expensive.  But much less expensive if we act now, rather than wait. 

 On July 7, 2006, I decided the time had come to do our part by installing solar panels, to offset our need for electricity from our city’s coal-burning plant.  We could not install a 100% solution due to roof configuration, but we did what we could.   Last month (April), we were billed for only 107 kilowatt hours of electricity.  BSP (Before Solar Panels), we averaged 400-500 kwh a month on our bills. 

 The new EIRP plan by our local utility studies and predicts energy demand for our community over the next decade and more.  When the first version was released, several people noticed hints about the need to build a new coal-burning power plant.  Community response was small but powerful.  Climate change data was rolling in, and people were understanding that emissions from coal plants were a huge part of the problem. Architect Ed Mazria cites that 80% of global warming is caused by coal-burning plants.   The new EIRP is under revision, but now renewables will have a bigger part of the future energy mix for our community.

 Our family cut our home’s need for coal-burned electricity nearly in half, a teeny investment against building a new coal-burning plant.   Solar panels are expensive, and out of the reach of many families.  The solar industry is working hard to cut costs for solar energy, and bring new technology to the market, to make solar power available to more and more people. 

 We often see long trains carrying coal to the city power plant.  I ask my kids, “What’s on that train?”  Coal.  (hear the bored voices)  “What’s it used for?”  Making our electricity.   My son now says, “Making way LESS of our electricity.” 

Sunshine on my shoulders

Makes me happy – our new solar panels have produced approx. 42% of our electricity since September. We hope the panels (Sharp 2.7 kilowatt array, Fronius inverter) will meet 55% of our electrical needs each year.  

Debate on how to calculate actual production involved a mathematician, a physicist, and a master electrician. The English major was clearly over-simplifying the math.

I’m learning that solar harvest, like a garden’s, is seasonal.  January’s production was discouragingly low.  March, with many snowy days, has been a surprise. The system often produces at capacity at mid-day. Fall and spring may be our top-producers. While folks in more temperate, low-lying parts of the country are planting tomatoes and ground cherries, feasting on spring peas, we harvest the sun.   

The panels were expensive, even with utility rebates.  At least this investment is outperforming the stock market.