solar helps

SOLAR HELPS

here at the country n we have solar panels

16 of them 

that can generate up to 15 kw of electricity each

if the stars align themselves just right

which

you know in real life they never do 

so if  we have a perfectly sunny day in the summer

maybe around the longest day 

we can reach that 15 kwh a day

throw in a little dust on the panels

or 

a few clouds passing over

or

a small summer shower

then that number will drop 

even on a cloudy day we can produce several kwh of electricity

this year we havent had a lot of rain and clouds 

so we have had a lot of sun

so we have produced more electricity than usual

so here is how it all works here at the country n

first the sun hits the panels which are situated on our barn

that obstruction there that planking ogd could block some 

of the solar production

from there it goes to an inverter inside the barn

which converts the dc current to ac current

from there it goes to my electric box and meter

from there it either goes into the house 

or

up the power line out into the lines along the road

and somewhere along the way it get sucked up 

by neighbors and businesses down the line

now someone off the grid

like our friend in utah

uses the electricity as its produced and any 

excess is stored in big old batteries for future use

since we live in texas 

at the country n and those of us in texas

do net metering where any excess goes into the grid

here is a copy of my last electric bill

they charged me $22.50 to be just hooked up to the system 

the amount of electricity that went through my meter was 702 kwh

the amount of electricity that went through the meter that was

produced by the country n was 152 kwh

leaving us a net amount of 550 kwh to pay for

of course what you dont see on the bill is the amount we used

that came directly from our solar panels during the day

since it was a sunny month that could be 0-300 kwh

it was probably closer to the 300 number

i am not as ocd as i use to be about doing this calculation

so when the suns shining during the day our meter is either not 

moving

or 

its spinning backwards

its hard to describe what it feels like to watch your

electric meter spin backwards

there are only a few things in this world that tops this

you can figure out what those are

if i want to know in our system how much we used of our electricity

that did not go through the meter

i have to do a  monthly reading 

on my inverter to calculate that number

ive had the system too long now so i never do that calculation

i am not as ocd about it as i use to be

 

so most of our electricity we buy occurs after the sun goes down

so our bill then was

$22.50 for just being hooked up

$57.86 for their electricity

$15.99 credit for my electricity that went up to the grid

with ?$ of electricity used directly 

easily calculated if i wanted to do it again

the most electricity we could produce under maximum conditions

would be 450 kwh a month

so this last month we consumed 702 kwh

if it was a perfect month we would have only bought 252 kwh 

now my rainwater brothers system is a newer one 

his meters tell him how much he produced

how much he used of his electricity and of theirs 

how much the electric company bought or credited him

all i know is it feels good to watch my meter go backwards sometimes

and 

to know that a good portion of our electricity we consume

we produced our selves

that 

is what net metering means

the organicgreen doctor