Home Solar

[DouglasVB]

For what it's worth, there are some places using Nissan Leaf battery packs for local storage on grid-connected microgrids to ride through grid outages among other uses. There are also some nice DIY examples of battery packs from a variety of vehicles being used for home energy storage. For instance,

 

[gungriffin]

It might be worth checking to see if this product is finally available in the US. This is exactly what I was referring to earlier. They partnered with Nissan in Australia to test this charger on the Leaf.

https://www.motortrend.com/news/wallbox-quasar-bidirectional-ev-charger-price-america/

Wallbox Quasar bidirectional home DC charger will turn EVs into a huge Tesla Powerwall

Here's why Quasar, a bidirectional DC charger for homes that is expected to retail for around $4,000, should be in every EV owner's home in a few years

electrek.co

As a comparison, the new 60 kwh leaf has an MSRP of 38k, but it still qualifies for the 7500 federal and the 2500 state tax credits. So it could be a cost of somewhere closer to $28k before negotiating. It says that the box will allow for up to 7.5 kw of power in either direction. The box should cost about $4k. So for $32k, you would have ~30 kwh of daily useable battery power, probably about 50 kwh in emergencies AND a car that you can drive. I would imagine there are near 0% finance options over 5 years too. If you ever move, your battery pack can come with you too. What is the cost of some of these wall mounted battery packs? It seems like this could be reasonably competitive with many of those options.

 

[nakman]

So my permit was approved on 9/8/21... almost 3 months to the day from when I signed my contract. The equipment was delivered on Friday, and the install is scheduled for today and tomorrow. Ordered in June, I've now missed out on any real opportunty to run AC with solar this year.

I am also guessing the installers must have a safety issue where they don't want any panel voltage output during the install, so they're waiting until it gets dark before they show up.

 

[Romer]

Cool Tim, My install is a November. They are doing Sarah's next month (Same company Namaste)

You can avoid a voltage output during the day with a shunt across the cells so I doubt they have to install them at night

 

[nakman]

You can avoid a voltage output during the day with a shunt across the cells so I doubt they have to install them at night

Yeah I know, I'm just trying to find fun new ways to cope with people who don't deliver/don't show up when they say they will- it's been like this all year. At least they're quick to send the invoice!

 

[nakman]

today's update: I reach out after no one shows up yesterday, turns out they didn't actually schedule the install like they thought they did. So my new install date is October 4th, and we will be admiring a stack of panels under a tarp on my back patio until then.

 

[Jenny Cruiser]

Or, you could fire up the AT and head for the hills for a few days!

 

[nakman]

Or, you could fire up the AT and head for the hills for a few days!

yes there's that! Oh but then I learned that Saturday 10/2 is homecoming, and that is apparently a big deal that now consumes an entire weekend. So alas, no moto...

 

[nakman]

Ok we have some progress... they got all the metal screwed down, and about 75% of the panels installed, and all the boxes wired up. I'm told this is as far as they can go until the inspection happens on Friday.

 

[nakman]

Not much of an update but it's all on, and I passed the inspection last week... that little box is now switched to "on" after the inspector/installer have left, which kinda surprised me as it would appear I'm now feeding the grid, albeit unmetered? It's sorta puzzling how I could simultaneously put power into and suck power out of the same bus bar inside my breaker box, but there it is...

My electrician neighbor came over earlier this week and measured about 30 amps coming off the panels and into my box, two hot leads from the panels one at 16 the other at about 14, which felt pretty good but it's hard to say with out some other data if this is the amount of juice I signed up for. I have the Enlighten app installed and an account created, but they won't activate my account until I first get the new bidirectional meter installed and the final permission to operate from Xcel energy. Was told today it could be another 21 days... until them I'm pretty oblivious to what my system is doing.

 

[nakman]

So we're still waiting on Xcel to come hook up the new meter. We got a notice on 10/27 that it would happen in about 20 days. Then yesterday my rep at the solar place said she got a notice, and it would be about 20 days.. but no appointment.

In the meantime we went backwards in October.

We apparently doubled our usage in October compared to last year. Which makes no sense as our consumption would have been almost exactly the same. My only thought is that we're sending power back into the grid, but that's being metered as consumption rather than contribution.. and with a more updated meter October would have been closer to 0.

 

[rover67]

The part about installing solar that involved anything with xcel sucked soooo badly for me. They got so much wrong and took forever.

Anyways part of what they did wrong was mess up the usage the first few months but eventually they somehow fixed it by giving us some sort of a credit in the subsequent months. it was weird.

 

[60wag]

That's messed up. My system is old enough to have just a single meter. The solar back-feeds the meter and it counts down. Wonder why they went away from something so simple.?

 

[Romer]

Namaste has a date set with Xcel for Nov 30th and they said they are very rigid in keeping with that. So they will start the install a few days before that. My power has to be shut off for the day because I am putting Batteries in

 

[nakman]

Ken how many batteries are you doing? what kind?

 

[Romer]

Two of these https://www.lghomebattery.com.au/resu16hprime They came out this year and my view is they are better than the Tesla Powerwalls

 

[Jenny Cruiser]

Tim - Is your system running on a single inverter without battery storage?

 

[DaveInDenver]

That's messed up. My system is old enough to have just a single meter. The solar back-feeds the meter and it counts down. Wonder why they went away from something so simple.?

You could still end up with one meter but it depends on the agreement you (or your agent for you) negotiate with Xcel. Also whether you just want bill credit or to pay or be paid for storage and generating will change things.

Most new installations are feed-in tariff or net sale/purchase so the usage and generating billing rates are different so you need to measure them independently.

With a straight net metering the two rates are the same, so whether the meter is running in or out doesn't matter so it could be one.

But even if the two rates are the same monkeying with how much they charge you for using verse pay you for generating could change so they'll most likely put in two meters if possible anyway.

 

[nakman]

Tim - Is your system running on a single inverter without battery storage?

I have multiple inverters, one for each panel. And no battery storage.

 

[Romer]

I have multiple inverters, one for each panel. And no battery storage.

one for each Panel?

I only have two inverters and thats to support two batteries. Otherwise they would have gone with one

Maybe you are thinking of the optimizer. I have one of those for each panel

the Inverters are expensive suckers that combine the panels in DC and convert to AC for the home and grid