All About Interest

One man's journey to financial independence.

Solar Electric Bill – June & July 2014

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I was busy and skipped June’s update so I’m providing an update for both June and July.

If you’re interested in why I decided to go solar, you can read my previous posts:

Buying a Home Solar System is a Good Investment
I Bought a Solar System
Solar Panel Installation Approved

I’m in the process of lowering my carbon footprint and at the same time saving money.  I already mentioned using more energy efficient lighting (LED’s).  As mentioned in a previous article, Why I’m Replacing All My Lights With LED’s, I picked up several LED lights from Amazon.com.

I’ve now got a new plan up my sleeve to drastically lower my electric bill.  I’ll mention this one later but I will say it involves my pool and should be in place by the end of the week.  

Keep in mind, all projected numbers were based on my original solar proposal by the installation company.

June Numbers:

Previous Bill: $96.76
My total bill: $206.20 (with solar credit)
Currently due: $206.20
Projected Solar Savings – $177.28
Actual Solar Savings – $161.46
YTD Solar Savings – $742.69
Projected Contribution % – 74.5%
Actual Contribution % – 43.92% 

July Numbers:

Previous Bill: $206.20
My total bill: $190.36 (with solar credit)
Currently due: $190.36
Projected Solar Savings – $187.14
Actual Solar Savings – $146.06
YTD Solar Savings – $727.29
Projected Contribution % – 63.57%
Actual Contribution % – 43.42%


Here’s a visual representation of this information:

Solar_Savings_June_July

So what has happened over the last two months?  Well I’ve used a heck of a lot of electricity for one thing!  I’ve used more than I did last year.  Now just one year of increase isn’t a reason to panic.  If a stock only had a two year streak of dividend raises, that’s not a lot of history to go off of.

The good news is that I’ve saved a total of $727.29 from solar production so far this year.  My projected savings has been higher than my actual savings (due to a drop of the amount of credit I’m receiving per kWh produced), so this month was no surprise.

I did replace a faulty A/C coil two months ago.  Who knows what my usage would have been without that.

I have a new plan up my sleeve to drastically lower the biggest energy hog at my house.  That’s my pool!  Until I got the electric monitoring system, I would have thought my A/C would have accounted for the highest energy usage.  I was wrong!  The rough breakdown is 50% pool / 40% A/C / 10% everything else.

Here’s a chart of my actual solar usage versus last year’s usage:

Solar_Energy_Usage_June_July

So I haven’t been able to beat my usage from a year ago the last few months.  I’m hoping I can change that in August.  Last year August was my largest energy usage month, coming in at a whopping 3346 Kwh, over 1000 Kwh more than July!  With a partial month of reduced pool energy usage, I should be able to do much better this month.

I plan to continue tracking these stats for an entire year.  This is still a learning process for me but I am happy I went solar and I’m hoping these results will influence others to also go solar.

You can find previous monthly electric bill posts on my Solar label.

Solar Electric Bill – May 2014

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Sorry I’m a little late getting this one out.  I’ve been super busy IRL.  May was a little disappointing…(Sad Face).  I will mention why down below.

If you’re interested in why I decided to go solar, you can read my previous posts:

Buying a Home Solar System is a Good Investment
I Bought a Solar System
Solar Panel Installation Approved

With a combination of not wasting as much energy and using more energy efficient lighting (LED’s), I have been able to drastically lower my bill so far.  As mentioned in a previous article, Why I’m Replacing All My Lights With LED’s, I picked up several LED lights from Amazon.com.

March Numbers:

Previous Bill: $-73.72
My total bill: $96.76
Currently due: $23.04
Projected Solar Savings – $163.84
Actual Solar Savings – $138.67 (-$25.17)
YTD Solar Savings – $581.23
Projected Contribution % – 105.09%
Actual Contribution % – 58.90% (-46.9%)


Here’s a visual representation of this information:

Solar_Savings_May

My projected savings has been higher than my actual savings (due to a drop of the amount of credit I’m receiving per kWh produced), so this month was no surprise.  It was a little lower this month mainly do to a lot of rainy days when I wasn’t able to get full production.

My actually contribution to my bill was actually lower this month than expected.  It was way lower.  Part of this was due to lower production.  But mainly, my usage was through the roof!

My A/C has been working overtime to cool the house and finally the coil leaked to the point where I couldn’t cool below 76 degrees.  I had to get a brand new coil put in which set me back about $1500.  The good news is that it’s upgradeable to the new freon systems if my compressor ever goes out.

Here’s a chart of my actual solar usage versus last year’s usage:

Solar_Energy_Usage_May
As you can see, my May usage was way higher than last year’s.  I blame a faulty A/C system which has now been rectified.  I hope to do better the rest of the summer and not break the 3,000 kWh mark like I did last Aug.!

I plan to continue tracking these stats for an entire year and compare results.  I am still happy I went solar and I’m hoping these results will influence others to also go solar.

You can find previous monthly electric bill posts on my Solar label.

Solar Electric Bill Update – April

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Sun

Another month has passed and I’ve received my fourth bill of the year since going on solar.  I had another great month of production, actually surpassing my projected contribution and almost matching my total savings projections.  I can count on at least another month or two with no bill!

You can find previous monthly electric bill posts on my Solar label.

If you’re interested in why I decided to go solar, you can read my previous posts:

Buying a Home Solar System is a Good Investment
I Bought a Solar System
Solar Panel Installation Approved

Here are the numbers for March:

Previous Bill: $-21.00
My total bill: $-35.01
Currently due: $-73.72 (so $0.00 due)
Projected Solar Savings – $150.53
Actual Solar Savings – $146.06 (-4.47)
YTD Solar Savings – $442.56
Projected Contribution % – 133.45%
Actual Contribution % – 136.06% (+2.61%)


Here’s a visual representation of this information:

Solar_Savings_April

While my projected savings has been higher than my actual savings (due to a drop of the amount of credit I’m receiving per kWh produced), my actually contribution to my bill is higher than projected.

The city actually owes me $73.72.  However, my projections for June, July and August will definitely eat this credit up fast.

With a combination of not wasting as much energy and using more energy efficient lighting (LED’s), I have been able to drastically lower my bill so far.  As mentioned in a previous article, Why I’m Replacing All My Lights With LED’s, I picked up several LED lights from Amazon.com.

Here’s a chart of my actual solar usage versus last year’s usage:

Solar_Energy_Usage_April
My usage was a little higher this month, most likely due to a vacation taken last year around this time.

I plan to continue tracking these stats for an entire year.  I’m still extremely happy with my decision to go green.  I’m hoping these results will influence others to also go solar.

Solar Electric Bill Update – March

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Another month has passed and I’ve received my third bill of the year since going on solar.   You can find previous monthly electric bill posts on my Solar label.

If you’re interested in why I decided to go solar, you can read my previous posts:
Buying a Home Solar System is a Good Investment
I Bought a Solar System
Solar Panel Installation Approved

Here are the numbers for March:

Previous Bill: $-14.01
My total bill: $-21.00
Currently due: $-35.01 (so $0.00 due)

Projected Solar Savings – $141.31
Actual Solar Savings – $124.87
Projected Contribution % – 116.21%
Actual Contribution % – 120.22%

Here’s a visual representation of this information:

While my projected savings has been higher than my actual savings (due to a drop of the amount of credit I’m receiving per kWh produced), my actually contribution to my bill is higher than projected.

This was the first month I’ve broken over the 100% mark.  This means I produced more energy than I used!  You heard me correctly!!  I actually contributed more energy than I used for an entire month.

With a combination of not wasting as much energy and using more energy efficient lighting (LED’s), I have been able to drastically lower my bill so far.  I picked up several LED lights from Amazon.com.

My current bill is sitting at -$35.01.  Yes that’s a negative, so the city owes me money.  Basically this credit will keep adding up until it gets used up probably sometime in the summer.

Here’s a chart of my actual solar usage versus the projections (based off last year’s usage).

I plan to continue tracking these stats for an entire year.  Maybe this will help someone that is considering going green.

Solar Electric Bill Update – February

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I posted about my first full month of electricity after installing solar panels here.  It was sort of long and difficult to understand so I’ll make it much simpler this month.

I’ve now got some more information and plan to track my actual spending versus my projections before I had solar.

Previously, I thought I was being charged two account fees of $10 each.  Well, that was only because of a pro-rated month where I partly had an electricity bill from solar and another regular bill.  I spoke to the utility solar adviser and he credited me the $10 I was charged last month.

I just received my new bill for my second month, I’ll call it February (even though it doesn’t start and end during the same month).

Projected Solar Savings – $109.82
Actual Solar Savings – $86.78
Projected Contribution % – 74.8%
Actual Contribution % – 93.5%

Without further ado, he’s a visual representation of this information:

The contribution % is basically the percentage of my total bill that is covered.  Yes, it’s close to 100%!

The bad news is that my credit for production has been a little lower than initial projections, mainly due to a drop in the price per kWh that I mentioned in my last article.

The good news is that with the new monitoring system, I’m able to better track my usage.  With a combination of not wasting as much energy and using more energy efficient lighting (LED’s), I have been able to drastically lower my bill so far.  I picked up several LED lights from Amazon.com.

The green line above is the percentage of my entire bill that was covered by my solar credit.  For the first month this was at 89.4% and this past month was 93.5%.

It’s sure nice to have an electric bill that costs about $5 for the entire month!

Here’s a chart of my actual solar usage versus the projections (based off last year’s usage).

I plan to continue tracking this to see what happens the rest of the year.

Solar Panel & Electric Bill Update – January ’14

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So most of you know I installed solar panels last year after deciding solar was a good investment.  They were finally on the grid by the end of December.  So I’m finally able to report some production numbers.  Unfortunately, my first bill was pro-rated due to my billing cycle so my first bill was about $12.00.  I just received my new bill for my first full month of production and here are the results below.

Here’s what my monitoring system reported:

Since the end of December my system has produced 1.24 MWh or 1,240 KWh of electricity.  All of January I produced 810kWh and consumed 1070 kWh (1.07MWh) of electricity.  There’s a little bit of interference in the line so these numbers aren’t totally accurate.  I’ll have to get the exact numbers on my meter.  One of the best things about this monitoring system though is that it’s in real time.  I’ve been going through my house and replacing all the high usage light bulbs with LED bulbs.  I believe I’ll be able to cut significantly my actual usage over last year.  This was also one of my Goals for 2014.

Here’s the actual reading on my digital meter tied to the grid when I checked at the end of January:

847 DE (this means the city DElivered 347 kWh of electricty to me)
631 RE (this means I REturned 631 kWh of electricty back to the city)
216 NET (this one is obvious)

Here’s the actual reading on my digital solar meter:
990 – (this is the total amount of kWh that I produced)

I actually beat my original projections in terms of production but my credits were lower than projected so the value of my energy output was lower than expected.

Here’s my original proposal which I’ll be checking to see how I do this year:

So here’s my understanding of how it works.  The electric usage I have while I’m generating solar energy gets returned to the city.  If I am producing more than I’m using, the extra energy is also sent to the city but the city buys it from me.

One negative I didn’t know is that the city comes up with the “value of solar” per an algorithm they developed.  They actually changed this algorithm to start 2014 so the value they pay per kWh actually went down.  Any credits roll over to the next month but reset at the end of the calendar year.

Here’s a look at what the city has paid the last few years:

2014 – 10.7 cents/KWh
2013 – 12.8 cents/KWh
2012 – 12.8 cents/KWh

Based on the current algorithm, this is what they would have paid in the past:

2011 – 12.8 cents/KWh
2010 – 12.6 cents/KWh
2009 – 13.8 cents/KWh
2008 – 16.4 cents/KWh
2007 – 11.8 cents/KWh
2006 – 10.3 cents/KWh

So this is a bummer to know that they can drop your credits from year to year.  They are currently the lowest they have been since 2006.

Here’s the current rate structure before additional add-on fees (it’s a tiered system sort of like our tax system):

I just received my new bill which is for the period 01/08-02/06.

Instead of combining my solar bill with my water bill, it’s now a new bill and a new account. The city charges $10 per account.  My electric was previously together on the same bill with my water.  If it wasn’t for this new account I’d only have a bill of $0.05.  I called and the city gave me some bullshit excuse so it’s just basically another way for them to collect money.

Here’s my actual bill:

So it looks like my actual earnings from solar were $84.85 – $10 (account charge) = $74.85.

I’m still not sure how they came up with the Whole House Consumption of 964.  I am waiting on a call back about this and I’ll be able to provide more clarity next month.

So this is a little bit of a learning process but I look forward to seeing how the numbers match up with my projections.  Overall, I’m still happy with the panels and it’s opened up my eyes to my energy consumption with the monitoring system.