"Green" home electric bills

[Randy]

Greetings all,

When I got my house built I decided to go with solar pannels (not cheap but oh so worth it!) and geothermal heat & AC. It sure has been worth it. The most expensive months for me were in the winter when eletricity needed to give the colder water a boost to warm the house. Still I had only one ultiltiy to pay and that's electric.

My solar pannels are not enough to cover my total needs, yet. Maybe someday I'll be able to supplement it with a wind generator when they don't need to be monster wind mills. That's all we can get here right now, but I know other technologies are out there. That's what I am counting on.

Jan. $96
Feb. $74
March $35
April $42
May $38
June $52

So very cool!!! I can keep my house nice and cool now in the summer too. July will likely be even less because we've had more sunny days and I've needed to use the ceiling fans less. Ultra cool. Also, I get energy credits that I can sell for, right now they sell for over $700 for every 1 megawatt I generate and I've generated 1 officially so far since they got me into the program in May.

Wo Hoo!
Randy

[Ross]

Now you have my attention! This is rather excellent news. Do you live in a city with zoning rules?

[Tindomul]

Thats cool! Can you ever upgrade, are they inventing more efficient solar panels?

[Randy]

Originally Posted by Ross

Now you have my attention! This is rather excellent news. Do you live in a city with zoning rules?

Hi Ross,

I live in a township with a lot of growth going on around me, but I still have a 5 acre lot. My saying for my place is "being in the middle of nowhere and in the middle of everything". The house is back 700' off the street but it's only a mile to the nearest pharmacy, 3/4 of a mile to the feed store, 2 miles to the closest grocery store. That's why I say I'm in the middle of everything.

The biggest zoning restriction is height because I am in the flyway for the local airport. amazingly it doesn't bother me becuase only a few planes a night fly overhead. However, they are low when the do go over. That's why I can't use traditional wind power.

The thing that is the best, that most people don't think about is the geothermal heat/ac. It truly is amazing. It's so simple to set up and use: drill 2 wells down to a good aquafer, take water out, put it through a heat pump system and send it back into the ground either warm or cold. I will use the geothermal to heat the greenhouse by running another line out there and another themostat.

Right now in this blazing summer heat my ac can cool the house down to 60 if I wanted it to w/o any problem. I keep it much warmer than that though. I keep temps at 75 most of the time, except during sleep time when I turn it to 72.

Randy

[Randy]

Originally Posted by Tindomul

Thats cool! Can you ever upgrade, are they inventing more efficient solar panels?

Hi Tindomul,

They are working to make solar panels more efficient all the time. They are certainly more efficient today than they were even 5 years ago. As far as upgrading goes, that will all depend on price! Sadly, it wasn't built into my contract.

But just having it today makes such a huge difference in my life. And, as I replied to Ross, the thing most people overlook is the geothermal. No other utilities! No gas, no oil, nada. Just a nice cool or warm house w/o the carbon footprint. And, it was a lot cheaper then the solar!

Randy

[Gold3nku5h]

They even made solar pannels that use an ink type substance that can be printed on almost anything. Its still being researched but they say it has been done. It isn't very long lasting though.

[Randy]

Well it still isn't zero, and they still aren't paying me, that probably won't happen because of the site location and the fact that my entire roof isn't covered. However, I just got an electric bill for $29 in AC season!! WOO HOO

[RoyalOrchids]

OK, some questions:

1. What other equipment is used in conjunction with the solar panels? Inverter, batteries, etc.? Would you need separate equipment for a turbine?

2. Who did the work for you, a contractor? Could this be done by the homeowner?

3. Goethermal sounds awesome, but drilling two wells had to be pricey. What did it cost? What above ground equipment is needed?

4. Finally, it might be easier to absorb some of those costs into a construction loan, but how costly and easy would a retrofit be?

I think about this all the time (for economics, not really for conservation), but it's not as easy as just slapping a few panels on your roof. Could you describe the whole system for us?

[Randy]

Originally Posted by RoyalOrchids

OK, some questions:

1. What other equipment is used in conjunction with the solar panels? Inverter, batteries, etc.? Would you need separate equipment for a turbine?

2. Who did the work for you, a contractor? Could this be done by the homeowner?

3. Goethermal sounds awesome, but drilling two wells had to be pricey. What did it cost? What above ground equipment is needed?

4. Finally, it might be easier to absorb some of those costs into a construction loan, but how costly and easy would a retrofit be?

I think about this all the time (for economics, not really for conservation), but it's not as easy as just slapping a few panels on your roof. Could you describe the whole system for us?

I'll do my best to answer your questions.

1. All I have is an inverter and a second dial like the electirc company uses to guage your usage, but this measures how much I generate so I can get "energy credits". I didn't get batteries because I couldn't afford them at the time. They are more expensive then the panels.

2. I suppose the work could be done by the homeowner if they were knowledgeable enough to get the panels on the roof without causing leaks, etc. and running the electricity. There is also the issue of hooking into your main electircal panel and that would be tricky because you are putting some electrical generation equipment in with what is coming off the grid. You would need to either be an electricion or hire on for that part of job.

3. The entire geothermal job, including the 2 wells and the heat pump was $7500. That was a lot less than the solar panels which were closer to $40K. The above ground equipment is the heat pump that takes either the heat or the cold from the water and dsitributes it to the house. In the winter the air may need to be heated a bit more using my electricity, which may be why my electric bills were higher in winter than they have been in spring and summer. There's also the fact that the sun is lower on the horizon and there was more cloud cover during those months.

4. I did put my costs into the construction loan. I gave you my individual costs so you can figure from there what you might need to borrow for a retrofit. One thing you could have going for you is that if you already had duct work in your house that would be something that is already in place. Same with your basic electricity. All you would need to do is add on.

Now is some states they still have rebate programs. The one in NJ went broke. However, we do have the program for energy credits. For every MW of electricity you generate you get an energy credit. You can then sell them on the open market. At the moment they are selling for over $700 a piece. However, it does take a while to generate one.

Randy

[RoyalOrchids]

Thanks Randy, those are the kind of details I was looking for. The geothermal was a lot cheaper than I'd have guessed. Also, I didn't know you could run a photovoltaic system without batteries. I guess you just use the grid power when it's dark.

Anyways, good thread and great info. Thanks for sharing and sorry for all the questions!