Posted By dcmeserve on 19 Jul 2010 02:17 PM
Forgot some points:
flyingfish:
At the end of the month, if I've generated more than I used (spring and fall with my 5kw system), the utility carries the balance forward and credits me the next month. If at the end of the year, I have a surplus, they write me a check.
They will actually write you a check? Meaning, if you got an oversized system, you'd have net income from this, essentially becoming a power-generation company? If that's right, that's the first I've heard of this in the U.S. I know Gemany has been doing this for a while, with the result of e.g. encouraging farmers to shift some of their land to PV fields as a new income stream, but I thought that my company's policy of PV yielding at best a zero bill annually was as good as it gets here.
If you're correct, then this is a good sign!
Sean Campbell:
Also, if you plan on charging your electric vehicle at home over night that may require more energy than you can store during the day.
My EV power usage should be about 200Kwh/mo, on top of my current 400 to 600kwh/mo usage. I'm already saving nearly 200Kwh/mo just by switching to CFL lighting, and not having my older computer on 24/7. So you could say I've already taken care of that. :)
(When eventually I can replace the second car, I'd expect at most an additional 100kwh/mo for it -- it's bigger (a minivan), but used much less.)
It's not that uncommon, as far as I know. The utility companies up here (NE Wisconsin) do it too. Our local utility had a program in place that was a little different than net metering. You would purchase 100% of the electricity you use from them at the market rate, ($.11/kw) and then they would purchase what you produced from you at something like $.20/kw. You needed to sign a ten year contract to be part of the program. In these cases, if you had a PV system that produced exacty as much as you used, you would make money every month. The reasoning, as far as I could tell, is that they also introduced a program allowing customers to purchase "green energy" for their use. Of course, the price of "green" was significantly higher. They had a limited kw capacity for the program, and once it was full they discontinued it.
The "standard" program offered now is net metering, where they buy back at market rates. This takes the payoff for the PV equipment out significantly longer than the program they once had in place.
They have since discontued