I Have The Power!!!!!!

What was really cool is that I started generating power right away, but I couldn’t sell it back to the power company until all the approvals. The latter took several months but it wasn’t a concern since between running the house and charging my car I only lost a couple dollars of generation given to the power company. In the past years and the next years to come, I am also increasing my electric usage and reducing my natural gas bill. As I need to replace worn equipment, I have been slowly moving away from fossil fuels. My first purchase was in Dec 2017 when I bought a used Nissan Leaf for $8,000. In 2018 we remodeled our kitchen and we replaced the natural gas stove with and induction stove. In 2021 I purchased a Tesla Model 3 to drive back and forth from my new job. I now use the Leaf as my truck, also known as the beater, and I used it to for running around town and hauling junk. My next purchase will be a heat pump, hopefully in Spring 2023. There are also some efficiency gains planned by rerouting all the duct work out of the attic and into the interior walls and then adding insulation to the attic. I expect this will cut my heating and cooling cost by 10 to 20%.

Max Power Day

This roof is definitely the nicest one in the area, an upgrade, and will increase my property value just like remodeling your kitchen or bathroom. The advantages over those upgrades is the roof will save money, the Powerwall provides a power backup (you never know where the next nut job will strike the grid) , and we are now semi-independent of the utility company. Before I get into the power generation, I knew going into this my house was not ideal or even remotely suited for solar, I have a 150 year old oak tree that shades the house in the afternoon. While this greatly reduces my solar energy production in the afternoons, my peak production is about 10:30 am, the tree keeps the sun from heating up the house in the summer and has only a small effect in the winter. This data is all pulled from the App that comes with the roof, very cool.

House and Car Electric Coverage

Before my solar roof, my electric bill almost never went over $100/mo, including driving an electric car about 100 miles/week. I took some data at my one-year anniversary. my electric savings was $415 for the year but was hoping to be closer to $500/yr. There is a stream restoration project behind my house and they had to cut down two huge pine trees that created shade November thru March. My energy generation will for sure go up in 2023. There is another soft maple tree that will probably have to come down in a year or two that is just south of the house. This will also increase my electric generation probably by 10%. I’ll update this as data comes in.