Running Your Electric Meter Backwards 526
kog777 writes to note a story in International Business Times about "net metering," or generating your own power without disconnecting from the grid. Forty states have laws allowing individuals to do this, and many of them offer subsidies and tax breaks for people who do. From the article: "When the sun shines bright on their home in New York's Hudson Valley, John and Anna Bagnall live out a homeowner's fantasy. Their electricity meter runs backward. Solar panels on their barn roof can often provide enough for all their electricity needs. Sometimes — and this is the best part — their solar setup actually pushes power back into the system."
What is the story? (Score:4, Informative)
Non conventional (Score:3, Informative)
while back here in third world countries we use other non-conventional ways to save on energy bills like
Bribe the Electricity Engineer or
Tap electricity directly from pole without any meter
Where the icy cold beer is on the house (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/Where-the-icy
It really does work. (Score:5, Informative)
The panels generate approximately 7.5kW AC (8.8kW DC). The total cost was $65,000 but with a grant from the State of California and State tax credits, the total cost was reduced to just over $31,000. Since then I have been paying only the minimum price for electricity service (around $5 a month) to cover the cost of the meter rental. As electricity rates have increased a bit (and no doubt will continue to increase) I calculate that I will recover my costs approximately 8 years after installation, and I will then start to save money. The life of the panels should be around 30 to 40 years
It's worth remembering that you need to make certain your roof is good for the years the panels will be operating, so for some it will also mean installing a new roof first. That wasn't an issue for me as I have an ornamental metal tile roof that should last much longer than the panels.
Essentially, I use the power utility as my batteries - during sunny days I generate much more electricity than I use and the excess goes into the grid, and then I use power from the grid on rainy winter days and during nighttime. I get credited for electricity sent to the grid, and yes, the meter really does run backwards.
One neat trick is that I don't have to generate the equivalent of all the energy I use to break even. I'm on a utility company plan where the electricity I use during peak summer times (noon to 6pm) is very expensive - around three times normal rates - but off-peak usage is about 70% of normal rates. But I get credited at the rate in place at the time of day the electricity is generated. Because my installation generates the majority of the electricity during the peak times, I get credited for those KwH at the high rate and when I need to use electricity at night I pay the reduced rate. As an example of how effective this is, last year I generated 12,400 KwH and I also used 3,600 KwH from the utility company. But at the end of the year I had a credit balance of $380.
There's one gotcha there - if you have a debit balance at the end of the year, you have to pay it. But if you have a credit balance, that gets lost. Ideally you want to generate just enough electricity so that your adjusted balance is zero, but that's pretty hard to judge. In any case, you want ample extra capacity just after installation as the panels reduce their efficiency by about 0.5% to 1.0% per year.
Re:realities? (Score:5, Informative)
This is however only true on average. If, for example, you live in an area where you get tax-breaks or subsidies for installing, then this can be enough to break even. In Germany, for example they have a "100.000 roofs" program where you're guaranteed a price about 3 times market-price for the power you produce for the next 15 years. That is *more* than enough to make it profitable.
Solar water-heaters on the other hand are beneficial. Especially if you live in an area with plenty of sun *and* have a large family that likes to frequently shower in the summer, it can be a huge win. There are substantial savings from installing them at the same time one installs roofing, so your best bet is probably going to be to install them at the same time your roofing needs replacement anyway, rather than separately.
The *most* beneficial investment however is building/buying a well-insulated house with balanced ventilation. This saves power in summer for AC, and in winther for heating. And a well-insulated house doesn't have higher maintenance-costs than a poorly insulated one.
Solar Living Center will teach you how (Score:2, Informative)
They sell a book Solar Living Source Book [solarliving.org] (now in its 12th edition) which tells you how to take your home off the grid using solar panels, plus they offer courses http://www.solarliving.org/workshops/ [solarliving.org]. They also run the Solar Living Center [solarliving.org], which is a self-sustainable solar energy building/store/headquarters in Hopland, California.
Re:realities? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Greenhouses too (Score:1, Informative)
And yes it is insane to power greenhouses with gas, just to grow crops that grow natural 2000km down south; Did I mention greenhouse veggies taste like water?
And yes it's insane that the government tosses billions of subsidies to maintain this.
Whats even more insane is that last year, the government decided to release the energy supply to a free market. Because of this, the price of gas went up, since energy suppliers can only sell a certain amount of gas, on a first come, first serve basis. So greenhouse farmers pay more for gas, the government pays more subsidies, the customer pays higher gas prices, and the farmers products' prices go up as well. At the same time poor farmers in Marocco and Spain, with superb quality vegetables, can't get a foot on the ground.
Gotta love capitalism.
The gp wasn't being funny, it's the truth.
Re:Not with your home's current electrical setup. (Score:5, Informative)
It would be possible to build an inverter that would disconnect the incoming mains supply in the event of a power failure, and "slip" the inverter until it's in phase before dropping it back in, but you'd need something like a 100A contactor for that to work.
Actually, they drop it because grid-tie inverters are REQUIRED to disconnect from the grid when the grid goes down. This is to prevent backfeeding the disconnected island and frying a lineman who's trying to fix the downed wire for your block and thinks the lines are dead when YOU kept them live. (Those pole-pig transformers work just FINE in reverse, so a lineman might grab a line with 12,000 volts on it and a couple kilowatts to keep it that way while he's dancing and trying to breathe.)
Now the EASY way to do this is just to monitor the frequency and voltage, and shut the inverter off when it goes out of spec (meaning the grid is probably dead and the line only looks hot because of the inverter backfeeding it).
For a couple grand more, in the case of some good inverters that are designed for it (such as some of the Xantrex models), you can add a box with a relay, a phase-difference monitor, and a subsidiary "brain" board (or get an inverter with the function built in). (Actually the box in question usually also has the line monitoring circuit and combines with inverters that are otherwise stand-alone non-grid-tie.) That box will disconnect the inverter-and-keepalive-lodds from the line and let it keep going during an outage, then tell it to drift phase until it matches and hook it back up once the grid is back and has stabilized.
Re:Greenhouses too (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Greenhouses too (Score:3, Informative)
Also, the generators are thoroughly insulated and because of this particular application (greenhouse), the excess warmth is directly used. This results in an extremely high energy/warmth ratio.
Re:net metering to start your own backyard e-tradi (Score:1, Informative)
- The neighbors claim to be pushing 96KW of power onto the network, while in reality they're just shunting it from A's tap then back through B's tap, resulting in a net draw due to resistive and transformer losses. 96 missing KW won't go unnoticed.
B claims to be generating 96kW when A claims to be drawing it. A is paying for the 96kW (just at a lower rate). The utility company's numbers add up just fine.
- Nothing you can legally put on residential property will generate 96KW of electric for any length of time. This will generate suspicion.
A 96kW generator would only be an issue with noise if there are people sleeping in nearby buildings. The electric company wouldn't be interested in that. 96kW isn't much for them really.
- Funny, A's meter runs back while B's runs forward and vice-versa. Bill, take a truck and check this out...
Bill cant see the movement of the meters. He only reads them periodically, where the totals for peak and off-peak are used to calculate billing. He sees positive off-peak and negative peak and bills accordingly.
- I'm fairly certain that the utility and/or city have to send out an inspector before you can connect a grid intertie. Said inspector will note the lack of any generating equipment.
Meh, so rent some. This comment in particular gives away that you're really just dissing the idea, which is fine (as I say I don't agree with it either) but its not OK for you to act smarter than you are.
ps: Be thankful that residential pole transformers are current-limited when you try and connect the wires.
OK that's actually dangerous advice. Pole transformers range about 10-100KVA and deliver current in the hundreds of amps, which is over 1000 times the "probable kill" current of 75mA. The limiting is in the form of rudimentary overload circuit breakers or fuses. It isn't cost-effective to use the advanced stuff they have in big substations and power stations and there's too much leakage in overhead cables for RCDs to be practical. Therefore you get very little protection. I suggest you leave it to the pros.
Re:Greenhouses too (Score:3, Informative)
A more interesting development for greenhouses is the heat exchanger. Greenhouses need tremendous amounts of heat in winter, and need to be cooled in summer. A few companies started experimenting with a system using water stored deep underground for cooling in summer and heating in winter. The results are encouraging; very little additional heating or cooling is needed in the test setups, and with some extra effort and equipment, the thing can even be used to generate electricity.
Re:OT, sick day scams... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What is the story? (Score:4, Informative)
Net metering rules (Score:5, Informative)
Click on a state, look under Rules, Regulations & Policies for net metering rules.
You can also look on my website http://www.jointhesolution.com/mdsolar [jointhesolution.com] so see utility rates.
Click on the map then click on a state. If you see the utility listed you can do net metering there.
The Greek Way (Score:2, Informative)
Re:You can do the same thing... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:OT, sick day scams... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Net metering rules (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It really does work. (Score:3, Informative)
In other news, this guys money compares nothing to:
"Last week, the House voted 264-163 to eliminate about $8 billion in tax breaks for the energy industry. The bill also fixes errors in leases for drilling in the Gulf of Mexico that allowed some oil companies to avoid paying royalties to the federal government."
I say use the $8 billion for grants to everybody who can get one and get a solar water heater for their home. So why shouldn't Joe Average get a few thousand bucks in tax breaks for solar panels when we give multiples of tens of billions of dollars of tax breaks and rent free property to the oil companies. What's the harm? You don't want this guy stealing from you, I don't want the Oil companies stealing from me. The difference, one is a few thousand, probably over the course of a few years, whereas the other is about $50 billion yearly, with rent free property, and cries of "Oh noes we only make 8.8cents on the dollar of our expenses! Oh woe is us! I'm gonna use the corporate jet for a family vacation, oh yeah, near an oil rig so it's a business expense, as is my pay and bonuses! kthx bye!"
The government steals, that's a fact. But start with the big dogs and then get the little ones. You don't have to hate oil, you should just encourage them to compete like other industries, then get Solar to do it too(or, one beautiful massive sweeping legislation that fixes most industries).
But this does help payback times. Like the Honda Civic Hybrids early last year, $3000 for the privilege of driving a hybrid, $2500 paid towards your taxes(yes, you get a refund if you get a refund). So, basically, a net cost of $500 for driving hybrids, but no one wants to tell you that. Yes, it would be paid off in a year or two.
Of course it's a new year so we have to see where it goes.
Re:What is the story? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.answers.com/topic/three-phase-electric
http://www.du.edu/~jcalvert/tech/threeph.htm [du.edu]
Re:What is the story? (Score:2, Informative)
By dropping capacitors in the circuit you move the phase shift the opposite way, seemingly reducing your usage or going negative.
-Electric companies wised up a decade to this nearly a decade ago and use non-magnetic, non-phaseshift meters.
Re:You can do this without solar panels. (Score:3, Informative)
I couldn't tell from the literature, but I think they can measure the energy flowing into and out of the house, so they can charge different rates for net metered power (e.g., you pay them 10 cents per kwh for incoming power and they pay you 5 cents per kwh for outgoing power)
new solar cell tech from Honda (Score:1, Informative)
FTA:
The next-generation solar cell to be produced and sold by Honda Soltec was developed by Honda Engineering Co., Ltd., the production engineering subsidiary of Honda. By using thin film made from a compound of copper, indium, gallium and selenium (CIGS), Honda's next-generation solar cell achieves a major reduction in the amount of energy consumed during the manufacturing process by approximately 50% compared to what is required to produce conventional crystal silicon solar cells. This makes the new solar cell more environmentally-friendly by reducing the amount of CO2 generated even from the production stage.
Citizenre free solar (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.jointhesolution.com/makepower [jointhesolution.com]
Re:What is the story? (Score:2, Informative)
You may be reffering to http://www.textfiles.com/anarchy/SCAMS/stoppow.txt [textfiles.com].
There are some formatting and spelling issues in it, as it looks like it came out of the tail end of an OCR program. I can't vouch for the accuracy or usefulness of the information, whether past, present, or future.
Re:OT: reply to sig (Score:3, Informative)
Braking with the clutch out and in gear prevents wheels locking up if driving on slippery roads. If the clutch is in, nothing is forcing the wheels to spin except ground friction, and the wheels can skid more easily if there is very low ground friction (ice/snow). If the clutch is out, and transmission is in gear, the engine is turning the making the wheels spin. Been there done that.