May 1st

It's a new month, so here are the stats:

Power billed

Power generated

I'd been intending to get more solar panels to cover the power we use with the car, but having spoken to Roseville Electric, I'm not going to bother.  It's a shame, but they've changed the way they do everything with solar now, and if I add panels, I'll get dragged into their new system.

Right now, (and I'm rounding all these numbers, it's actually worse than that makes it look), for every kWh I generate above what I'm using at the time, I get paid 9c.  For every kWh I use above what I'm generating at the time, I pay 9c.  So the grid is acting as a big battery for me.

In the new system, for every kWh I generate above what I'm using at the time, I get paid 6c.  For every kWh I use above what I'm generating at the time, I pay 9c.

So, let's throw a few numbers around to see how that works out.  Let's say I generate 10kWh a day, but I only use 2kWh during the time I'm generating, but I use the other 8kWh overnight - this seems reasonable(ish), as a lot of the electricity usage is air conditioning in the late afternoon and recharging the car in the evening.

Right now, based on the time shifting of my power, my bill is (9c * 8kWh) - (9c * 8kWh) = $0.00.

In the new system, my bill would be (9c * 8kWh) - (6c * 8kWh) = $0.24.

In the new system, it's also physically not possible to get that bill down to $0.00, as you're not allowed more capacity than you actually need.  I figure I'd need about 1kW of panels to just catch up to where I am on the old system, and I can only add ~2kW of panels.  Based on my bill last year being ~$400 for electricity for the whole year, it's hard to justify spending something ~$10,000 on panels.  If our power was more expensive, it would make sense, or if they paid what they charged, it'd make more sense.  The guy at Roseville did start to rattle on about it's not all about money, and I pointed out I knew that, as I'd paid an awful lot for panels that probably won't pay back what they cost already.  He also suggested I could charge the car in the middle of the day, and I pointed out that it was at Vic's work at that time.

Meh, they're supposed to be putting in car charger's at Vic's place, so she can charge it there once or twice a week and we won't use so much power anyway.