Today is a memorable day for two reasons:
- It’s my wife’s birthday
- We have received the final regulatory approval for our solar panels
We have waited almost three years for this day. You may recall, our home owner’s association originally rejected our application to have solar panels added on our roof because, “We think they look ugly.”
Since then, the state of Texas made it impossible for our HOA to deny this to us (or to anyone in a neighborhood of over 50 homes). The HOA sent out a notice that they would no longer oppose those wanting to get solar panels, so we reapplied for them and our application was approved.
Then we had to locate a vendor. Solar City’s lease rates had gone up so much, over the last few years, making their product too expensive, when compared to electricity from the grid. We ended up deciding to buy, rather than lease and selected EnergyONE as our provider. One thing that changed, in the intervening years, seems to be inverters. The new system has a micro inverter for each panel, so that panels receiving shade will not cause non-shaded panels to reduce output. The Solar City system had just two inverters, one for panels facing East and one for those facing West.
Our current (no pun intended) electricity provider, BeyondPower, although a provider of 100% renewable energy, only pays wholesale for energy overage reimbursement. Our previous provider, Green Mountain Energy, pays retail but has a significantly higher price per kWh, than BeyondPower. We will have to see which one ends up being the less expensive choice, once we’ve got a few months of solar, under our belts.
We will be powering our three Chevy Volts from the sun!
Actual installation and testing should begin soon, so stay tuned for updates!
How about putting a sign up in the EV Center: “Buzz drives on sunshine! Ask him how he does it.”
The world is on its way to clean air, and you are leading the way, Buzz.
Fantastic.