Yes my power bill has freaked me out.
Where are my savings?
This is supposed to be the years about green energy correct?
Well last night around 7pm 4 gentlemen came into my house to asses it for a solar panel install.
They spoke of the “Eighty six cent feed-in tariff” that will pay me enough money to cover my costs.
I then mentioned that I wasn’t comfortable with stories and tales as I had been through the promises before.
If you can’t give me the correct facts and the straight poop than we don’t have transparency.
See the eighty six cent feed-in tariff is not actually agreed on just yet, currently you only get forty six cents per kHw (I think) and the only thing that exists right now is the fact that someone will tell you it is coming down the pipe very soon.
My house has trees around it from my neighbors yard that make my roof a not-so-desirable area for the solar panels as they would be in the shade by 1pm. I haven’t asked but I’m gonna assume that cutting down my neighbors trees is not an option.
So it leaves me with doing a setup in my backyard with poles.
Not that big a deal as I have a space in my yard where we could do this.
The one problem they spoke of was that in order to obtain the “Eighty six cent tariff” the panels have to be installed on a roof… not poles.
I asked about this and the deal with that probably was to cut down on people with acres of land putting up poles with panels on them and just selling the power off.
OK that’s fine, but I am a homeowner and don’t own acres of land? So I want to add panels but my roof is not a good location? Should I be excluded?
Also there really is no grants or funding for solar projects as of right now so unlike the Geothermal project, I won’t see anything back except for a tax break.
If there are grants and funding out there then the installers knew nothing about them as well as myself.
Either way it would have been nice but not the main point for this project, we ended the night with my main goals.
“I want a system that generates close to 75% of my usage, if it does more than great.”
See I never go into these projects with unrealistic ideas or the idea that I will make thousands of dollars from the utilities.
I go into the projects with the idea that I can bring my families reliance on utilities down while still not giving up the luxuries of life.
Hi! Did you find the cause of the excessive electricity bill? I’m really interested if it’s something wrong in your installation
Beware that the 46 cents (indeed, the proposed one is 80c, see http://www.ourpower.ca/Post.aspx?portalid=25&postid=110) are only for what you **exceed** your own consumption. That’s why it’s called “net metering”. So if your panels generate in a month less electricity than you use, you’ll see no money for the generated electricity! You basically “deposited” some electricity in the grid during sunny times, “cashed” it back and more nightly and in cloudy weather. It’s still good, because you don’t need the batteries to store the “overproduction” during the day.
I can recommend to take a look at RISE and WISE websites, e.g. http://riseagain.ourpower.ca/Portal.aspx?portalid=1 . They do “solar tours” in Toronto from time to time, and you can see installations and talk to the owners about real-world experiences. In my opinion, it’s well worth 2 hours of your time. They also have a list of recommended suppliers, which were selected by the community.
I’m not sure what the excessive costs were from just yet.
I have to get my next bill but I am betting it had to do with the heaters running at full tilt for the couple days.
Will also have to see how it runs for a couple months.
Problem is that we are heading into the warmer months so I won’t get a feel for the costs until winter again.
Yeah they spoke about the “Making money” but frankly I am only interested in producing as much as I use or even 75%.
I wouldn’t do this for the idea that one day I could support myself with my electrical winnings
Thank you for the links, I contacted WISE a few weeks ago through their email but they haven’t got back to me yet.
I am going to the green show next weekend in Toronto so maybe I can get some ideas and meet a few more solar companies as well.
Another good resource is Ravina Project http://www.theravinaproject.org. They provide real-life solar historical data for their location (Toronto, Riverdale if I’m not wrong) for the last few years!