SOLAR

Disclaimer: I am NOT an employee of Solar City; I’m just an extremely satisfied customer that can’t understand why every house in a state with over 300 days of sunshine a year isn’t getting its power from the sun!

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Want to see how well my system is working? Click Monitor My System for real time stats. (Opens in a new window)

NEW (Oct 2011)- I’ve gotten a couple of questions as to why my bills went up so much this year over last year and the answer isn’t very green but I wanted to see what impact there would be to my bills if I used a 10k BTU in wall AC in my master bedroom and lowered the thermostats in the house down to 80 from 82 since it was SUPER HOT here this summer.

The AC in the bedroom worked great and it caused me to rename my master the igloo because of how cold it gets, my logic however was flawed in the sense that the big 6 ton unit despite cooling all rooms in the house also only runs a few minutes each hour where as the in wall runs all night and this is where my bill really took a hit was my Off-Peak consumption running almost double over last year!

Will I do things differently next year, hard to say, for now however the temps in Phoenix just dropped and my windows are open again so my meter is running backwards pretty much all day.

Another interesting thing to see on how this will impact my bill is that I’ve just replaced all my incandescent and CFL lighting with new LED lighting. My kitchen had 8 x 100 watt cans on a dimmer, the issue with CFL was that a dimmable CFL is expensive and it’s lifespan is shorter because of dimming. I found a deal at Home Depot in LEDs and replaced all 8, my consumption in the kitchen dropped from 800 watts to 93! This is a huge difference and should be a huge savings over time.

In October I invested in a Kill-A-Watt unit (Home Depot) and have been running it on all my outlets to see what is using up a lot of power, I’ve found several “phantom” loads such as phone chargers and coffee makers that use power even when not in use, I’ve adopted the practice of disconnecting them between uses to save the watts they consume.

Finally I contacted Retro Foam and had them re-insulate my exterior walls with expanding foam insulation, this is really become the norm now in new builds however they are able to do this on an existing home. They basically drill a few holes on the exterior stucco, drop in a tube and let the stuff flow, as they pull the tube out the cavity is filled and even any existing insulation (which I found very little of – Thanks Beazer ARGH!) gets taken over by the foam and the wall cavity is densely filled. What I have found here is that aside from insulation against the elements, it also added sound protection so the house it a lot quieter now. I recommenced them, it’s not a lot of money and is much easier than ripping out drywall, spraying from the inside and re-dry walling the house “Mike Holmes” style.

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Now before you read the rest of this page let me make you an offer, my experience with Solar City and moving to a more ‘Green’ lifestyle was nothing short of exceptional and I am very willing to help others by answering the very questions that I already had to ask. So don’t hesitate to contact me, you can click on the ‘Contact Me’ page in the upper right hand corner and either email me or call me and I’ll be more than happy to share my experience and answer any questions.

If you’d rather talk to a consultant at Solar City, I ask that you contact one of these two consultants directly as they are located here in Phoenix and will take the time to work with you personally. They are:

Don Harris 602-377-8295

Finally, when you do contact them, please mention that you saw this site; it lets me know that I’ve made a difference! Now please enjoy my Solar City story!

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Does Solar really save? Check out my actual bills

Clicking these will open a new window; these are PDF files so you must have PDF installed to view.

2010 APS Billing Statements

April 2010 APS	May 2010 APS	Jun 2010 APS	Jul 2010 APS	Aug 2010 APS
Sept 2010 APS	Oct 2010 APS	Nov 2010 APS	Dec 2010 APS

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2011 APS Billing Statements

Jan 2011 APS	Feb 2011 APS	Mar 2011 APS	Apr 2011 APS	May 2011 APS	Future
Future	Future	Future	Future	Future	Future

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In the interest of disclosure, I have removed my account and meter numbers from these billing statements.

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Actual Power History

Starting in March 2010 the table below includes my power consumption (purchased from APS) as well as production (generated by solar). The column on the far right shows my ‘credits’ where if I generate more power than purchased, it carries over to the following month ‘rollover’.

	2009	2010	2011	Production
	APS Payment	APS Payment	APS Payment	kWh Solar	kWh Credits **
Jan	$109.32	$95.83	($37.59)	616	0
Feb	$89.49	$88.68	($19.28)	931	82
Mar	$83.77	$39.45 +	($ 1.21)	1090	364
Apr	$112.07	$17.17 *	$15.66	1201	678
May	$179.66	$17.17	$17.47	1407	1038
Jun	$269.12	$17.94	$26.69 ++	1295	1407
Jul	$352.64	$18.55	$84.51	711	1462
Aug	$332.25	$30.41	$115.73	619	1164
Sep	$304.07	$61.78	$153.88	597	931
Oct	$218.15	$66.60	$76.27	729	525
Nov	$120.58	$25.58	$33.56	921	410
Dec	$115.67	($71.58)	($4.56)	680	493
Annual Total	$ 2,286.76	$ 407.58	$ 523.77
++ APS Annual Rate Increase + Partial month 15 days on solar and 15 days on-grid * Now on Solar ** Each month APS calculates their "delivered" kWh's and subtracts my "production" kWh's anything left over is considered a "credit" that carries over to the next month like rollover minutes on a phone plan. At the end of the year APS will "true up" their accounting and send me a check for the credits that I have on account paid at the standard residential rate plan.

Making sense of it all …

In April 2011 my system produced 1201 kilowatt hours, in the hours where my system wasn’t producing power, I consumed or purchased 841  kilowatt hours from APS.  My 1201 wiped out the 841 they delivered making my APS bill effectively zero dollars (with taxes it’s actually $ 15.56 ) ! The balance that I generated, the remaining  360 kilowatt hours, gets added to my 2011 credits giving me a credit of 678 kilowatt hour credits going into my May billing cycle.

What’s really exciting is that at the end of the year, any credits still on my bill are paid back to me by APS in the form of a check or carried over to the following year as credits! Yes I get paid by APS to have solar on my house! If you’re an APS customer and are curious about this program, it’s broken down on their website which you can access by clicking HERE this will open a new window.

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My Solar Power Story

On November 29^th, 2009 I was watching the Home Hunter on ABC15 here in Phoenix and caught a segment on a company called Solar City. What caught my attention was a program that for me and my circumstances made sense, The Solar Lease. I could finally do something that I’d already been thinking about doing, adding solar electric (PV) to my home, but for no money out of pocket! Zero dollars down and a payment of fewer than 100 dollars a month!

What I see now as a ‘no brainer’ I managed to drag on for some time as I analyzed every aspect of the plan and what the expectations of a PV system on my house could bring me. I’m happy to say that the engineer in me paid off because my expectations are not only being met, they are being exceeded and I have the power bills to prove it!

Working with Solar City was amazing, they did EVERYTHING! All I had to do was sign the paperwork and wait for them to take care of the rest. They took care of every aspect that I would expect them to, a thorough and detailed design, all the required drawings that APS (my local power utility) requires, permitting, installation and follow ups. Best of all during the entire process they gave me a personalized web page to check on the entire process so I never had a question as to what was going to happen next.

Here is what you may expect

Right off the bat it’s going to be about a 4 month process! From the day I signed my documents to the day I had equipment installed was about 4 months, bear in mind that building permits need to be pulled and most important the power utility has to approve the design and approve you for rebates and subsidies, but the good news is that once that’s done, the pace is fast!

The installation of my system took the better part of 5 full days; it’s not a small system, 11kw (kilowatts) of green energy, it’s almost double what many homes I’ve seen have had installed. My honest suggestion, have the engineer that does your site audit fill every possible inch of available roof space with panels! This is truly one of those times where bigger is really better!

One area that I could not find a lot of information on while researching my project was, “What are they going to do to my roof?” I wanted to see pictures of how the work with the very common tile roofs here in Arizona. I wanted to know how they secure the system to the roof so that it’s not going to fly off in a strong wind or that the tiles aren’t going to be a weakness during monsoon rains.

Again I asked a ton of questions and finally got my answers but to make it easier for anyone else, I took a lot of pictures while my installation was taking place and posted them here, they are near the bottom of this page and are actually chronological showing each days progress. I hope that this can help anyone that has the same concerns that I had. I’m also happy to report that after the heavy rains we had earlier this year, not a single drop of rain penetrated my roofing system!

Near the end of the project and after the install is complete, the system is going to have to sit idle until 2 additional inspections take place. First the building and zoning department for your municipality will have to inspect the work and verify that Solar City did everything to code. My system passed on the first round and the inspector that came out here even said that he’s yet to find any problems with any of the Solar City systems he’s checked.

Just prior to the final inspection your power meter will be replaced by your utility company with a new ‘Bi-Directional’ meter that will monitor Kilowatt Hours Generated, this will be used to monitor power you produce which will offset your bill, more about that later.

The final inspection may take a several weeks, in my case it was about 3 weeks later, APS had to come out here and verify the system will not damage equipment on their network, Solar City was onsite with APS making sure that the install was according to the approved plans and that all the safety features are operational. The inspection was quick and once complete I was given a letter by the inspector who said my system is operational and to enjoy!

Solar City remained on site for a short time giving me an overview of the system and turning on my monitoring page so that I can view my system performance live! The link for you to view my system is at the top of this page, personally, this is really cool and Solar City does this not only for you but so that they can track system performance so that in the event of a problem they can be proactive and take care of it before you may even know about it.

After going live I waited to see my first bill and it totally met my expectations, since then my power generation has typically exceeded my power consumption by almost double, I’m generating twice as much every day as I have traditionally purchased for the same time period over the last 2 years.

A table below shows my last 2 years of energy consumption as well as my new solar energy production it’s very impressive to see that my bill from APS is now under $17 dollars a month thanks to the offset created by my energy production.

Kilowatt Hour Credits

Let me explain how this works since again this was an area that I was not able to get a clear answer on prior to going live.

After the sun goes down and your system isn’t generating power or at times when you (for whatever wasteful reason) have everything in the house turned on and your system isn’t able to produce more than you are using, you are buying power from the utility. Your meter is clicking away with ‘consumption’. The other times when your PV system is keeping up with or exceeding your needs your meter is spinning backwards and you’re in ‘production’ and your new bi-directional meter is keeping track of the power you’re generating.

At the end of the month when the power company reads your meter they will now take 2 readings, consumption and production and your production will be used to ‘pay down’ or offset your consumption. Basically if you used 500 kilowatt hours of their power and produced 1500 kilowatt hours of your own green power, your 1500 will pay off their 500 and you will also have an extra 1000 kilowatt hours in the form of ‘credits’ that will carry over to the next month, just like rollover minutes on a cellular plan!

In my case, the 3 heaviest months for consumption should be July through September where my system, which typically generates about 2000 kilowatt hours a month, will fall short of the amount of power that I have traditionally purchased from APS, but since I have enough credits saved up going into those months, I should be able to get through the summer maintaining a ridiculously low power bill! Keep track of my progress on the table below as I update it after each month’s bill.

So that’s about it, I hope that this helps you in making a decision that (as I said earlier in this post) is a ‘No Brainer’ and again if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact either myself via this site or Mark or Don from Solar City, in the end you’ll be very glad you did and remember, Think locally, Act Globally!

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Miguel Lombana, Solar City, Going Solar, Solar Installers Phoenix

What follows is a chronological progression of my install including pictures of each days work, click any picture and it takes you to that days album so that you can view all of the pictures.

Enjoy!

phoenix, solar power installers, solarcity, solar city, install pv, solar lease, miguel lombana