Greetings,

First off I would like to say thank you for all the information that you have posted on your site.

You seem to have some good information and I appreciate all your time on the tests that you have done on the performance of grid tied inverters.

I am thinking about making the plunge and setting my home up with a solar powered grid tied system.

Just getting tired of paying the high prices for electricity from my electric company.

I have been paying around 400.00 dollars per month on average for electricity.

I have a few questions and value your opinion on hardware.

My house is a 4000 square foot home. It’s rather large.

I am confused on what hardware to buy.

My two main concerns are what solar panels to use and what inverters to use.

If you were to build a new system what brands would you use?

I am guessing that you would use the Xantrex GT 3.0 inverters from what I have seen on your website.

How about solar panels. What brand would you recommend???

Here is the power that I have been using over the last few months.

November 2,170 kWh
October 1,991 kWh
September 2,298 kWh
August 2,802 kWh
July 3,007 kWh
June 2,225 kWh
May 1,927 kWh
April 1,785 kWh
March 1,787 kWh

My home is located in Southern California in Riverside County.

Thanks for your help.

Marshall Oldham

Looking at the difference per month, I would guess your AC is the main use of your electric. You can get AC systems in the 16-17 SEER range, which compared to older systems could cut in half the electric used without any change to you cooling used. There is also Geo-Thermal which can even go higher. If your only looking to lower your electric and if your AC is and older unit (You can look-up your model #, google is your friend) this would be far cheaper than PV solar

You are in CA, and the incentives make PV much better at the pay-back and I don't want to discourage you from doing PV, on the other hand, you should know your options, its ALWAYS cheaper to increase your efficiency by getting new high SEER or energy star appliances then trying to add any local electrical genertion at your home.

Also, make sure your insulation is R40-R50 in the attic and if possible install radiant barrior in the attic, I did this, double insulated windows, double insulated walls, AC cost was about 50 dollars in the peak hot summer in Florida or about 1/20th what you use for a 3000sf home

Thanks for the input on my questions here.


Solar Guppy says:
Looking at the difference per month, I would guess your AC is the main use of your electric. You can get AC systems in the 16-17 SEER range, which compared to older systems could cut in half the electric used without any change to you cooling used. There is also Geo-Thermal which can even go higher. If your only looking to lower your electric and if your AC is and older unit (You can look-up your model #, google is your friend) this would be far cheaper than PV solar.

Yes, I have to agree with you on the fact that my AC units are probably one of the issues. But here is my thinking on this. The house is only 5 years old and I would think the AC units are at least decent about using power. But maybe the builder stuck some cheap units in that are not efficient. It certainly warrants looking into that issue. I will check out my AC units and see what they are and when they were made. I actually have a 2 story home. So, I have two AC units, one for down stairs and one for up stairs. Changing out my AC units to something that is more efficient may be a good idea to get my electric bill down even lower.
Thanks for the idea!


Solar Guppy says:
You are in CA, and the incentives make PV much better at the pay-back and I don't want to discourage you from doing PV, on the other hand, you should know your options, its ALWAYS cheaper to increase your efficiency by getting new high SEER or energy star appliances then trying to add any local electrical genertion at your home.


Yes they are and I still am set on getting a PV system for my home. I am really tired of paying my local electric company big bucks for power. Every time you turn around they are jacking up the price on electricity here in California. They really are jacking us around with there so called "power shortage" I will look into these other SEER or energy star appliances. The only old appliance I have is a 20 year old refigerator in the garage. I should check that and see how much power that is eating up. That would probably be a cheap way to say energy.

Solar Guppy Says:
Also, make sure your insulation is R40-R50 in the attic and if possible install radiant barrior in the attic, I did this, double insulated windows, double insulated walls, AC cost was about 50 dollars in the peak hot summer in Florida or about 1/20th what you use for a 3000sf home

I am pretty sure that I have R40 in the attic, being that the house is pretty new. I have been in the attic and know that some insulation is up there. Okay what is a radiant barrior? I will have to google that one and check it out. Sounds like something that could help.

Thanks for all the ideas. I am going to look into some of these ideas and let you know what I find. I am still going with a PV system though. The state of California is giving big rebate incentives and I have always wanted to make my own power!

Marshall




[/code]

Nope, builders use what ever is cheapest, there long gone and your stuck with the bills. Get the model number, google the number and in minutes you will see you probably have either a 10 or 12 SEER unit(s)



Nope, Builder ALWAYS do the minimum. There should be a certifcation tag some where, either at the entract to the attic entrace or such. Take a ruler and measure the depth, R30 is about 12" for reference



Its basically tinfoil, stapled to the rafters, it reflects most the IR radiational heating from the sun, which drops the load into the attic by about 25-35%. Its a though jog to refit a built home, it can be done but its NOT something you want to do your self and you will have to re-blow the insulations as it will get trampled in the process



Well thats going to use about 1000 kwh/year easy, plus being in the garage makes it work MUCH harder. Get ride of it and replace tomorrow with the best refrig you can get (enerystar wise)

Here is a starting place, find the size you want and then you can see whats the best

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=commer_refrig.pr_commercial_refrigerators

Before you spend a dime on anything, you need to do an audit of your home to understand what you have and make NO assumptions, figure the builder screwed you on everything and anything you brought in was bought on price, not how much energy it uses. Make a list of everything , then lookup what they use and then see what they can be replaced with. A front load washers is a good example, refrig & Freezer. Computer monitors? are they CRT's , they can be replced with LCD's.

I think you will find, for 1/4 the cost of PV you can easily cut your bill in half, if not more.

If you jump and do the PV without first doing the above, you're going to be pissed when you spent 30K and your bill only went down 120$. Ive done all of the above and I beleive in PV, but there are steps to this process

Buy a Kilowatt meter and check everything in your house, you will be surprised at what some thing use when left on. My 25 year old 24 cu ft fridge used 7.5 kw a day! The new 25 cu ft Energy Star one uses 1.5 kw. Saving 6 kw a day is much cheaper than making 6 kw.
Rex