Late in 2006, we decided to install a photovoltaic system on our roof. At the time, I was working on alternative energy technology and was extremely impressed by the fact that you could install solar panels on your house and make your own electricity. But would it work on our house?Two things were worrisome: we used an awful lot of electricity in our house and we have tall woods behind the house that cast shade on the roof during the winter months. But we decided that if we could put enough solar panels on the roof to make at least half of our electricity and if it wouldn't be unaffordable, we would do it. Thanks to state subsidy funding and generous tax credits, it turned out that it was affordable to install such a system; so we signed a contract to do it.
While we waited for the wheels of bureaucracy to slowly turn and for elusive solar panels to be procured, we examined the details of our electrical usage and found ways to reduce it significantly without changing the way we live. Those curlicue lightbulbs save a ton of energy and we put them everywhere. By the time we got the solar energy system installed, we had reduced our electrical usage by 35%. As a result, our new system ended up making not 50% but 80% of our electricity. How great!
On sunny days, our electric meter happily spins backwards, effectively banking the excess energy we make. At night, the meter runs forward and withdraws our accumulated energy. For most of the year, the deposits outweigh the withdrawals and the meter reads lower and lower. Only during the winter does our usage greatly overcome our ability to generate energy. But on an annual basis, we were only 20% short.
Well, three years came and went and that 80% has steadily held up. And then the little itch started. Can't we do better? We still had some room on the roof for more panels. All the other gear is already installed so upgrading the system wouldn't be very complicated. The federal tax credits have gotten even better than they were in 2006. So why fight it? We're addicted to solar panels.
So today, the same folks who installed our system in 2006 came to our house and installed nine more panels - all that could be accommodated by the inverters in our basement that convert the DC power from the solar panels into AC power that runs the house. If all goes well - and it surely will - from now on we will be making roughly 100% of our electricity for the year. Some years it will be a little less, some years a little more.
I don't know what anything we buy will cost six years from now or perhaps even six months from now, but I know that I won't be worrying about my electric bills. And that is pretty cool.
