about $0.06 USD/kWh

😭 The per-kilowatt hour rider fees on top of my base rate per kWh are way more than that lol.

Lol, def can become an obsession. First hand experience there.

I’ve wanted a whole house PV system for a long time, and this is just me finally getting around to making it happen. SO and I were talking about getting a backup generator installed, but that would have been about $7,000 for something that would only get used two or three times a year since our power doesn’t go out often (we have no heat or ability to cook when the power goes out, and it’s always in the dead of winter when we lose power). The PV system I sketched out was about $9.000, but in addition to covering us during outages, we could use it daily to reduce electric bill so, unlike the generator, this would pay for itself over time.

SO finally came around to my way of thinking, so here we are lol. My limiting factor is usable roof area. Of the roof that’s south facing, only about 14x20 feet of it is suitable for mounting panels. There’s a west-facing gable, but it’s blocked most of the time by a tree. The east-facing side of the gable is available, but it’s pretty much always foggy in the mornings here, so it wouldn’t add much to the system.

Unless I build a ground mount setup in the back yard, we’re pretty much at the limit of how many panels I can buy. I’m kind of glad for that because otherwise I’d just keep buying them.

Be careful. Those things are addicting.

That’s how I started: a little 5v, 6 watt panel I stuck in the window to charge my phone while I worked. Then I wanted to charge some other stuff, so I got a 15W panel. 15w panel was nice, but 100 watts was much better, so I bought two 100W fold-up panels like you’ve got.

Then I bought a big 1 KWh power station that could supply up to 2000 watts. I take it camping and charge it from the two 100W fold up panels.

But, sadly, the demon had its claws in me and refused to let go. “Why should I only use that solar power two or three times a year?” the voice said. So I bought 4x 200 watt panels so I could use the power station to power my homelab and refrigerator during the day.

Still, that wasn’t enough to satiate my addition. Now I’ve got 4 KW on the roof, 32 KWh of house battery, and a 10 KW inverter that is currently powering our house.

Am I satiated now? Only time will tell.

Just my two cents, but there’s just no reason for people to come here when it’s 80+% political shit and rage bait and virtue signaling. Hell, I’ve got 80% of the content here filtered out as it is, and I want to be here.

Find your nearest non-political hobby community and start posting things people actually want to see and maybe we might see some growth or people sticking around. My current hyperfixation/hobby is Meshtastic, so I’ve been pretty active there lately. If that’s not your thing, then there’s:

• !woodworking@lemmy.ca
• !leathercraft@lemmy.ca
• !artshare@lemmy.world
• !gardening@sh.itjust.works !Houseplants@lemmy.ca !houseplants@mander.xyz
• !baking@sh.itjust.works
• !sewingrepairing@sh.itjust.works or !sewing@lemmy.world
• !television@piefed.social
• !movies@piefed.social !movies@lemmy.ca !movies@lemmy.world
• !jigsaw_puzzles@lemmy.world

If you’re like me and not good at any of that, tell us about cleaning your gutters or doing your laundry over in !Dullsters@dullsters.net

The point is, we need more posts about what make us happy and less about what we’re angry at (which is pretty much goddamned everything).