u/TheSquirrel8251

I’m fairly certain I’m going to settle on a 13.2 KW system. It should offset my electric usage by about 70-75%. It will over produce in the summer for sure and my utility pays about 8 cents per kWh I send back into the grid. 50% of my electric usage is charging EVs at night. That rate is about 18 cents per kWh. A 27kw battery pack will add about 25-27k in cost and My EV costs approximately $1000/yr to charge. I am not in need of backup power as I have a whole house generator. SO to make a short story long the math basically shows me that when factoring in EV charging alone that’s a 25 year payback. This isn’t realistic as I’d probably use some stored power elsewhere but the majority of it for sure would go into my EV.

So I can spend 25k on batteries to save $1000/yr on EV charging or I can sell my over production back to the utility for 8 cents per kWh. This will bring my effective EV charging rate down to 10 cents/KWH which is still a win.

I must be missing something, please poke holes in this conclusion. My goal is not to get “off the grid” or to eliminate my electrical bill but to offset a good chunk of my electric usage and also hedge for inflation of electricity prices (massive data center going in up the road).

Poke away!!!

Edit; thanks for all the replies. I think what it boils down to is that batteries will be beneficial at the right price and the solar installers battery prices are absurd. I’ll be sure to discuss the design with them and make sure that I am able to add my own batteries in the future for significantly cheaper.

Edit to my edit; looks like Costco has 12kw with panel for 5499 and another 12kw without panel for 4499. So for under 10k I can get 24kw with panel. This is the way.

11.88 KW array
Estimated 15,860 kWh produced
67% offset
27 JAM54D41 440/MB JA Solar
27 IQ8A-72-2-US Enphase Energy Inc

Cost $29,388

He also quoted a 13.2Kw system for $32,028

My electric info;
Southern Michigan
Time of use plan with peak hours 11-7 (24.8/kwh) and off peak 7-11 (18.5/kwh)
2 EVs and 2 Chargers
Hot tub, AC, all electrical appliance less oven and hot water heater
Great southern facing roof with no obstructions
Nat gas whole house generator

Let me know what other info you need to rate this quote!

I’ve explored solar in the past. Economically, it never made sense. I think the problem was I was always shooting for 100%+ offset + storage. This got expensive quick, but my perspective now is that spending $1 on an oversized system to sell the extra to the utility for 50 cents doesn’t make sense.

Also, storage is great but really expensive so I may skip that. The downside being I can’t charge my two EVs at night from storage. I could either shift my charging to daytime when it’s producing or continue to charge off peak at 14.26 cents/kwh. On peak from 11-7 is 24.28 cents/kwh.

I think from a dollars and cents perspective shooting for a system sized to offset peak usage at 70-80% may make sense for me.

Geographically; I’m in the Midwest so I’ll under produce in the winter but my home is perfectly situated with a south facing roof that will get blasted with sun in the summer. Our utility rates seem to go up frequently; twice in the last 12 months. Also massive data center 4 miles away which I’m told results in higher utility bills for all over time.

This is just what I’ve been pondering as of late. Let me know what’s missing in my analysis.

10 days post op. 2 days ago I was sure I’d need 3 weeks and not 3 months for recovery. Today, that opinion has changed. Everything hurts. Every movement is a sharp pinching/stabbing pain. Muscles are tight. I’m actually glad to have crutches.

I was told to expect this. I’ll check back with yall in a couple of weeks.

1.5 weeks post op. Virtually no pain after about 1.5 days. I was off the opioids by day 2. Hip has felt great, most pain is in the knee, probably due to weak quad and tight IT Band.

Today it took a bit of a turn, I woke up with a bit of pinching pain in the groin and the hip area. It’s been a little sore. I’ve probably been pushing the weight on that leg a bit beyond 25%. I’ve had a couple of times where I had a jerky reaction to a kid attempting to kill themselves in the yard and worry I ripped an anchor or two out. Probably fine, but always a concern considering there has been zero hip pain to that point.

Post op exam next week with surgeon.