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J_Mack58

J_Mack58

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Joined
Apr 7, 2021
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After all the talk of Cells, BMS's, Solar Panels and Inverters we all just want to land at a sweet spot. My household was once a >500kWh/month household. With no change in life style we down to 94kWh/month. With a few more cells (actually a lot more) I can get it lower and eventually become OffGridintheCity 2. Right now I'm letting my investment in panels and cells get caught up. We slashed our bill by $110 to $130/month and hopefully our carbon footprint so keep up the good work all, its up to the Second Life Storage crew to save the world!!!
 

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Doing the same thing. First electric bill with"most" of the solar up, went from 996 kWH, to 426 kWh. Since then, I added in 5 more breakers to solar, though most of them were not at as high usage as the first 5.
Need to wait a month or two to see what I have done.
Don't think I will ever get to completely off grid, but right now I have everything but the 240V system (AC, oven, Hot water, and dryer) on the solar AND loving it. I long time wish coming true is a great feeling!
Can't wait to hear you are totally off-grid!
 
Dr. Dickie said:
Doing the same thing. First electric bill with"most" of the solar up, went from 996 kWH, to 426 kWh. Since then, I added in 5 more breakers to solar, though most of them were not at as high usage as the first 5.
Need to wait a month or two to see what I have done.
Don't think I will ever get to completely off grid, but right now I have everything but the 240V system (AC, oven, Hot water, and dryer) on the solar AND loving it. I long time wish coming true is a great feeling!
Can't wait to hear you are totally off-grid!
Click to expand...
Good morning Doc, There is a $9.00/month charge just for having utility wires going to my house. Then there is a whole host of taxes even if you don’t draw one mA of current so we will never be totally off grid. But cutting your monthly kWh use by more than half is a great thing. How many years to break even from your investment?
 
GAS: I've eliminated natural-gas from my needs thru heat-pumps and proved that I can operate the house comfortably 100% on electricity. But even with 0 therms usage they charge $13/month in hookup and taxes. However I plan to keep the service - partly because it's not clear the dual-fuel heat-pump would stay active with gas pressure missing and partly because $13/month is a small amount for backup capability.

ELECTRIC: Its the *extremes* that keep me from being 100% off-grid. Those 114F/46C days this summer nearly doubled my power use - yikes it took a lot of power to be cool those few days. In the winter - its those days of *extra thick* clouds that take PV production down to almost nothing that here and there exceed what I can supplement with the 81kwh battery bank.

I could go with being miserably 'hot' and 'cold' for a month out of 12 OR drastically change our life style - but with grid so easily available... its just not worth it.
 
J_Mack58 said:
Good morning Doc, There is a $9.00/month charge just for having utility wires going to my house. Then there is a whole host of taxes even if you don’t draw one mA of current so we will never be totally off grid. But cutting your monthly kWh use by more than half is a great thing. How many years to break even from your investment?
Click to expand...
Yeah, somewhat understandable the charge for the wires. they have to cover all the infrastructure to "wire" the neighborhood. The taxes, eh, not so much.
How long to break even?? Forever, but I learned a whole hell of a lot, did it myself, and that is the important thing to me.
 
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