Marc's Public Blog - Solar Power


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Table of Content for solar:

More pages: January 2009 April 2009 November 2009 February 2010 March 2010 May 2010 June 2010 August 2010 March 2011 March 2012 July 2012 March 2013 March 2014 March 2015 March 2018 March 2019



2012/03/03 Dear PGE We Saved Electricity And You Owe Us $189
π 2012-03-03 01:01 in Solar
*update*: A PG&E employee contacted me after reading this blog, and basically he agreed that the current scheme isn't perfect. He actually said that we're getting creditted a bit too much because the credits do not account for their line transmission charges. I'll admit not fully knowing the gritty details between transmission line charges since I know I do pay a small flat fee for that per month, and by offetting my neighbour's load during high demand sunny hours, I should offload their transmission lines a little bit, but effectively he said that the credits are a little bit too high, which means that you just don't get paid when they get negative.
While I can see his point, I still don't full agree with that someone who makes more electricity than they make isn't compensated for time of use prices at all, but he also pointed out that it's difficult for people with solar to be fully compensated since they do not provide a contract and guarantee of production, like their other providers do.
All in all, it's kind of a mess and the current program isn't ideal, but it is better than nothing.

Dear PG&E,

I was good, I upgraded my server hardware to be more power efficient (old dual P4 Xeon to I3 2100T lower power CPU), spin down hard drives, and reprogrammed my mythtv to suspend and use virtually no power most of the time. This saved about 200W of 24/7 baseload. As a result, our true up bill went from -$38 for the year, to -$110.
So remind me, why is power not worth more when we have to pay for it than when you have to pay us back? Why are all my efforts to save power ending up with a further negative bill rewarded by a flat out $0 that we get back?

For the casual reader, the longer answer is in PGE Trueing Up Encourages Electricity Wasting. Eventually if I ever manage to save enough power, I might get a few dollars back, and PG&E will pocket about $150 of spread.

PG&E, you're supposed to encourage us to save electricity. Is it really smart to antigonize your greener customers with this unfair system?

Here's what you owe us so far:

.

Kwh used in the yearDollars Balance

.

2009-20101602-$39.87

.

2010-20111209-$38.8

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2011-2012674-$110.43

.

.

Total Since Install3485-$189.1

And here is the full true up bill for 2011-2012:

.

2011-2012Total (Kwh)FEB 2012JAN 2012DEC 2011NOV 2011OCT 2011SEP 2011AUG 2011JUL 2011JUN 2011MAY 2011APR 2011MAR 2011

.

Summer Peak-752-8-14-99-153-204-171-103

.

Summer Part Peak-622-1-100-125-130-103-114-49

.

Summer Off Peak810691951171251648654

.

Winter Peak304625968-2-226871

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Winter Off Peak93421713230111224-80228

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Total Kwh67427919136917081-107-158-143-199-96-12299

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Total $-$110.43$29.49$20.11$36.95$14.85-$1.75-$35.68-$50.11-$55.62-$62.67-$34.76-$0.28$29.04

And here is 2010-2011:

.

2010-2011Total (Kwh)FEB 2011JAN 2011DEC 2010NOV 2010OCT 2010SEP 2010AUG 2010JUL 2010JUN 2010MAY 2010APR 2010MAR 2010

.

Summer Peak-7620-19-124-186-156-174-103

.

Summer Part Peak-57211-78-100-151-108-107-39

.

Summer Off Peak104795332199188185471

.

Winter Peak35468787818-165771

.

Winter Off Peak11421133314481630-28115

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Total Kwh1209181409526287235-25-149-79-234-15729186

.

Total $-$38.80$17.89$39.60$51.27$26.68$11.61-$34.95-$62.18-$32.44-$44.34-$26.49$2.30$12.25

And here is 2009-2010:

.

2009-2010Total (Kwh)FEB 2010JAN 2010DEC 2009NOV 2009OCT 2009SEP 2009AUG 2009JUL 2009JUN 2009MAY 2009APR 2009MAR 2009

.

Summer Peak-72520-60-90-151-172-173-99

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Summer Part Peak-531-1-60-106-112-119-113-20

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Summer Off Peak124011028416523025713856

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Winter Peak301767277-1-96323

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Winter Off Peak131741144242216425-16316

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Total Kwh1602487514499292164-31-33-34-148-47-10039

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Total $-$39.87$32.54$34.04$33.45$20.87-$1.63-$19.71-$8.08-$45.81-$55.31-$25.83-$8.13$3.73

2012/03/11 Three Years of Solar Panels
π 2012-03-11 01:01 in Solar
Our 3rd year was the weakest year of the 3 years we've had so far. Our total was 8402Kwh for the year, which still beats the estimated 8114Kwh yearly by Cobalt Power.

I've also made a spreadsheet showing all the numbers I've gathered so far: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AloDTsnSvSs7dHdwS1NzcHJlRF80cVg1NUxzUlFEOFE


More pages: January 2009 April 2009 November 2009 February 2010 March 2010 May 2010 June 2010 August 2010 March 2011 March 2012 July 2012 March 2013 March 2014 March 2015 March 2018 March 2019

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