Living With Solar

So we have a 2.8Kw-rated system from Solar City. I’ve been kind of concerned, because we seem to max at an output of about .8Kwh, which seems about 40% low, from what I’ve read.

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So then  I went and looked at the bills.

Here’s Dec 2007 – Jan 2008:

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Total usage 856 Kwh, cost $163.88.

Then we have Dec 2008 – Jan 2009.

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Total usage – 464Kwh, total cost $72.09 – plus the $76 (including tax) that the solar system costs.

This is the first month where we’ve had stable usage (we were having
work done on the house in Dec.). For grins, I looked at the Dec 2006 –
Jan 2007 usage, and it was 909Kwh.

But there are a few odd things – figure we’ve averaged 7Kwh/day for 30
days – 210Kwh in total. Subtracted from last year’s bill, that brings
us to 646Kwh. Somewhere, we picked up an extra 200Kwh during the month.

We changed 3/4 of the 60w kitchen floods (6 of 8) to 15w CF floods. But
to counterbalance, we traded a 32″ CRT TV for a 46″ plasma (figure we
watch about 6hours/week).

But while puzzled, I’m certainly happy..

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