07/10/2010
SOAKIN’ UP THE SUNSHINE
Hi Everybody,
My name is Ted Reynolds, a SunRun customer since June 2010, and I’ve been invited by their folks to run a blog on my ‘solar’ experience – no, not the ‘techie’ stuff, although that might leak in on occasion, but my interaction with our solar panel system and how it has affected my lifestyle.
First things first, however, a little about myself. I am retired, a little unusual you might think for somebody to invest in this technology but I’ll explain that later. I came to this country from England (and, yes, I am a citizen of the USA) in 1968, am married, and an ‘empty nester,’ although sometimes it seems as they have never left home! I live in Orange County, Southern California, near the coast. I have an engineering background, love camping, fishing, hiking, my dog (and my wife, of course), reading, my computer and getting my hands in the dirt – all this, I believe, had some input on my decision to go ‘solar.’ Oh, and I fancy myself as a storywriter, that, and my attraction for this technology are also part of the reason why I jumped at this chance to blog for SunRun. I have a couple of favorite sayings, one by Shakespeare “All eyes and no sight,” and another by an author who I have regretfully forgotten, “Bad luck is the residue of bad planning.” These too, play into my solar decision. Therefore, I guess you could call me an environmentalist, although I am by no means an ‘uber’ tree- hugger, more of a practical kind, as I believe that some well-meaning environmental decisions have had unintended consequences. My philosophy is that if it is within your means to help, no matter what your age or situation, you have a duty to do so. This, I decided was the biggest, single impact I could have on the environment and also no small effect on our future finances – as I said I am a practical person and I know large increases are coming in the cost of electricity!
I had looked at solar (photo voltaic) panels 3 or 4 years ago and decided that they were too expensive, electricity was still relatively cheap from our supplier and the technology was a little behind the curve. Well, things have changed since then. I knew the rebates/tax credits would be reduced, the excess power generated situation decided, electricity had gone up in price, panel prices down and the technology seemed to have come up to speed. In addition, I had been tinkering with solar energy in our backyard having installed a small panel to run a pump in our fishpond – hey – it was turning out power under overcast conditions, I was impressed! No sooner had I started mulling this new situation over, I received a serendipitous e-mail, I forget whether it was from SunRun or the installer we used, Real Solar Goods, on solar panel installation. An appointment with Real Solar Goods was set up and I had a long, comprehensive consultation with their representative, David Carriere. His expertise and the programs offered by SunRun made the decision to go ‘solar’ easy. As you can see, this was no ‘spur of the moment’ choice. Based on our previous twelve months billing he suggested a system of a certain size, but I wanted to go bigger because of decisions I had made about things that were to follow the installation – more on that in a future blog. We finished up with a twenty-four module system, 5.04 kW DC, 4.3 kW AC – at present that is turning out energy excess to our needs on most days. I am really happy with what I see so far!
SUMMARY FOR MONTH OF JUNE
Energy produced = 626.6 KwHrs. Energy consumed = 438.6 KwHrs. Energy credited = 188 KwHrs. Keeping records like this has made me really aware of how much energy we are using - I will try to conserve more and find out ways to cut our consumption.
Just looked at our bill from S.C.E. for the month of June. Another one of their "estimated read" faux pas! Can you believe they were going to bill us for 740 Kwhrs used? According to them for June our average daily use was 24.67 Kwhrs! I let them know they were severely deficient in math! $152 - My a**!
Just one more thing to finish this episode – how did I come to be asked to blog by the SunRun folks? It was another e-mail from them asking how I liked our installation etc. I replied and attached a link to blog I was already running on the system’s daily performance and my observations. To my surprise they checked out my blog, liked what they saw and here I am! Oh, in case you are interested, here’s the link to my blog, The Priscilla Papers, it is split into monthly sections: http://priscillapapers.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html
Cheers,
Ted
