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Old 12-26-2017, 04:59 AM   #1
fatlazyless
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Default Moultonborough solar farm

http://www.unionleader.com/NH-Co-op-...r-array-online Union Leader, Dec 25, 'NH Co-op Close to Bringing State's Largest Solar Array Online'

Largest solar setup in the state due to be working by year's end.

Just wondering if the NH Electric Co-op has to pay a Moultonborough property tax for this and how much? If in excess of $10,000/yr, does the new federal tax rule apply starting next year, in 2018, and wouldn't that lower the assessed value?
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Old 12-26-2017, 09:54 AM   #2
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A fine start! We are adding solar panels to our Mass roof. Quotes from installers are just coming in now, and the economics are great. System will pay for itself in 7 years or so and the investment generates an annual return of over 20%.
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Old 12-26-2017, 10:48 AM   #3
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A fine start! We are adding solar panels to our Mass roof. Quotes from installers are just coming in now, and the economics are great. System will pay for itself in 7 years or so and the investment generates an annual return of over 20%.
LED lighting has a much better payback (1-2 years.)
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Old 12-26-2017, 01:59 PM   #4
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Hazadous waste. Can only imagine what the removal cost will be in ten years. Not as "Green" as they want you to believe.
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Old 12-26-2017, 03:11 PM   #5
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MR--Absolutely! Both LEDs and solar are great. I did LEDs earlier this year, but even with that savings the panels will still have an excellent return
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Old 12-27-2017, 10:32 AM   #6
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Wondering how effective solar can be up north in the winter when the sun is low in the sky and there are long periods without sunshine.
The Babcock Ranch in Florida has a 440 acre solar field that produces 74 megawatts of power. Huge system that operates all year at the same rate.
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Old 12-27-2017, 12:19 PM   #7
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Solar is definitely more effective in the South and in the Summer, but that is not quite the point. Solar still generates plenty of power when installed in NH, and that power will get you an excellent financial return at very low risk. Basically, you sell your excess solar power to the grid in the Summer, and buy traditional power to supplement your needs in the Winter, with all the math and money handled by your electricity supplier.

At least in Mass in was easy to get quotes from excellent experienced installers after a simple Google search. NHEC would probably be very helpful too.
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Old 12-27-2017, 12:48 PM   #8
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Solar is definitely more effective in the South and in the Summer, but that is not quite the point. Solar still generates plenty of power when installed in NH, and that power will get you an excellent financial return at very low risk. Basically, you sell your excess solar power to the grid in the Summer, and buy traditional power to supplement your needs in the Winter, with all the math and money handled by your electricity supplier.

At least in Mass in was easy to get quotes from excellent experienced installers after a simple Google search. NHEC would probably be very helpful too.
Peter, did you look into having storage (batteries) installed? We have an all-electric home, so it'd be sweet to get completely off the grid, but I'll not quite sure solar (at least in NH) is there yet.

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Old 12-27-2017, 06:40 PM   #9
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Peter, did you look into having storage (batteries) installed? We have an all-electric home, so it'd be sweet to get completely off the grid, but I'll not quite sure solar (at least in NH) is there yet.

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Yes--I looked at batteries, but I decided that with net metering I did not need them. With net metering, the grid basically acts as your battery--during periods when you generate more than you use, the excess power is sent to other homes and your electric meter spins backwards, reducing your electric bill. At night, your electricity is supplied by fossil fuel. Adding a battery keeps all the juice at your house for nighttime use, but the grid is paying you a pretty good rate for the electricity, so the battery does not pay for itself the way the panels do.

One great advantage of the batteries is backup power for outages.

There are some limits on net metering that a local installer can provide. For those in Mass--the net metering deal is going to become less attractive for systems installed after June, and it takes a couple of months to get the system done. So now is a good time to call.
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Old 12-27-2017, 06:53 PM   #10
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Yes--I looked at batteries, but I decided that with net metering I did not need them. With net metering, the grid basically acts as your battery--during periods when you generate more than you use, the excess power is sent to other homes and your electric meter spins backwards, reducing your electric bill. At night, your electricity is supplied by fossil fuel. Adding a battery keeps all the juice at your house for nighttime use, but the grid is paying you a pretty good rate for the electricity, so the battery does not pay for itself the way the panels do.

One great advantage of the batteries is backup power for outages.

There are some limits on net metering that a local installer can provide. For those in Mass--the net metering deal is going to become less attractive for systems installed after June, and it takes a couple of months to get the system done. So now is a good time to call.
Thanks for the info!

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Old 12-28-2017, 09:11 AM   #11
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Meredith Resident makes a good point in that LED lighting has a shorter payback and is a logical first step, and air sourced heat pumps (aka mini-splits)run a close second. A solar system however will generally have a 40+ year life span with minimal maintenance required and will outlive both. After the ~8 year payback period for a solar system has been satisfied (the money saved in utility billings offsets the net cost of the system) the power coming from the solar array will be cost totally and pollution free.
Samiam, there is a newish type of panel available that helps to minimize the winter shortcoming, bifacials. Bifacial modules are able to gather power both from the front and rear of the panel and work GREAT in this area when ground mounted. The snow on the ground in winter makes an excellent reflector and the module will see roughly a 25% gain in production from the rear of the panel. I tested one of these last year on a pond and was blown away by how much power they produced! There is a page on my website dedicated to this test. We have just this past week completed a 32 panel ground mounted bifacial array in Meredith that will be powering an electrically heated home. I'll be very excitedly monitoring this system daily over the next few months and expect dramatic results. One unique advantage is that the array should be able to produce some power from the backside even when the topside is still covered in snow.
Thinkxingu and PeterG, the battery technology is available now and works very well, but really only makes financial sense when a client has a need for both self consumption and backup power. We installed a system in Sandwich in late summer that is a perfect example of this. The client's home is on a long dead end road and it isn't unusual for them to experience multiple day power outages. The self consumption aspect did help to keep the payback period somewhat reasonable, but still the cost of the 9.8 kWh LG battery and peripheral components nearly doubled it. The backup aspect hoiwever has already rewarded my clients, they lost grid power for 3 days in the first of October storm, but their solar array and battery gave them enough 24 hour power to keep all of their essential loads running . For a really great short video explanation on how solar/backup works go here. The price of solar storage systems is beginning to really tumble as more companies enter the fray and I wouldn't be surprised to see the cost at half of what it is now within ten years.
PeterG's point on net meter crediting is correct for New Hampshire too, you will receive a credit of roughly 75 cents on the dollar for excess solar power exported back into grid. In effect the grid becomes your battery and the excess power generated in the summer sun will be consumed by your home in the winter months. One of the key elements to a well designed solar system is to make it just large enough to offset the clients annual consumption and take maximum advantage of net metering.
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Old 12-28-2017, 01:49 PM   #12
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2 questions.

What's the cost comparison for battery back up vs a generator. Rephrased, If I already have a standby generator, is there any incentive for batteries?

Second, it seems to me net-metering is based on power going back into the grid at a retail price (meter running backward). Since the NHEC, for example, is producing or buying power at a cost lower than what they pay you, doesn't this artificially inflate the cost for everybody? We ran into this some years ago when PSNH was "forced" to buy water power generation. There were people going around getting water flow rights and selling to PSNH with the threat that they might generate power that PSNH had to buy. I'd guess the Co-op and Unitil were in the same boat.
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Old 12-28-2017, 02:20 PM   #13
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2 questions.

What's the cost comparison for battery back up vs a generator. Rephrased, If I already have a standby generator, is there any incentive for batteries?

Second, it seems to me net-metering is based on power going back into the grid at a retail price (meter running backward). Since the NHEC, for example, is producing or buying power at a cost lower than what they pay you, doesn't this artificially inflate the cost for everybody? We ran into this some years ago when PSNH was "forced" to buy water power generation. There were people going around getting water flow rights and selling to PSNH with the threat that they might generate power that PSNH had to buy. I'd guess the Co-op and Unitil were in the same boat.
Great questions--I leave the first one to NH.Solar.

The second question gets at a bunch of complicated economics, but I would say on balance is does not unfairly cost fellow rate payers. NHEC is paying you only 75% of the retail price, so they are getting compensated for their grid and other support. Plus there are a bunch of long term benefits to solar compared to fossil fuels--most significantly from an economic perspective, you are locking in your cost of electricity for 20 years, so even after ExxonMobil, OPEC and others figure out how to increase prices again, you're protected. This will help NHEC ratepayers as well--more people buying solar will mean fewer people buying oil, and this will exert downward price pressure on fossil fuel.
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Old 12-28-2017, 03:28 PM   #14
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Thanks. I was unaware of the 75% purchase price. I just thought of the meter running backward, or not moving at all.
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Old 12-28-2017, 06:47 PM   #15
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Thanks. I was unaware of the 75% purchase price. I just thought of the meter running backward, or not moving at all.
Plus he is quoting NHEC which gets the bulk of their income from "membership" fees rather than "useage".
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Old 12-29-2017, 08:00 AM   #16
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Not ready for solar conversion yet...but in Florida I have a Solar Max 3300 Solar generator.
It will run a full size fridges and a few other smaller appliances all day and overnight on the battery pack. Recharges in 4 or 5 hours with direct sun.
When power is out you can pretty much live of this generator by switching from microwave/coffee maker, hair dryer or whatever is needed.
Of course there is no use of a washer/dryer and any of the big appliances but still very handy
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Old 12-29-2017, 08:51 PM   #17
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Descant,
If you already have an automatic whole house generator then battery backup to a solar system probably wouldn't make sense for you. You already have a bought and paid for backup system in place and all the solar storage would gain you is 10 kWh of daily self consumption. At the current 16 - 19 cents/kWh that the local utilities charge, the extra cost to add a battery, specialized inverter and the needed peripherals just wouldn't be worth it. If you didn't already have the whole house generator and were gaining both the advantages of self consumption and backup power, that would be quite a different story.
The bump to add 10 kWh of storage to a solar system is about $11K. I don't sell generators but my understanding is that a 10 kW automatic generator installed is somewhere around $8K, so the upfront cost is less for a generator if you are only looking for backup capability. The additional ability to harvest energy from the sun daily, store it, and consume it directly in the home during the evening is where the solar storage has an advantage over an emergency generator and can be financially justified.
The LG RESU10H battery we last installed has a warranty or 10 years or 27.4 mWh of energy. At the current rate of 16 cents/kWh that the Co-op charges the battery should produce $4,384 of energy in its warrantied life, about 2/3 of the current cost of the LG battery. But bear in mind that the battery will not require any fuel or maintenance, and that the utility rates will in all likelihood rise as time goes on. Plus it has the additional benefits of being a silent and non-polluting source of energy. I would imagine that there would be some sort of recycling charge when it comes time to replace the battery, but also suspect that by then the cost to purchase a new one will be half of what it is today. Plus this assumes that the battery fails on the exact day the warranty expires, but I would hope that it would continue to function well after that date.
A solar system with battery backup makes sense for a home that doesn't already have an existing backup system. For a home that already has the emergency backup in place (yours??) a simple solar array with no storage other than the grid is usually the best option. As PeterG well explained the utility companies charge you about 25% to store and return your excess solar production, but you are still well ahead of the cost of purchasing purely grid provided power. The least expensive installs are roof mounts and if you have a favorable southern exposure the payback for a simple solar system would be about 8-9 years at the current utility rates and discounted net metering ratios.
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Last edited by NH.Solar; 12-29-2017 at 08:58 PM. Reason: clarity
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Old 12-30-2017, 08:12 AM   #18
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If you lose power do you lose your power? I understand you will lose your power unless you have a transfer switch. Do most people install transfer switches and are they aware they lose their power if the grid goes down?
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Old 12-30-2017, 08:44 PM   #19
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Yes, a simple solar system without battery backup must instantly shutdown when the grid goes down. This is done to prevent back feeding power into the grid when the linemen are trying to repair it.
A hybrid solar system with battery backup also instantly disconnects from the grid, but the inverter is able to stay live and switch it's output to powering either the home and/or charging the battery. The power available is limited to about 30 amps through an essential loads panel in the case of a 10 kWh battery. This is generally enough to power a well pump, refrigeration, fossil fuel heat circulators, some lighting and internet connections ...or maybe more importantly for many reading this forum, dock circulators.
This is again a link to an excellent short video explaining how the StorEdge/LG battery system works. Most other hybrid inverters and Lithium batteries (ex. Tesla Powerwall) would work in a similar fashion
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