Solar Panels part 2
Tech Talk

In the last issue I wrote about having solar panels installed on our garage roof. They have now been on for 23 days at the time of this article and what a difference in our grid consumption. The numbers are impressive.

Our most recent bill for 1 month ending Oct 17 shows our grid consumption down 56% from last year and we only had a part month of generating our own power. We generated 525 kWh of solar power or approximately 26 kWh per day that we had the panels operational. Our bill was for 499 kWh and we put 397 kWh into the grid which will be a credit on our next bill.

This numbers also translate into environmental impact as well. According to our monitoring software we saved 214kg of CO2 going into the atmosphere or the equivalent of planting 6 mature trees. A mature tree absorbs approximately 25kg of CO2 per year.

A big shout out to Shift Energy Group (shift.ca) for their incredible work. On the morning of Sept 26 the crew of 3 arrived at 8AM. By 2pm they had the mounts for the 10x455watt panels installed and all wiring complete from the panel to the inverter. Back at 8AM Tuesday morning to install the actual panels and complete the final hookups. The system was operational by 11:30AM. Then I spent the next 2 weeks watching how they performed.

I have an app on my iPhone and iPad as well as being able to get the stats through the browser. As soon as the sun came up, even a cloudy day, we were producing power - a whole 25watts, but within 2 hours we were up to 2,000 watts as the sun moved higher in the sky. At the peak around 1PM we were producing over 4kw.

We did take advantage of the Federal Grant of $5000 and the interest free loan of up to $40,000 for 10 years. It required getting an Energy Audit performed pre-install and then a post audit once the work was complete. It did necessitate paying for the work upfront and waiting on the feds for the grant and loan monies. My overall impression is that it was painless process and only took several hours of my time to handle the paperwork.

The energy audit must be performed by a certified energy consultant and ran $900 of which $600 is recoverable as a grant as part of the Greener Home Energy Program.

It will be interesting to watch how things perform over the next year. I will report back then.