Solar in Grand Marais!

Over the course of the past year Rose and I have been exploring the possibility of getting photovoltaic (electricity producing) solar panels on our house. We went to the University of Minnesota's solar suitability map (http://solar.maps.umn.edu/app/) and found our house, which happens to have an "optimal" rating because of it's southern exposure.

 Seeing that, we were pretty excited to start the process!  I contacted several solar installers in the state (there are a bunch! Check out this LIST) including our local installer Outback Solar who was already booked up for the year, so I decided to go with All Energy Solar out of the Twin Cities.  They produced several graphs and ideas for us to consider that showed how effective the different systems would be at offsetting our considerable consumption.

 We finally decided on a design that would take advantage of our entire southern facing roof as well as adding a pergola to our deck to both shade the living room from the summer sun/rain and expand our production.  Our plan for the future is to have the posts on the pergola carved in a Scandinavian style and then painted/stained to match the house/deck. We are also going to hang the porch swing that Rose has had in storage since we got married, so that will be a great place for us to hang out!

The planning process was the majority of the time spent on the project. All Energy did a great job of talking with the Grand Marais Public Utilities, who have not done a grid-tied installation in the City yet, getting the permitting/licensing taken care of, and coordinating the inspections/ meter changes that were necessary.

The meter that we are using is a bi-directional meter. That means that it can spin both directions. When we are using more than we are producing, it spins forward. When we are producing more than we are using, it spins backwards. When we are using exactly as much as we are producing, it doesn't move at all. The utility reads it exactly like a normal meter and charges me for the amount it has moved forward, thus, the amount of electricity I have used from the grid.

How big is the system?

We ended up with a system that is 5.94kw. This is pretty big actually! The Gunflint Hills system is 7.41kw!  Our panels are made in the USA and are warranteed for any defect for 25 years.

Each of the panels has its own dedicated micro-inverter. These  change the electricity from DC (the form the panels produce) to AC (the form we all use in our houses) immediately after the panels produce it. This is more efficient than using a single inverter because AC travels better than DC without losing current. It also isolates each of the panels better from damage. Just like an old string of Christmas lights, if you use one inverter you run the risk of having one panel burn out and thus bring down the entire system or if your inverter goes out, you are done producing electricity until it is replaced. With the micro-inverters if one burns out the rest of the system continues to function just fine until that inverter gets replaced.

The rest of the hardware that was installed was for safety and monitoring. There have to be a few different shut off breakers because even if the grid electricity goes out, my panels will continue to produce electricity which could zap any linemen who are out there working on the grid, but didn't know that we are still pumping electricity into it! So that is by far the most obtrusive piece of equipment apart from the panels themselves.

Down in our scary basement they installed the tie-in to our current electric system with a double pole breaker in our existing electrical box. That was WAAAAAY easier than I thought it would have been. I thought they would have to re-do our box to get it all to fit, but it was really straightforward. They also installed a monitoring device that pushes the information to a monitoring website so that we can follow how much we are consuming and producing.

The website for that is egauge.net. Our system is number 23307. It will show a graph of usage and production. *This has not yet been calibrated, so our consumption is shown as a lot more than it is...

This gets me to the next step in this whole process: Energy reduction. We switched over to LED bulbs earlier this year with the help of the City's rebate program, but have it in our 5 year plan to replace all of our energy intensive appliances with more efficient ones. This will increase not only the payback on our solar panels, but also the payback on those appliances. We aren't trying to get to a point where the PUC has to pay us for our electricity though. That isn't how we designed the system. We want to be as break-even as possible because that too is the best payback schedule.

So, the question you all have been wondering since I started talking:

How much did it cost?

The market cost for the system was somewhere in the neighborhood of $25,000 finished. This included everything. There is currently a 30% tax credit from the federal government that would help us a little, but that we aren't going to be seeing very much of because we don't make enough money to have it effect us much. *I say this because it is important information to consider.

We did, however, participate in a program through AEOA, the Business Energy Retrofit Program. This program helped us to cover the costs of the system and make it more affordable. Our loan payment for the solar is less than our normal monthly electrical bill, so I feel like we are doing ok on that! 

Also, All Energy helped us to get a loan with the understanding that solar loans are very easy to pay back because you are basically paying the same amount as you were before, but most of that money isn't going toward your bill, but toward the cost of the system...

There are a few other reasons we did this: 

1. Added Value-- We added a lot of value to our home with this. But, because the State of MN has an exemption for renewable energy infrastructure, it won't increase our taxes. 

2. Environment-- We feel really happy about contributing to the electricity we use. Our goal is to be net zero when it comes to energy use. This will be really hard because our house is not the most efficient to start with, but we will get as close as we can!

3. Example-- We wanted to show that it can be done... and SHOULD be!  The process was very easy actually and the product very robust and low maintenance. The Cook County Local Energy Project has been promoting solar in our community for some time and has a great handbook for the process specific to Cook County! If you are interested that is a great place to start. If you want to ask me questions about it, I would love to answer them to the best of my ability.