My update..

So, I had a nice call from the SolarCity folks last Thursday, they dropped the permit application off at the city of Mission Viejo. They had a form they needed me to complete (neighbor awareness) and I got that signed along with my association neighbor approval form. Dropped the HOA plans off at the HOA office and now it's more waiting. We'll see how things go.

Huge Solar Plants Planned for California - SLO

The NY Times is reporting that two Solar PV plants are planning for San Luis Obispo. The arrays will cover 12.5 square miles, and could generate up to 800 megawatts of power -- the amount of power produced by a large coal-burning power plant!

Cool new site..

I read about this site on Gizmodo and thought that I would share. The site seems to be getting hammered right now, so be patient.

It's called RoofRay and will do a little estimation to see what type of solution would be possible on your roof.

Pretty neat stuff.

Solar Systems Design Complete!

Last Friday I received a ten page PDF of the detailed design plans which SolarCity put together for me. There was a small change, they no longer have the BP200 watt panels originally quoted, so they switched me to 24 190W BP panels instead. That changed the costs a litle, but nothing too significant, they sent me an ammended lease, and I filled it out and am sending it back.

SolarCity is going to handle the submission to the city to get the building permit, and handle the relationship with Southern California Edison (SCE).

Mike is going to talk with the HOA to see how we can get this approved as quickly as possible.

All for now, I'll keep you posted.

Waiting game..

Like any new purchase, the wait between ordering and receiving the goods no matter how short, seems like forever (thus the reason overnight shipping is so popular). It's been two weeks from the site audit, I'm awaiting word from the good folks at SolarCity -- they warned me about this, but it still is painful to wait. Especially when it's getting hot and our electric bill is getting bigger and bigger. I'll keep everyone updated and post more as soon as I hear something. On another note, I found another guy who is blogging about his solar experience, he calls himself SolarDave and can be found at http://www.solardave.com/.

Site Audit today!

Well, today SolarCity sent out Aaron to do the site audit/inspection.  He arrived a bit early at 8:30am and went to work.

He climbed around on the roof taking pictures and detailed measurements.  Then he checked out the main electrical panel to check to make sure everything would support the PV system. When he was done outside, he came inside and took a look in the attic, again taking measurements and pictures.

When he was done, he put together an overview for me to take a look at.  He let me know that I could install up to 28 panels (2 strings of 11, 1 string of 6) and I could call my sales rep if I wanted to see what that would entail.  He showed me the location of the inverter, along with where the conduit would probably be run. I signed the screen saying he explained everything to me.

Seeing how I could get 6 extra panels, I was curious as to what it would change my lease to. I shot Mike and email to find out.  It's significantly more expensive and while it would be nice to be able to use the additional power, I suspect that if we carefully plan our utilization during the day, we should be ok with the smaller system (which we're getting at a very nice discount).

While Mike and I were talking, I asked if he had the rate information for peak/non-peak for SCE as I wasn't able to find it.  I'm still trying to determine if TOU (time-of-use) metering is the way to go, or if I should stick to the tiered system.

He let me know that the peak/non-peak rates are different based on season (something I didn't know), he also gave me the rates:

SCE

Summer Peak $ 0.36/kWh

Summer Off Peak $ 0.19/kWh

Winter Peak $ 0.21/kWh

Winter Off Peak $ 0.18/kWh

For folks in San Diego, he also provided me with their rates as well:

SDG&E

Summer Peak $ 0.26404/kWh

Summer Semi-Peak $ 0.16788/kWh

Summer Off-Peak $ 0.14927/kWh

Winter Semi-Peak $ 0.16115/kWh

Winter Off-Peak $ 0.15126/kWh

Now the benefit of having the solar system is that during those peak times of summer days (when my panels will be generating the most electricity) SCE will pay me the full retail rate of $ .36/kWh when I sell them back power.  Then, in the evenings and nights when power is less expensive (and my panels aren't generating any power) I can buy that back from them at the $.19/kWh rate.

Good stuff.  More later.

New news...

It's been a while since I was able to last post.  I signed the documents and shortly thereafter received a welcome email explaining the next few things that are going to happen.  First on the list was a site inspection.  

A couple days later I had a call from someone in the customer service group at SolarCity.  They wanted to schedule a time which they could come out to do the inspection.   They're going to be here on Wednesday at 9am.  They said that it should take around 3 hours. They're going to climb up on the roof and take detailed measurements, inspect the attic, and more.  I can't wait to see what's going to happen.

The nice folks in customer service said that once that was completed, that detailed information is sent to the engineering group who put together the engineering diagrams.  They said that it can take up to 3 weeks for that to happen.

I'll update you more once the site inspection is done.  Until then, take care.

-paul