I know very little about in-depth electrical work so I would definitely need professional electrician assistance, but I am looking for a sort of “how to disconnect from the power company” and go full solar? I understand that it’s becoming much less expensive to purchase and maintain, and I would like to free myself from $300/month electrical payments on my residence.
If it helps, I live in the mideast USA.
Any help is really appreciated! :)
Are you talking about disconnecting power entirely, or just generating as much as possible yourself?
Because the first, depending on local laws, is going to be something you can’t necessarily do and keep your occupancy permit and be allowed to stay living in the house.
The other is going to be a matter of figuring out your maximum power requirements and sizing a solar and battery system big enough to fill your needs.
Just as a thing to consider: you’re talking tens and tens of thousands of hardware if your power bill is $300 a month, and the ROI on this is going to be 10 or 20 years, so if you’re not living there that long, it’s maybe not worth doing.
Do the math on how much power you use at peak draw, how much power you use in a month, and how big of a system you’d need to generate enough power, and how many batteries you’d need to store your non-solar needs (days with lower production, no production, overnight, etc.).
(Edit) Meant to give example numbers for what I did in 2022. I ended up spending about $11,000 on the solar panels themselves, and the batteries would have been ~$23,000, for a monthly peak usage of about 1500kwh.
I did not spend $23,000 on batteries, because that would have been (and the math has tracked afterwards) more than a decade payback time, which was longer than the manufacturer specs indicated that I could expect the batteries to last.
I’m sure prices have decreased some in the last 2 years, but solar panels aren’t too badly priced, but the rest of the storage stuff around it was just a bit too expensive to make any real sense unless I was somewhere doing the no-grid life, which isn’t the case here.
Extremely helpful, thank you so much! It seems what I might be looking for is more along the lines of using the panels as a compliment to lower my bill overall, at least, from what I understand.
Also, you should consider new windows and insulation/re-insulation of your house first.
I spent ~$6k on new windows and full encapsulation with spray foam (small house, so ymmv) and had my power bill/gas bill drop by nearly 60%.
MUCH better ROI than the solar is ever going to be and it’s also included in the energy efficiency tax credits as long as you ensure the R values are sufficient, and you do it professionally.
Extremely smart idea that I will be doing. Thank you!
Every situation is so different that you really need professional advice.
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https://youtube.com/@willprowse?si=o0TYIKyCBSyYf7ys
I recommend doing a deep dive into Will Prowse on YT and also his DIY solar forum. I’ve learned a lot from him!
That’s a great help, thank you!!
Have a good squizz here - australian site, but the solar 101 is universal
The dude has a massive hardon for solar and dedicated to education
This is awesome, thank you so much!
You might want to first identify your main power consumption and at what time this occurs. 300$ seems very high in general, but if that is for example mostly AC usage during the day, you might be able to not have to buy as large of a battery since peak consumption coincidences with peak production.
Illinois uses net metering so there’s no good reason to disconnect here. We pay $11/mo to be a customer. As long as our net usage is 0 or less year to date, that’s it. Look into the metering rules in your state first
