Technology

Actually solar powering my house was my first consideration. I'm already dealing with an electric company that didn't think it was odd when they turned off the power to my house and the meter kept running (my typical monthly usage is around 4000kWh which breaks down to over 5000 watts of solar panels and roughly 300 square feet of roof space that isn't blocked by trees) so I'm trying to find an electrician to replace the wires between the meter and the house. The assumption here is that the wiring has a ground leak -- the more power I pull, the faster the leak, which ramps up my bill quickly. Meanwhile I've been considering installing solar panels on my house to offset some of that usage. Even if I'm really only using half that amount of power, that's still a LOT of required solar panels and as I said there's not a lot of exposed roof space available. My calculations weren't including trying to recharge an EV because I don't have any numbers on how much power that would pull.

Basically where I'm sitting, about 2/3 of my roof is blocked from sunlight by trees on the East and South which is great for keeping the house cool, but not so great for solar panels. If I was trying to supply half of my current electrical usage I would need roughly 12 square feet of good sun throughout the day, but my Southern roof only has that much exposed for 4-6 hours in the middle of Summer. In the Winter one of the trees to the South of me will lose its leaves, but the other tree to the South and all the trees on the East side are massive evergreens that block the sun all year. I'm having a hard time getting the numbers to add up just to supply my house with power, I just don't see any way to also recharge a vehicle (let alone two). It's still a project on my radar though and something I really want to get in place since I do use quite a bit of power here.

Oh, and that $15,000 installation price was for more typical homes that use less than 250kWh/month. Obviously I am nowhere near that.