Low Power Mode
I've been watching with an immense amount of jealousy over the past year or so all the amazing posts about solar energy. Having a backup is always a good idea. After our basement flooded back in late 2019, I keep about three extra sump pumps in my garage "just in case". My wife and I purchased a generator shortly after that which we have had to use maybe two or three times in the past six years. We have it though!
In addition to that, we also had a backup sump pump installed that runs off our city water connection. If the other sump fails to remove the water, the backup pump uses something like one gallon of water for every two gallons it pumps out. That might seem pretty inefficient, but I'd rather pay a high water bill than have to go through another flood water remediation in my basement.
This post isn't really about sump pumps though.
For me, the real winners are the folks like @solominer, @ksteem, and @cryptoandcoffee who can go completely off the grid if they need to with their solar power setup. The idea of not having to be dependant on a company to provide your power is really attractive. Of course, if your house runs on both natural gas and electricity like ours, then you still run into a bit of a snag, but that's a problem for another time.
I'd still love to have some kind of solar setup on our property. Even if it is just for those emergency situations and to throw a little bit of power back to the grid to bring our monthly bill down a bit. Even if I still had to pay for my gas usage but didn't have to pay for electricity, @mrsbozz and I would still be saving a heap of money.
Not that we are energy hogs... Far from it actually.
About a year ago we started getting these emails from our power company. If you don't know, in the US utility companies are pretty territorial and still operate as a bit of a monopoly. They might tell you that you have choices when it comes to who provides your power, but unless you have your own solar setup or something like that, you really don't. If you want service, you sign on the dotted line and you pay the monthly bill.
As you can see, my wife and I are considered great energy users. In fact, we used less energy from November into December than we did from October into November. I actually find that kind of hard to believe, but since we had a smart meter installed five plus years ago, I could probably go into my account and verify the numbers if I wanted to.
This is the part that I actually find more interesting. I feel like @mrsbozz and I are pretty careful about the energy we use. It isn't likely we are going to make any changes outside of environmental factors that are going to increase or decrease our power consumption too much. We don't have kids, so we don't need to worry about all of their devices or lights being left on. If anything, our power bill should go down over the next couple of months as we usually see an uptick around the holidays when we have our Christmas lights on.
As you can see, in this time period we actually performed better than "efficient" homes and similar homes to ours used almost twice the amount of energy.
As I said, that last part always makes me feel pretty good about our environmental footprint even though it might not be reflected in our monthly bill. I remember even ten years ago we used to pay a monthly bill right around $120 for our gas and electric. Now, that same bill with pretty much the same usage is about $100 more. If anything we have gotten more energy efficient appliances in that time, so while our usage has likely went down, the cost has clearly gone up.
It's important to remember, that we live in the middle of the US. The cost of living is quite attractive in my neck of the woods. I have a feeling there are folks in the large cities and near the coasts that would be more than happy with a $220 monthly electricity bill. They probably make two to three times what I do for the same job though. It's all kind of relative.
My wife and I are currently kicking around the idea of finding a new place to live. There is a really good possibility I will more seriously look into some kind of solar installation should that happen. I don't see the point of putting the money into something at our current home if we don't plan on staying there more long term.
I'd also like to look into some form of mobile solution that I can take camping with us and connect the 30 amp connection on our travel trailer up to. That would be kind of cool to not be totally dependent on whatever the campground has to offer.
While I don't think solar is the be all end all solution to the world's power issues/needs, I do think it is an interesting alternative and I hope one day I get to experience it a little more first hand.
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I also have a simple solar set up at home, but its just two panels and a battery, so it doesnt really take on the load of alot of applainces but in cases where the grid goes off, its a life saver and we can also switch between the solar and the electricity company which saves cost, because the electricity prices this year have had a crazy!!!!! hike.
That is cool. I think something like that is a great way to start. I'd eventually like something that sits on my roof I think, but I am a long ways off from that.
The prices of energy did indeed raise through the roof. Crazy.
We do have a plan in which each hour the price of electricity does change. So we try to keep an eye on it, when we do put on which machine (if possible) and defenitely when charging the cars.
Currently the prices are extremely high due to a so called Dunkelflaute. That is when there is almost no sun and no wind. So no green energy is produced. For sure if you have a plan like we have, this comes in hard. Currently the price has doubled in a few days. It will go back again to the more normal prices when there is wind and sun. But that is not foreseen until the weekend.
It would be hard here to be completely of the grid. The winter are too dark! Maybe we will save for a battery. time will tell.
We have some pretty rough winters too, so I can see what you are saying about going completely off the grid. Our power company does offer plans like that where you can try to use more energy during off peak hours but since my wife and I both work, it would never even out for us.
Nice post and thanks for the mention. I do keep gathering data and had started doing a year in review report on our solar, just need some time to pull it together. I did review a list of all the outages we were protected against this year and it was pretty impressive. I must say I have really, really appreciated the solar and battery backup when we've had the extended outages. Even without those, just not being kicked off of conference calls from all the little short outages is wonderful while working from home.
It's an investment for sure, and always hard to determine when to jump with all the improvements and technology still in rapid growth mode. They already have technology to make panels twice as productive as they are today, and some that can now generate from nothing but moonlight. This is the way of the future for sure. Now, just a small windmill or two to add to the night production and we should be really set.
I think night is probably difficult in general. Even here with the great lakes, the wind tends to die off after the sun drops down, so I am not sure how much benefit it would actually offer. Maybe it's a bit different being by the ocean. I know I've mentioned it before, but my biggest concern here is finding a reputable company. Like yous said, the tech is evolving fast and I think there are a lot of shady companies out there taking advantage of people due to lack of knowledge, technical jargon, and fads.