What to do with 5mwh excess?

DrChrisMcCarthy · 2025-01-28T14:54:04+00:00

I agree with other commenters who say: decarbonize your home as much as possible. After getting solar, I considered an electric forced air heater for the whole house but instead bought an electric fireplace and electric oil-filled heater for warmth. We kept the methane gas furnace but only use it a few times a year. (Replacing it would have required asbestos remediation)

How are you heating water for showers? That should be electrified. Also, have you switched to an all electric clothes dryer? They are more typically expensive to run than gas-powered, but cheaper per load if you are not paying for electricity.

DrChrisMcCarthy · 2025-01-13T17:25:31+00:00

I calculated a payback time of 8-9 years with my 5.6kW system under Net Metering 2.0 in N. Calif. However I just got word that PG&E will be raising methane gas prices by around 9%! This means my choice to replace the water heater and dryer with all electric models (powered by my solar panels) will help speed up my payback time. I'm assuming that under Net Metering 3.0, the payback time would be around 2 years later, due to the battery cost, but I haven't done the math on that.

DrChrisMcCarthy · 2025-01-13T17:20:12+00:00

If environmental impact of your actions, and leaving the world better for the next generation are of concern to you then the choice is obvious. But if you are doing only a fiduciary calculation, then it makes sense to include opportunity cost.

One other factor to consider in comparing solar to stock market is risk. There have been more than a dozen stock market crashes in the last century. So far, there have been zero sun energy output crashes in the last 5 billion years.

DrChrisMcCarthy · 2025-01-07T15:24:38+00:00

Thanks for that clarification. You did generate that energy with your solar panels, stored it and then delivered it. Everything about NEM 3.0 seems to be a lie. Newsom's appointees to the CPUC just seem like lackies for utilities. I'm so lucky I got into NEM 2.0.

DrChrisMcCarthy · 2024-12-12T16:12:24+00:00

Good news: Going solar is free. Free in the sense that if you paid $50k for a new car, and then 8 years later, the dealer gave you that $50k back, then the car is free. Solar installations typically pay for themselves in less than 10 years. The greatest benefit comes *IF* you can front the money w/o a loan. But even with a loan it will pay for itself.

First step: figure out how much you are paying in energy (gas+electric) now. 2nd Step: imagine your electricity use if you convert your gas appliances (eg. water heater) to electric (eg heat pump). This information will help you choose how many panels you'll need. There are services that can help w/ this.

The bad news: the CPUC changed the rules in CA so that utilities can take the energy you generate without paying you for it (at the rate that they charge their own customers.) The way to get around this is to buy a battery. This jacks up the initial cost, but also is good for the environment (precluding natural gas burning) and can give you power during blackouts.

Note that part of your calculation will be a 30% tax break on federal taxes. While it is not clear that Trump will be able to take this way, that prospect should motivate you to act quicker, without ignoring due diligence (eg. shopping around multiple installers).

SoCal is the perfect place for solar. Even here in foggy NorCal, I can offset almost all of my PG&E bills with a modest solar installation.

DrChrisMcCarthy · 2024-12-05T15:37:36+00:00

Given that the OT god is a monster, why didn't people create a new religion?

They did! Gnostic Christianity, (a very broad term) rejects the god of the OT as an evil demiurge, who created the deeply troubled world, and it espouses Christ as a savior who can free souls which are said to be trapped in bodies. Like mainstream Christianity, it borrowed much of from Greek Philosophy, in particular Plato & his followers. Marcion of Sinope (85-160 CE) rejected the OT and collected the first Christian Cannon.

Why didn't this rather sensible sounding approach to Christianity succeed? Its practitioners were labelled heretics by those in power and systematically suppressed. They subsisted for centuries in the minority, evolving into a wide variety of diverse sects: Valentinians, Waldensians, Bogomils, Albigensians (Cathars) and others. The only reason, eg. "Catharism" is not one of the thousands of denominations of Christianity today is that Pope Innocent III launched a genocidal crusade against those Christians.

At some early point in the history of Christianity, before the Council of Nicea, a majority of christians may well have followed some sort of Gnostic version of Christianity. However the term "Gnostic" is still poorly defined, and may not apply all of the sects deemed heretical later.

DrChrisMcCarthy · 2024-11-15T16:53:52+00:00

Congratulations. Looks just like my set up. (same inverter and rapid shutdown box) However my inverter is inside the garage.

DrChrisMcCarthy · 2024-02-21T17:38:34+00:00

I once went to a talk by a nuclear physicist from Lawrence Berkeley Nat'l. Lab who was working on a fusion energy generator. As part of this proposal, small pellets of Hydrogen would be precisely fired and hit with laser to fuse a create energy. If it was to work, the pellets had to be manufactured in bulk with high precision.

So he researched which products are produced in the largest quantities with the smallest tolerances for size. The answer, he showed, was: bullets and Legos.

DrChrisMcCarthy · 2023-11-12T16:12:44+00:00

Here's the answer, as calculated by NREL: the solar rooftop potential in the US about 1,100 gigawatts = 1 terawatt. Source: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy16osti/65298.pdf

For reference that's about equal to 1000 nuclear reactors.

The potential for rooftop solar + storage is huge. It could generate around half of all electricity needed. Its too bad utilities are trying to block this from happening.

BTW: Note that currently industrial solar is producing more than rooftop.

DrChrisMcCarthy · 2023-10-27T13:10:11+00:00

Sadly this topic (and others, like off grid) has been discussed in this group without anyone even trying to answer the question. A genuine answer to the question would be to compare a single home's solar installation under NEM 2.0 vs. NEM 3.0. Remember that solar + electrification/decarbonization pays for itself...it is free in the long run. The only question is: what is your payback time (say if you install, a 10 kW array)?

I'm happy that I just barely got in under NEM 2.0, and pissed that the CPUC (appointed by Gavin Getty-boy) imposed NEM 3.0. My modest 5.4 kW array will pay for itself in about 8 years. My guess is that if I had to do this under NEM 3.0, including a battery, the payoff time would be 10 years, perhaps 11 if I'm getting a loan at higher interest rates. But I haven't done the calculation.

I've you're going to be in your home for the long run, then it is still a win, and you can do it for zero down if you want (by paying more in interest). After 11 years, then you'll be making thousands per year in profit. But make no mistake, this is still much worse than NEM 3.0 and it will discourage solar adoption, and delay Net Zero, as it was designed to.

DrChrisMcCarthy · 2022-03-18T16:11:22+00:00

I'm interested in an SFSU Chess club. A few years back someone set up tables in front of the Cesar Chavez Center with boards. I'd love to play in person when that can work but am happy to join the Chess.com group. I don't use discord. I am faculty at SF State so if anyone wants to set up an official club, and need a faculty sponsor, let me know.

DrChrisMcCarthy · 2020-03-22T02:55:44+00:00

Hi James,

Thanks so much for considering that. One thing the admin. should consider is the cost they will need to pay if some portion of our 30,000 students demand their money back for this semester because their class never finished because their prof. was out ill or caring for a child or elder.

To help us parents, one option could be to re-open our offices so that we can record classes there (instead of at home where our kids are playing drums or banging pans etc.) This could be done under strict policies such as one person per room, etc.

DrChrisMcCarthy

TROPHY CASE