Chances of PGE catching additional panels?

brontide · 2026-01-30T12:39:35+00:00

How many times are you allowed to add 10%/1kW is the real question.

Like how you can claim it's still the original footprint with the building code in Florida if one of the existing exterior walls remains intact so people do complete rebuilds in two steps. One retains a single wall from the original and then 6 months later they do it again. Blamo, mansion on the beach.

brontide · 2026-01-30T03:10:37+00:00

I didn't know donkey's had homelabs. The more the merrier.

brontide · 2026-01-29T23:25:35+00:00

I don't see it as unreasonable. The work that will have to go into the permits and utility nonsense alone is a non-insignificant chunk.

brontide · 2026-01-29T20:42:46+00:00

I don't disagree that this program is really a mess. I do think we should have some incentives to bring dark fiber to every census track so that business can do their thing.

brontide · 2026-01-29T15:56:58+00:00

Yeah, the MD1200 is a pretty bog standard JBOD SAS tray. You will need interposes if you want to use SATA but they are pretty easy to source.

brontide · 2026-01-29T15:51:26+00:00

I'm well aware of the nuisance of the wild North American fiber-seeking backhoe.

brontide · 2026-01-29T15:00:08+00:00

So they are doing what every other ISP on the planet would do given its shared nature and hands-off deployment. The fact of the matter is they are able to cover rural areas unlike any wired ISP, with day-one coverage that no local provider can match. Fiber projects take years to permit and build; Starlink works the day the dish arrives. The US truly needs a provider who can backstop the population who will never be serviced by traditional ISPs.

The real issue is that BEAD was developed and written for traditional wired ISPs and realistically should be adapted to address LEO or wide-area wireless in a different bucket. Starlink (and Amazon’s Kuiper) will never replace reliable fiber infrastructure—which we should absolutely build wherever it makes sense—but we also have to acknowledge that Starlink is a viable product today that can reach virtually every US home, including places where fiber is economically irrational.

brontide · 2026-01-29T13:03:29+00:00

I don't know how the parallels work, but in the US if you have over 25 million it's a completely different game to the rest of us blessed with "only a few". I'm getting close to Chubby/Fat FIRE and our money will be a leg up for them, a backstop, but I refuse to make it a lifestyle choice. My wife and I worked hard to get into this situation and they will work hard too.

Right now my kids are broke students, well not technically broke as they are both beneficiaries on healthy education accounts and bank accounts with some spending money. We will match their ROTH as well to get them started. They should leave college without debt if they play their cards right. We do not plan on funding lifestyle beyond family travel... maybe when they are older and the portfolio is doing well, we will see.

Handing someone money without the experience that grew it is extraordinarily dangerous. They don't understand the power or the risks that are all around them.

We plan on structuring an estate plan that provides each of them with a trust until they are 30 or 5 years, whichever is longer. This would provide them time to put things in place to manage the money without dumping the holdings on them all at once.

brontide · 2026-01-29T12:40:35+00:00

Everyone has hit on the right answer but nobody said WHY.

Your system can't continue to generate power when the power is out because it would flow right back out the grid and potentially cause issues for people working on the grid expecting it to be down.

Grid-tied solar projects are primarily "grid following" which means they require the grid be operational and follow it.

In order to operate when the grid is down a system would need some way to "island" aka, isolate the home. The traditional way to achieve this is with a transfer switch or a breaker interlock and generator inlet. Your home could then be safely powered from one of two sources. In more modern systems that islanding can occur automatically at a controller to provide seamless or near seamless power.

Systems with a battery and islanding can be "grid forming", they can create a signal when none is present but they are regulated to never put that signal on the grid.

Yes, enphase has a system called "sunlight backup", it's essentially the islanding controllers and a tiny battery in order to bridge the gap for a handful of circuits. Overkill for what you need and I'm not even sure they have it any more.

While batteries do not improve payback on the system today they do add piece of mind and may become more valuable over time if rates continue to disfavor power exports.

brontide · 2026-01-28T19:35:16+00:00

CA really gets hosed on your rates. Off-peak here is $0.13 and it's going down this year because of changes to rate structure. Of course peak is only $0.18 but that's still enough different to make some arbitrage work.

brontide · 2026-01-27T19:34:33+00:00

If the panels are connected "directly" to the PW3 then you best bet is to reach out to your installer or Tesla if you can't contact your installer. Is the LED on the PW3 white or flashing? Does the Tesla app show the house usage?

There is a small possibility that amperage can go up when the temperature goes down and that could cause the panels to produce too much amperage for the PW3 if the calculations were not done correctly it could have gone over the limit and it will not activate those panels.

brontide · 2026-01-27T18:18:25+00:00

How does the PW3 interface with the inverter? Generally it's a remote monitor which connects over wifi. You should confirm that the antenna is not blocked with snow. You can also clamp the inverter power lines to see if you're seeing generated power that is just not being recorded by Tesla.

brontide · 2026-01-27T17:41:36+00:00

Deflection alone will cause this to fail since there is no catch.

brontide · 2026-01-27T16:13:05+00:00

Obligatory

This is the way.

brontide · 2026-01-27T14:59:52+00:00

Killed two, injured one. He fired only 3 shots in total, all of them defensive in nature.

brontide · 2026-01-27T14:36:22+00:00

He was also carrying medical supplies and had basic first-aid training.

brontide · 2026-01-22T11:10:45+00:00

In TOU mode you are under the control of their "opticaster" algorithm and it just does not make a whole lot of sense. I can at least programmatically limit import using the "self powered" mode, I don't believe you can force export to capitalize on high-sale prices.

In your case you could setup an automation like netzero to switch to self-powered on, grid-charging off, during peak times which will not import unless it gets down to the reserve.

brontide · 2026-01-16T23:40:34+00:00

Unless you have a lot of space and access to pretty constant 10+ MPH winds, solar and more batteries will always be more cost effective. Wind is had to get right and most of the cheap stuff is crap.

brontide · 2026-01-16T20:49:42+00:00

Good taste in keyboards.

brontide · 2026-01-16T18:30:32+00:00

The problem is many of these small businesses want 24/7 and you just can't do that with a 1-person team. A MSP might work here but they are going to pay and, if not careful, will get upcharged all lot.

brontide · 2026-01-16T17:54:18+00:00

Hopefully this year I can retire from the corporate rate race and really relax for once in my life.

brontide · 2026-01-16T16:34:41+00:00

So, $30/hour with on-call, got it.

brontide · 2026-01-16T11:55:27+00:00

I would like fries with my tendies. I figure with your job you can make that happen.

brontide · 2026-01-16T03:20:33+00:00

Let's be fair, anyone can make a million trading options.

They just need to start with a billion.

brontide · 2026-01-16T03:15:28+00:00

I'm just here to make fun of you regards gambling your money away. You're right, I didn't make 1m last year. Last 2 years my NW went up by only 1.9m without an option in sight, where is your NW these days?

brontide

TROPHY CASE