- #1
Pengwuino
Gold Member
- 5,124
- 20
So I was looking at my parent's power bill today because they've been complaining the bill is so high. I looked and as I knew for years, we get killed when we go pass what PG&E calls "300% over baseline". We live in the central valley in California where temperatures get to be up to 110 and that 300% over baseline rate is $.40/kwh. I want to try to convince my parents to install a small system at the house to at least reduce how much we're in that ridiculously priced tier. During the worst, we go something like 800kwh per month into that $.40/kwh tier. I want to convince them to get a small system that will supplement the power off the grid and I figure at this ridiculous rate, the return on investment has to be fairly quick. So I have a few questions for hte people in the know around here
1) Where can I find data on the actual usable energy that is received on average at a particular point in the US?
2) How much can they expect to pay upon installation per kw generation? And given say, a 2kw system, how much can they expect to generate in a given day (considering its not sunny all day!)? I was thinking about doing the real nitty gritty physics on this and I realized there's a crazy number of variables to consider such as how long the sun is up, the angling of the roof, the fact that in winter I highly doubt we even get near the 200%-300% of baseline rate. I'm going ot ask PG&E for some detailed records of our usage... hopefully they have them.
1) Where can I find data on the actual usable energy that is received on average at a particular point in the US?
2) How much can they expect to pay upon installation per kw generation? And given say, a 2kw system, how much can they expect to generate in a given day (considering its not sunny all day!)? I was thinking about doing the real nitty gritty physics on this and I realized there's a crazy number of variables to consider such as how long the sun is up, the angling of the roof, the fact that in winter I highly doubt we even get near the 200%-300% of baseline rate. I'm going ot ask PG&E for some detailed records of our usage... hopefully they have them.