Electrifying Everything Starts with Small Steps

I don't often write articles but thought this one was way overdue. As a Solar Energy Expert since 2008, it's great to be able to share some experiences on my personal energy journey so that others can hopefully learn and take similar or even bigger steps towards a cleaner energy future.

One of the biggest actions that a homeowner can do to take charge of their energy supply is to add a solar array to their home. Fortunately for my family, we were able to purchase a house a few years ago and one of my criteria was to have the ability to add a solar array to the roof. I'm very grateful to have been in a position where we could both afford a house and also find one with strong solar potential. We had a 6.6kWdc/5kWac array installed in March of 2019 and at that time it was projected to offset about 90+% of our annual electrical load. As a homeowner in it for the long run, we purchased the system with some low interest financing to take full advantage of the tax benefits and get maximum long term value out of the system. Because of the benefit of Net Metering, we are able to stack credits when we export more power than we use, and the result in sunny months is that we have a net positive balance that we use later in the year. For example, from March to about October, the electric portion of our bill was only $17 which is the Basic Service charge for being connected to the grid.

Another step we took in 2022 was purchasing a new EV, the Kia EV6 Wind. Typically EV’s cost more up front than a standard gas engine but in reality most of us end up financing the car so a slightly higher monthly payment is usually offset by the fuel savings you will undoubtedly see every month. Additionally, if you get the right car at the right time, there is a Federal tax credit of $7500 that you can take advantage of too. Some states will also offer much smaller additional rebate. Our driving range under the right conditions is about 275 miles which covers many daily trips and most trips for our family. We have had some challenges on occasion finding a charger in more rural areas and one time I was lucky enough to find a slow but available town charger to leave my car at overnight. Our infrastructure needs to improve to support the growing number of EV’s hitting the road but the experience has been good enough overall so far. Charging can take awhile depending on what kWh charge speeds are available but if you’re really trying to get the family home without stopping one more time, you can always check your speed down a bit and draft behind an 18-wheeler.

The next step in my journey was where it got interesting. This entailed requesting a rate schedule change from the utility, National Grid in our case, from the standard rate schedule to a Time of Use (TOU) schedule. EV cars are a large load so changing the schedule allows for a low rate when you typically charge (at night) and does not overwhelm the grid as it might otherwise if everyone charged during peak times. We almost always charge the car when the cost is lowest, from 11 PM to 7 AM. This is a win-win since it helps the grid while it helps your wallet. An added bonus is that we already had solar so while our peak rate would be higher, we have almost no peak charge most months of the year. You can check out the link below to see NG’s program.

Upstate NY VTOU Rate | National Grid (nationalgridus.com)

The most recent action we took was converting from using a natural gas water heater to an electric  heat pump water heater (HPWH). This was something that I was less familiar with but luckily the water heater had a slow leak that gave me enough time to do some research and find one that fit our needs. There was some difficulty in finding a plumber that was on board with a HPWH, and I did get some pressure from my early calls to get an expensive on-demand system or a standard replacement. Needless to say since they weren’t offering what I wanted so they didn’t get the job. Instead I called a local plumber that was very responsive on a different issue and had them come out. While they had never installed a HPWH, it’s not much different than other work they do and they were happy to assist and provided a clean install and a very reasonable price. The up-side for the installer is now they can easily offer this option to more of their customers going forward. Buyers should know that these do cost much more up front but the savings annually should make up for the additional cost in 2-3 years.

There are many people out there that don’t own a home so certainly have less control over their energy supply. But you can request upgrades such as solar covered parking and car chargers to be installed where you rent. There are more and more communities that are offering this so you can vote with your dollars and move to a place that has these options.

Further, in many states you can still sign up to be a subscriber to community solar and instantly save 10% off of your electric bill because Solar is a more cost effective source of local energy. In fact, my employer, Chint Power Systems America, is a provider of commercial and utility 3 Phase string inverters and our products are on many of these community solar sites around the country. It’s a growing market that all energy users can participate in.

Next stop on the trip - we have a gas stove. When that goes you better believe I’ll be going electric on that too.

For more reading check out this book which I thought does a great job of explaining changes that consumers can make.

Electrify: An Optimist's Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future

Learn more about CPS here