My home electric bill has basically doubled in the past 4 months! WTF is going on?

[RLXXI]

Doing my part to get out from under the light bill. I can run the house all day and night when sunny, just takes a couple days to recharge the battery array.

These sun trackers pull in the max amount of power compared to a static roof mount, have one of those as well.

About half way where I want to be as far as panels/trackers, the truck tipped me over where I wanted to be in storage capacity. Hope to have the new one producing this weekend.

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[WilliamRobert]

It’s the PJM interconnection capacity auction! They have all kinds of excuses for the rates going up, but my opinion is it’s old fashioned collusion to block renewables for as long as possible and to cash in before the coal and gas plants retire.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PJM_Interconnection

https://www.pa.gov/governor/newsroo...ction-against-pjm-saves-consumers-billions-ac

 

[THX1138]

No agreement required if not exporting here.
With "smart" meters they would know if you export even tiny amount of power - even accidently.

I think the meter on my garage was installed long ago, before solar net metering was a thing.

 

[NW Ontario Ford Lightning]

When they installed the "smart" meters here (2004 in the south of Ontario, 2010 in my part of NW Ontario) the main change was Time of Use (ToU) billing- allowing different rates at set times of day, to encouage load shifting to evenings ie washer/dryer after 7:00 pm resulted in some cost savings per month.
In 2019 when I first got into planning a solar installtion the ToU rates with very low overnight rates allowed the numbers to work out for me even during winter months where solar was never going to power all my loads.

To ensure I NEVER back feed the grid from my solar/battery/inverter installation, the only connection between the utility and my home battery set up is an AC-DC transformer for overnight winter battery charging.
In other words, my home is always powered by the batteries/solar, and the utility is only used to power a back up DC charger, not to directly power loads, and the utiltiy doesn't connect to my inverter at all, only to the DC charger via relay and control system.

{one exception: I have a circuit directly from the Utility panel for 48A EV charging when needed}

 

[Lightning Rod]

We finally got our solar hooked up today. Now we have to wait for the inspector to come out and inspect. We also have to wait for our electric company to come out. We are really excited!!

 

[VTHokies]

We finally got our solar hooked up today. Now we have to wait for the inspector to come out and inspect. We also have to wait for our electric company to come out. We are really excited!!

You’ll love it, I’ve had my panels for 7 years now and I haven’t had to pay an electric bill since!

 

[NW Ontario Ford Lightning]

Solar and EV's go well together...in both cases "never going back" !!

 

[Scorpio3d]

Counterpoint:

I installed solar about 10+ years ago that offset 80% of my usage. After buying an electric car, I installed a secondary system to cover 100% of my usage. The solar system covered themselves in price within 5 years due to state and federal incentives.

I ended up installing minor improvements over time to the house and now my electric bill is negative and decreasing as the rates increase.

I couldn’t make ICE more economical unless I moved to Texas and installed a personal oil well..

Yeah, we all have oil wells in our backyards here the problem is you also have to put in a refinery to make fuel.
I installed solar a few months after getting the truck and that was based on $.10 kWh rates, (I had been researching for a couple of years prior)but also realizing that the rates were going to increase because our grid was so screwed up and that was before AI went bonkers so my payback(ROI) is looking better every day!

 

[NW Ontario Ford Lightning]

it is a rewarding feeling to have a 'power plant' of my own building, at my homested, heating the buildings (heat pumps) powering my well pump, charging the Lightning.
Aside from other benefits, it is just satisfying to be self sufficient, and self reliant.

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