Home power upgrades

[Slohry]

Has anyone upgraded their homes to accommodate for the extra electricity for charging, (i.e. solar panels or wind)?

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[Lightning.Dav]

Does wanting to count?

 

[hturnerfamily]

I don't think most folks would need to do any type of 'upgrades', nor would they want to.

 

[Slohry]

I don't think most folks would need to do any type of 'upgrades', nor would they want to.

So you're paying for electricity? Here in CA our power rates have quadrupled. That's why I'm asking.

 

[jefro]

My current house is only 100A service. Could upgrade it but doubt I'd do it.

 

[Slohry]

Does wanting to count?

You're in the prime location for solar. Always sunny in your area.

 

[Yellow Buddy]

Has anyone upgraded their homes to accommodate for the extra electricity for charging, (i.e. solar panels or wind)?

45kW of solar. Electrical company had to upgrade my transformer to handle the generation which is about 200kWh/day.

 

[TaxmanHog]

My house is only 100 amp, our garage is ~80 feet away, requiring either UG conduit or overhead branch circuit. this install requires house service and load center to be bumped up to 200amp, sufficient for our oil fire boiler and NG appliances, (range, dryer hot water).

My alternate desire is to run a second service direct to the garage from a close by overhead line ~60 feet to power the stand alone garage exclusively.

Either way it's going to cost a few penny's, hoping the GRID engineer approves my request for a second service line as this is the best/easiest solution, then I can leave the house service as is......

No plans for solar at this time but might consider it in the future.

 

[FlasherZ]

I did a few things when I got the second EV in 2016... the power company upgraded my transformer to a 37.5 kVA unit so that I could have 2 100A circuits for charging, I upgraded to 320/400A service, installed a 25 kW genset with automatic transfer switch, and added 18 kW of solar PV.

At $0.096 per kWh, electricity is cheap enough for us... but I still pay the power company monthly.

 

[WhipSticks]

I bough our new place in 2021, and planned a full infrastructure overhaul. We were going solar, getting an EV, beefing up air sealing and insulation R-values, swapping out the HVAC systems from oil furnace and central Air AC to Geothermal heating and cooling. Geothermal systems use electricity to circulate coolants underground to exchange heat with the Earth hundreds of feet below the foundation--extracting heat in winter and dumping heat in summer--as well as electricity to run compression and expansion cycles of the coolants. We also installed a hybrid electric heat pump hot water heater, and electric oven and other smaller electricity-heavy changes.

It was a big project, but we are there; we no longer pay to heat or cool the home, we don't pay for electricity and we don't pay for oil, gas, or propane appliances. The home is net-zero energy use and has a very small carbon footprint. All of the changes, however relied to a major utility upgrade to our electrical system. We went from a single 200 amp panel to 400 amp service across two panels. Most usage is fed from the 15.7 Kw solar array, but in summer we dump most of our power to grid storage and in winter we pull it back to heat the home and charge the truck, etc..

I estimate about a 10 - 15 yr payback period for the upfront investment costs. It was totally worth it.

Edit: In response to your original question, I'll add that the electrical upgrade was expensive. It involved a lot of conduit to run underground copper from the pole to the home, and the trenching, tree removal and yard restorations costs, along with the panel wiring and electrical service labor costs ran to roughly 25 grand. But that is all factored into my payback period estimate.

 

[TexasEdition]

We did a studs-out rehab of a house built in 1893. A 200A service panel was part of the project. We eventually added a two-wide carport, roofed by 28 solar panels. Last year we added another 16 panels and a backup battery. We did that because we are electrifying our life and pulling out the gas service. The EV was part of the calculation too. i "seceded" from my power company and from Big Oil in 2023. I'll "secede" from my gas company in 2024.

IRA tax credits coming in 2024 in many states will help underwrite the cost of switching from 100A to 200A service. These credits will also help with the cost of switching to induction cooktops, heat pump water heaters, heat pump furnaces, and heat pump clothes dryers. I've already done the water heater. I'll do the rest in 2024.

 

[WhipSticks]

In regards to the credits, if the electrical upgrades are needed to run infrastructure that is already covered by the IRA (like Geothermal) you can currently claim 30% of the cost of that electrical work also. We did.

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