In just 2 days we mark the anniversary of turning on the power to the solar panels!
It may be a little premature to announce what the costs were, as well as how many hours we used, etc., and I can't give you a full year's analysis yet, but I can compare recent months to the same months the year before, and talk about how much of a difference I can see in the first 10 months.
January-October of 2010 we used 7,751 kWh.
January-October of 2011 we used 125 kWh. Yes, 125. Since March 2011 we've generated more power than we've used, resulting in 0 usage for every month since then! As I once stated, our utility company, Connecticut Light & Power, charges us
$16/month just to be connected, so that has been our monthly electric bill since March. Of course, we are paying our monthly solar lease payments as well. It will be interesting to be able to compare the winter months as well as the full year.
One of the months, February, is completely off, and I wish I'd looked at that sooner and brought it up with the power company, because the bill claims we used the same amount of electricity as we did the previous year, while the months before and after are shockingly lower. There is something VERY fishy about that! To be honest, I don't think I'm fully understanding our new electric bills - I think a call to my solar installers, Sunlight Solar should be on my "to-do" list!
So it's still a few days off until I can announce our total lbs saved of CO2 - but the 363 day total is:
It may be a little premature to announce what the costs were, as well as how many hours we used, etc., and I can't give you a full year's analysis yet, but I can compare recent months to the same months the year before, and talk about how much of a difference I can see in the first 10 months.
January-October of 2010 we used 7,751 kWh.
January-October of 2011 we used 125 kWh. Yes, 125. Since March 2011 we've generated more power than we've used, resulting in 0 usage for every month since then! As I once stated, our utility company, Connecticut Light & Power, charges us
$16/month just to be connected, so that has been our monthly electric bill since March. Of course, we are paying our monthly solar lease payments as well. It will be interesting to be able to compare the winter months as well as the full year.
One of the months, February, is completely off, and I wish I'd looked at that sooner and brought it up with the power company, because the bill claims we used the same amount of electricity as we did the previous year, while the months before and after are shockingly lower. There is something VERY fishy about that! To be honest, I don't think I'm fully understanding our new electric bills - I think a call to my solar installers, Sunlight Solar should be on my "to-do" list!
So it's still a few days off until I can announce our total lbs saved of CO2 - but the 363 day total is:
16,739 lbs (and it's only past lunchtime!)
The number of kWh generated in 363 days so far is:
9,846 kWh
Even on a somewhat cloudy day like today we'll generate over 24 kWh. Pretty nice.
Bottom line though, I think it's going to take us a while to recoup our costs. Realistically, we're not looking at saving money the first year, or maybe even the next (even though my fingers are crossed we will.) What we have done so far this past year is generate loads of clean energy and save thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide from the environment. Not bad. Not bad at all.
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