On August 8, we noticed that one of the 3 inverters had not been working since November 26. We called Akeena and they fixed it by the end of the week. Apparently there was some firmware problem. So we'll have to keep an eye on the other inverters in case they also fail. We still need to wash our panels. The region had record rainfall in April.
We saved $2,715 this year on 9,022 KWH of PV production or 30 cents/KWH. Surcharges increased four times between Jun and April, and then slightly dropped in May. So on our July bill, we saved 28 cents/KWH, and on our June bill we saved 38 cents/KWH. (Winter rates are lower so in January we saved 20.5 cents/KWH.) In November 2005 the baseline KWH/day dropped by 3%. This means that even though we are using about as many KWH/day as we did last year, more of those KWH are being charged at higher-tiered rates. I am glad we went with the largest sized system that we could fit on our roof.
It's sad not to start off the year with a credit. We really should have noticed sooner that one inverter wasn't working. We used an average of 53.6 KWH/day this year compared with 53.0 KWH/day last year. That's not much of an increase. We didn't get any major new appliances this year, though we've replaced some computers and all our monitors are now flat panel instead of CRT.
last changed 2009.09.19
Carolyn Luce Last modified: Tue Feb 22 20:03:49 PST 2005