It's a SUNNY DAY...

It BETTER be a sunny day, because I turned the solar energy system ON today! That's right, we are now electric energy producers! Take THAT big electric corporate earth-killers!!! OK, maybe I'm overstating it a bit. Or am I ...?

But Sunny Days Are All I Crave. Yes, that's both what I want and the name of a new song I wrote. In any case, it was a loooong process and I'm glad it's done. It was my project and I did a good job. Don't take my word for it, ask Allen.

The company that I contracted with was Next Step Living. They're a really top-notch outfit. They took care of all the confusing paperwork and always kept me informed on the project's progress.

About 3 days ago, National grid came to the house to swap out the electric meter for a NET meter (measures power in each direction). This was about 27 days earlier than the standard and expected timeline. Wow! Bonus! This morning, I received my "Authority to Interconnect." That was the green light for turning the system on.

Of course, no-one told me HOW to turn it on, but I figured (here comes my famous saying...) "How hard could it be?" I found the power panel and turned all then switched on. Then, on the bottom of the inverter was a round dial that had only two positions labeled "on" and "off." I chose "on."

The inverter made some noises, some clicks, and a whirling sound, then a louder weird sound, then the display starting displaying stuff.. very cryptic data... voltages, levels, grid this and grid that... so I knew I was on the right track. After about 5 minutes of monkeying around, the display read: "System On," and then something about collecting photons from a nearby star.

Below is a copy of the Authority to Interconnect email. I think it's interesting but I suppose it's also boring at the same time.

I can't wait to see my first electric bill after having the system running throughout a billing period to see what my bill looks like! I'm supposed to generate all my electric needs with these 21 panels... but I think it'll fall somewhat short of that, but no matter what, it's going to be very small electric bills for us from now on!

Authority to Interconnect:

This email shall serve as formal notification that you are authorized to interconnect your 6.0 kW PV system (Application: 14913648 ) at Town, city, blah blah blah with National Grid's distribution system. In order to accurately register energy import and export, a bi-directional meter was installed at your facility.

If your system ownership information changes, please contact: Distributed.Generation@nationalgrid.com

Note about system ownership: Any changes to ownership information should be reported immediately to ensure that our records are up-to-date, that net metering credits are allocated appropriately, and legal and emergency notifications are issued correctly. Changes to ownership that need to be reported include, but are not limited to: a sale of the generating system to a third party owner, a sale of the property at which the generating system is located (e.g. a new homeowner is moving into a house that hosts a net metered system), or a change in the responsible party for the billing account (e.g. business mergers where the name of the business changes).

If you experience any billing issues, please contact: CustomerService@us.ngrid.com or (800) 322-3223
Note about net metering credits: The net metering credits may not be applied to the host account (where the net meter is located) until the following billing cycle. If your system is transferring net metering credits to other accounts, the non-host account(s) may need to wait for an additional billing cycle (beyond the delay for the host account) before the net metering credits are applied to the non-host account(s).

If you are looking for general information, please check National Grid's Distributed Generation website for the latest updates and information:
http://www.nationalgridus.com/masselectric/home/energyeff/distributed_generation.asp

National Grid wishes you the best with your new system and hopes you get many productive years of use.

Only 30 more days until solar energy system gets turned on

The town building inspector came today to inspect the solar panel installation. This is the last hurdle before National Grid comes out and installs a 2-way meter, and net metering begins....but what is Net Metering?

Net metering is an electricity policy for consumers who own (generally small) renewable energy facilities (such as wind, solar power or home fuel cells). "Net", in this context, is used in the sense of meaning "what remains after deductions" — in this case, the deduction of any energy outflows from metered energy inflows. Under net metering, a system owner receives retail credit for the electricity they generate.

Most electricity meters accurately record in both directions, allowing a no-cost method of effectively banking excess electricity production for future credit.

Net metering is generally a consumer-based renewable energy incentive.

But back to the town inspector.... he came out to "inspect" the system installation but all he did was talk to me about the nice location I had and how I no longer had "bad neighbors."  Then he counted the individual panels, not because it was part of the inspection, but just because he wanted to see how many I have compared to how many he has on his house. A little small talk about the weather and then he was gone. He inspected NOTHING. And, how much did it cost me to have him inspect nothing? 

About $100.

it's a solar kind of day

Today, there's a residential sized solar array being installed on my roof. It's a very noisy project. It is supposed to provide me with all my electrical needs. We'll see. Even if it provides most of my electricity, it'll still be a good deal.