solar battery backup

[Hobie]

No EV yet. However was thinking for one just for in town errands.

Summer TOU rates not that attractive but winter maybe. I don’t know if SDGE offers better than off peak for EV now. If not, then maybe better in winter vs. summer. But… in long run… just buy gas and drive normal car and plan trips a bit better. Not a real money saver, me thinks. Unless you need to impress neighbor with your ‘green’ agenda. ha.

Maybe other piggs with EV can weigh in.

Gut feeling, just add more solar to below Tier 1 might be more cost effective. But again, I’m on TOU so I haven’t got that far yet. Me thinks, just put your additional new solar capacity in the bank for now.

Lomg story short… just watching and thinking.

[OwnerOfCalifornia]

I think there is a very long answer to this. SDG&E offers several EV-TOU rates, but I’m not well versed in many of them. I know the best one for someone with a small solar system (net consumer) or no system at all, is EV-TOU-5. It has a super-off-peak rate of $0.09 / kW-h, but comes with a fixed $16 / month fee (that’s not a minimum use–you pay it no matter what).

I have a small east-facing solar system and a Tesla model S, and I’m a net consumer. My sweet spot is TOU-DR-P. On peak rate isn’t too bad, and a modest discount for super-off-peak. The trade-off is those reduce-your-use days (of which there are only a few per year, obviously during super hot weather): My rate from 2pm-6pm is crazy high, like $1.40 / kW-h. Whenever that happens I’ll just stay a work late.

Also, I don’t have a Tesla home battery or anything, but I think one could really game the TOU rates, especially the EV-TOU-5. Load up super-off-peak, and dump on-peak.

[joec]

I wanted to bump this since I am now considering finally getting Solar/batteries for the home.

Wanted to see if anyone has recently looked into solar and batteries and I’m sure the “deal” isn’t as great anymore since net metering is sorta crap for how much they credit you. Numbers don’t have to be a net positive, but as a recent new EV driver, avoiding the gas station, not having to SMOG (hate that) and instant torque on an EV is just too nice (free carpool lane too I guess for a while).

Fed Tax Credit is only 26% now, but we are running 1 EV currently and plan to get another as our next vehicle (most likely a Tesla MY). Have to see if any installers have SGIP credits for batteries.

SDG&E rates seem to jump whenever they need it and our ideal goal is to get energy storage to deal with fire danger blackouts (probably yearly now) and pretty much never use SDG&E if possible (charge EVs off batteries to a certain point (I know Tesla Powerwalls have this feature)) and go back to the grid if needed once the batteries hit a certain level in the middle of the night when rates are lower.

From what I have read, home battery storage can never charge cheaply from the grid so depending on panel size, we’ll need to size/spec for enough sun charging to restore batteries during the day. Our roof isn’t that big so we’re probably just going to put as many panels as we can.

Any recs on installers (I see only a few Tesla Powerwall certified)…

[bababooey]

Can’t make the $$’s work, especially with EV-TOU-5 rate. I’m sucking down 500 KWH’s a month from 12 to 6am. The rate actually went down the first of the year to $.08. It’s costing me $56 to drive 2k miles!

[Author]

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