I’m a quantitative person. I count when I wind the clock. I count when I walk up a flight of stairs. I look at the electric measuring meters on my house at least once every day to see how much electricity I’ve used from Central Maine Power and how much excess electricity (above and beyond of that I’ve generated and used myself) I’ve pumped back into the grid for credit. It has been less than 30 days, or one billing period, since the eight new 245 watt panels have been on line, bringing my total capacity up to 3.44 kilowatts. So I have no idea if that will supply all the electricity I need for the year or not. I’m hoping my first bill, which should come tomorrow, will give me an idea of what is to come. For the past week, I went behind 6 kilowatt hours per day. Although that may be far from the year’s average gain or loss, which is the only one that counts, it gives me a number to play with. And with that figure I see that if my system will make 11 kilowatts a day (over and above what I use) for the four months we are in Florida, over a period of a year, I should only have a bill (above the monthly $9.41 charge for being hooked on to the grid) for 6 kwh per day for the month of November. Now I’m wondering what I can do to cut down our usage six kilowatt hours per day. I wonder what it costs to run a dishwasher one cycle. Or what it costs to run a clothes drier for 45 minutes. I could probably get an idea by watching the meter on the side of the house. For smaller plug in units, I can use my Kill a Watt gauge. Why do I think I can figure out what my power bill is going to be for the next year with such scanty evidence? Well, there are people in museums who can construct an entire Tyrannosaurus Rex from three of the creatures ossified front teeth. Michael Donnelly, operating with surgical precision on humbles home electric power generating system.
Posted on: Sun, 20 Oct 2013 13:57:04 +0000
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