I know a fair bit about solar if you have any questions! 
Thanks. Right now, I’m just trying to wrap my mind around incentive programs, by-laws, regulations.
And how “credits” work in a grid-tied system (i.e. credit for free electricity for any occurrences of overproduction by my system.)
And dealing with solar companies who want clients all-in with grid-tied systems, and batteries for backup energy during power-outages.
Adjusting all of the quotes (different-sized systems), they all sort of match $30,000 for 12 kW.
With that kind of money put into solar, it stinks that they are useless when the grid is down.
$5,000 (before install) for a 3kW off-grid system. Multiply by 4, and that’s a 12kW system for $20,000 that works no matter what happens to the grid. (Say a SHTF for a week.)
But an off-grid system gets no grant, whereas a grid-tied system gets up to $8,000 grant.
And I found out that whatever credits you get on a grid-tied system, that’s “free” electricity (i.e. electricity 'banked" when overproducing that is returned when underproducing), so no charge for the electricity, but that energy is still taxed (so the extra electricity I produce, it is taxed when I get it back).
Too many things to think about.
I’ll be doing deep-diving into all of that this weekend.
How’s this for insulting:
How can net metering help reduce my NB Power bill?
Net metering may help reduce your NB Power bill since the output of your generation unit is used to offset your electricity consumption. You will be billed for the difference between the electricity NB Power delivers to you and the electricity your generation unit produces over the billing period. This is the “net amount” of electricity. You will always pay the monthly service charge and rental charges (if applicable) and HST must be applied to the total amount of electricity delivered.
So a grid-tied system that I pay to install, every kWh of electricity I use is free if it came from my (my system pushes electricity to the grid, and I’m using it). I don’t have to pay for those kWh’s. However, I do have to pay tax on the electricity my system put into the grid and I used.
Overall, adding off-grid solar to my house is a little bit more expensive (because of the batteries likely needing to be replaced every ten years), but not ridiculously more expensive for the benefit of having power when the grid is down.
That said, the combination of both means that you’ve got grid power when there’s no sun for several days.
Me not being a fan of having all my eggs in one basket, combining both systems it is !
Yes, it is not easy.
- This is only a consequence of laws, regulation or contracts it is technically possible, but ideally you would need at least enough storage to cover the outage.
- Letting ones electric car handle the outage would be a nice feature
Best of luck!
Pretty sure I"m going to set myself up with the two systems.
3 kW system for my fridge and hot air popcorn machine, and 10kW grid-tied system.
Best of all worlds. Bare-bones 3kW emergency power when the grid is down, and full grid power when we have a week of sunless weather.
Hamster-powered generator? Hmm …
I can’t figure out why storage isn’t cheaper than it is. ISTM that all you need to do for storage is to lift some heavy weights with any excess generated electricity, and then when it’s needed capture the energy of them descending. It’s probably somewhat inefficient: if nothing else, there’s friction in the lifting, but I would imagine that it should be fairly simple to implement. And fairly cheap.
However, I’m no engineer, and don’t even play one on TV.