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I took advantage of the IRA solar power and $7500 EV credit, now I have an off grid home all electric appliances and excess power for hot tubs and EV's. The For

I took advantage of the IRA solar power and $7500 EV credit, now I have an off grid home all electric appliances and excess power for hot tubs and EV's. The Ford Lightning acts as a generator. This was the greatest most life changing and impactful legistlation ever: I've had $0 (ZERO!) in gasoline, LP, and electric utility bills since installation last year.

max2 2y ago
May I ask what state are you in?
solardev 2y ago
Does your state pay you retail for your production? And have you gotten your first annual true up bill yet? That setup is a dream for a lot of people, but it's not always easy to make happen depending on state regulations (and how powerful the utilities there are)...
- epistasis 2y ago
  > I have an off grid home Seems like the utilities aren't involved at all? Cheap storage actually makes grid defection a possibility for a ton of people these days. Especially when you start considering the cost of upgrading 100 amp service to 200 amp or similar. Once you've added a bit of battery, might as well go a bit more, and use your vehicle for additional backup when necessary. People having 70kWh or more of mobile battery in the garage is going to change the calculation for a lot of people. Many people who would never install solar unless it saves them money will also spend a tooooooon of money on a big truck for aesthetic reasons, and then find that it makes solar a cheaper propositon.
  - solardev 2y ago
    Haha sorry! I totally missed that important sentence. Thanks for pointing it out.
- GratiaTerra 2y ago
  I disconnected from the grid entirely so there is no bill. Since the local power company here is only paying 10 cents per kw for solar power (which they resell at greater profit), I decided to run a small crypo miner and I still have excess power on a 22kw system. I don't know of anywhere where its not legal to be solar powered but there were several thousand in costs associated with engineer plans and permits.
  - jerkstate 2y ago
    > Since the local power company here is only paying 10 cents per kw for solar power (which they resell at greater profit) I think this is a common reason for disappointment in solar incentives. At least half of your power bill pays for transmission, and the half that pays for generation needs to be constructed such that the overall supply must meet the demand at all times, rather than simply supplying a number of kWh per day regardless of instantaneous demand. You can’t consider the “price” per kWh that you pay commercially to be the value of supplying a kWh to the grid, it’s much more likely that the utility is making a (subsidized) loss paying you 10c per solar kWh.
    - epistasis 2y ago
      I'm not fully sold on this reasoning. Electricity on the local distribution node has a value equal to the cost of generation plus the distribution. That's the value of it, what we pay. So by supplying the kWh locally to neighbors, the grid costs have been avoided. But the value is still the same. Now, the T&D infrastructure has already been built, and the utility wants to get paid no matter what, but if they were a private company and not a monopoly, they wouldn't have a right to get compensated for their investment no matter what, because every company buys capital at risk. And that's for the good of the economy. There needs to be some sort of forcing function to incentivize this cheaper form of power delivery, that avoids a lot of transmission and distribution costs. And that forcing function is the price that we pay those who generate the electricity. The utility of course loses on every kWh they don't generate, because they want to sell more electricity. However, since they have a monopoly, we need other regulation to ensure that innovation that results in lower overall costs actually results in lower prices for consumers. So far, the utilities have snowed the public and the PUCs such that they get away with murder on this transition. We need a grid, but we do not need the utility. And if the utility can not come up with a business model that works as a regulated monopoly when we have local generation, then we need to change the regulatory model, most likely eliminating the monopoly. There's a lot to learn from Texas here for the rest of the country.
barbazoo 2y ago
Plus you reduced your GHG emissions considerably too probably!
- dowager_dan99 2y ago
  this is a good example of how individuals are fine to do things for the public good when they are consequential or at least compatible with the things in their best interest. We're willing to self sacrifice only so (and not very) far, so need to apply that goodwill very strategically. Another example: I commute by bike everyday, not because it's cheaper, healthy good for the environment (even though these are all true), but because I love it and it's so enjoyable - even it winter. Screw with the roads, or traffic patterns, or waste my property taxes, or neglect the bikes paths and snow removal enough and I'll either stop or move.
fsckboy 2y ago
[flagged]
- NotSammyHagar 2y ago
  You should be downvoted for your last comment too! Or at least someone could explain the world we live in. Is it confiscatory to have public schools, funded by your taxes, fsck guy (you do have a great handle...)? How about publicly funded (by our taxes too) police and fire protection? Uh, govt funding to help pay for hospitals? Food inspection, are you crazy you might say, the perfectly working markets of our paradise make this not a necessity. People will self report when the water has contaminants - maybe? Now let's add significantly reducing your own greenhouse gas impact for 20 or 30 years after you buy the demon solar panels (made from dead babies, some right thinking american might say), then putting your own excess electricity on the grid, further reducing fossil fuel generation. So in all thoses cases, that dastardly helpful socialism is for the public good.
  - fsckboy 2y ago
    you need to read up on the economics of "public goods", other people have thought this through before you. In a nutshell, police and fire protection benefit everyone, because if your neighbor has low crime or low chance of fire spreading, that also benefits you, so it makes sense to include everyone in the plan. But while the $7500 was paid for by everybody else, the only person with the $0 electric bill is GP, which does not have any fairness property. The socialist mantra "from those with the ability" includes GP who has the ability to pay for this so that other people's needs can be met.
    - NotSammyHagar 2y ago
      The police force in the next city doesn't really benefit me, so F them, right? Reducing greenhouse gases and the price of electricity (such as from super cheap customer provided solar power on the grid during the day) actually does benefit me and every other electricity consumer. Some conservatives are really stuck on the $7500 rebate, they are so excited to maintain our existing industrial base. They are in extreme denial about the public subsidies of the oil industry industrial complex, when we offer something visible for an EV they lose all reason. All those other public goods were paid by everyone who pays taxes but many people don't benefit from them. Say an elderly retired person doesn't benefit from educating kids, because they are kicking the bucket in the next few years, burn it all down behind them, they might say, reduce my taxes now.
asciimov 2y ago
It's too bad that the only people benefiting from all green power subsidies are the people that least need them. We should be investing solar in lower income communities, as those people could really use cheaper utilities, and any saving they get would immediately go back into their communities.
- solarpunk 2y ago
  >We should be investing solar in lower income communities, as those people could really use cheaper utilities, and any saving they get would immediately go back into their communities. Good news, these are called "community solar gardens" and they exist all around the USA, here's a large one based in Minneapolis: https://www.cooperativeenergyfutures.com/ https://www.cooperativeenergyfutures.com/
  - hedora 2y ago
    Community net monitoring isn’t allowed in California. Instead, PG&E let the grid fall apart, so now they’re charging crippling amounts of money to people that can’t afford solar. On the one hand, with the help of subsidies, our house is off-grid capable, and our power bill is $0-50. On the other hand, there’s a red-tagged neighborhood near by (they built homes despite not having power grid access), and they usually end up having a generator fire take out a few houses every couple of years. Anyway, I really wish California had a second political party (not the GOP).
    - r00fus 2y ago
      PG&E is a factor in net emigration out of CA. Agreed single-party-controlled states are full of inefficiency (aka corruption).
      - entropicdrifter 2y ago
        On the other hand, living in a purple state doesn't necessarily help with corruption either. I live in PA and we had billions "go missing" from our Department of Transportation over the course of over a little over a decade. Things have improved in the last like 6 years or so, but we had to get to the point where our bridges were crumbling and just having permanent detours setup around them first before people really got on a crusade about properly fixing our roads. Josh Shapiro's done a bang-up job actually properly allocating the funds we managed to get from the big infrastructure bill, but that's been a major change from how things have been for the last 30 years I've lived here.
bluecalm 2y ago
What do you use for energy storage and how much can you store? When we were considering solar panel solution for our small apartment complex that was the major cost and the reason we decided against a few years ago.
- NotSammyHagar 2y ago
  It's getting cheaper all the time, look at tesla powerwalls and many other companies are using them. But the really cheap thing to do it get an older EV like a leaf, they are much much less per kwh than standalone cars.
SoftTalker 2y ago
It's great now but when it starts to degrade and needs maintenance and replacement that's now entirely your problem, there is no utility with a huge staff of electricians and linesmen ready to deal with that on a sub-zero winter day or in the middle of a rainy night.
- jebarker 2y ago
  With this kind of setup you can stay connected to the grid. In the event that your solar and storage fail unexpectedly you can still pay for grid electricity.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    The grid you've been refusing to pay to support for years, that grid is going to be your backup?
    - jebarker 2y ago
      You still pay service fees to maintain a grid connection. Not to mention that many people with these setups contribute excess generation back to the grid or allow their batteries to discharged by the grid during demand spikes.
      - vel0city 2y ago
        A lot of those service fees were designed to scale with the amount of electricity used. If you've got a net metered bill chances are you haven't really been paying much for service fees. I don't know anyone who bothers discharging their home batteries to the grid. The rates they get wouldn't cover the cost of the wear and tear to their batteries.
        jebarker 2y ago
        I am part of a plan that discharges my batteries to the grid. I don't initiate this happening, it is based on a pull from the grid upto 60 times per year when demand is high. Full disclosure that I received a rebate on my batteries for allowing this. Also, I just checked my bills and my service fees are a flat amount independent of how much electricity I pull from the grid.
hedora 2y ago
The thing is, we paid $50,000 to drive a brand new, mid trim line kia 99kwh ev9 off the lot. It supposedly will also support V2H with an upcoming update. They’re moving production of that model to Georgia, for what it’s worth. Anyway, the lightning looks great. It’s definitely a tempting replacement for our ICE truck.
- GseLlc 2y ago
  It’s an amazing truck and you’ll never go back to ICE!
- r00fus 2y ago
  There was a recent article about Kia reconsidering the EV9 factory line in GA since the incoming Trump admin is likely to squash the IRA/BBB stuff Biden set up - specifically the $7500 tax credit for EVs. As an EV6 owner I strongly considered the EV9 - which apparently fixes some of the annoyances of the EV6 and other eGMP vehicles.
- xattt 2y ago
  I’m conflicted about buying Kia again. I’ve got a recent model Sorento and the dealer where I have to take it is dogshit. I say I have to, because the next dealer is a $50 bridge toll and 2-hour drive away. I’ve been charged for things that should be under warranty. They refused to do a permanent fix for a recall after they did a temporary fix. Dealing with corporate is an exercise in being gaslit and living in a Kafkaesque nightmare. Kia and possibly Hyundai are in purgatory right now: they’re innovating and making cars that no one else is. Their dealer network, however, can have some sleazy used car sales personalities and make for a terrible experience that can ruin your week. Pick your poison.
laidoffamazon 2y ago
Unfortunately due to recent events this will likely be nearly fully repealed for anybody that might be interested in doing this in the future.

max2 2y ago

May I ask what state are you in?

solardev 2y ago

Does your state pay you retail for your production? And have you gotten your first annual true up bill yet? That setup is a dream for a lot of people, but it's not always easy to make happen depending on state regulations (and how powerful the utilities there are)...

epistasis 2y ago
> I have an off grid home Seems like the utilities aren't involved at all? Cheap storage actually makes grid defection a possibility for a ton of people these days. Especially when you start considering the cost of upgrading 100 amp service to 200 amp or similar. Once you've added a bit of battery, might as well go a bit more, and use your vehicle for additional backup when necessary. People having 70kWh or more of mobile battery in the garage is going to change the calculation for a lot of people. Many people who would never install solar unless it saves them money will also spend a tooooooon of money on a big truck for aesthetic reasons, and then find that it makes solar a cheaper propositon.
- solardev 2y ago
  Haha sorry! I totally missed that important sentence. Thanks for pointing it out.
GratiaTerra 2y ago
I disconnected from the grid entirely so there is no bill. Since the local power company here is only paying 10 cents per kw for solar power (which they resell at greater profit), I decided to run a small crypo miner and I still have excess power on a 22kw system. I don't know of anywhere where its not legal to be solar powered but there were several thousand in costs associated with engineer plans and permits.
- jerkstate 2y ago
  > Since the local power company here is only paying 10 cents per kw for solar power (which they resell at greater profit) I think this is a common reason for disappointment in solar incentives. At least half of your power bill pays for transmission, and the half that pays for generation needs to be constructed such that the overall supply must meet the demand at all times, rather than simply supplying a number of kWh per day regardless of instantaneous demand. You can’t consider the “price” per kWh that you pay commercially to be the value of supplying a kWh to the grid, it’s much more likely that the utility is making a (subsidized) loss paying you 10c per solar kWh.
  - epistasis 2y ago
    I'm not fully sold on this reasoning. Electricity on the local distribution node has a value equal to the cost of generation plus the distribution. That's the value of it, what we pay. So by supplying the kWh locally to neighbors, the grid costs have been avoided. But the value is still the same. Now, the T&D infrastructure has already been built, and the utility wants to get paid no matter what, but if they were a private company and not a monopoly, they wouldn't have a right to get compensated for their investment no matter what, because every company buys capital at risk. And that's for the good of the economy. There needs to be some sort of forcing function to incentivize this cheaper form of power delivery, that avoids a lot of transmission and distribution costs. And that forcing function is the price that we pay those who generate the electricity. The utility of course loses on every kWh they don't generate, because they want to sell more electricity. However, since they have a monopoly, we need other regulation to ensure that innovation that results in lower overall costs actually results in lower prices for consumers. So far, the utilities have snowed the public and the PUCs such that they get away with murder on this transition. We need a grid, but we do not need the utility. And if the utility can not come up with a business model that works as a regulated monopoly when we have local generation, then we need to change the regulatory model, most likely eliminating the monopoly. There's a lot to learn from Texas here for the rest of the country.

barbazoo 2y ago

Plus you reduced your GHG emissions considerably too probably!

dowager_dan99 2y ago
this is a good example of how individuals are fine to do things for the public good when they are consequential or at least compatible with the things in their best interest. We're willing to self sacrifice only so (and not very) far, so need to apply that goodwill very strategically. Another example: I commute by bike everyday, not because it's cheaper, healthy good for the environment (even though these are all true), but because I love it and it's so enjoyable - even it winter. Screw with the roads, or traffic patterns, or waste my property taxes, or neglect the bikes paths and snow removal enough and I'll either stop or move.

fsckboy 2y ago

[flagged]

NotSammyHagar 2y ago
You should be downvoted for your last comment too! Or at least someone could explain the world we live in. Is it confiscatory to have public schools, funded by your taxes, fsck guy (you do have a great handle...)? How about publicly funded (by our taxes too) police and fire protection? Uh, govt funding to help pay for hospitals? Food inspection, are you crazy you might say, the perfectly working markets of our paradise make this not a necessity. People will self report when the water has contaminants - maybe? Now let's add significantly reducing your own greenhouse gas impact for 20 or 30 years after you buy the demon solar panels (made from dead babies, some right thinking american might say), then putting your own excess electricity on the grid, further reducing fossil fuel generation. So in all thoses cases, that dastardly helpful socialism is for the public good.
- fsckboy 2y ago
  you need to read up on the economics of "public goods", other people have thought this through before you. In a nutshell, police and fire protection benefit everyone, because if your neighbor has low crime or low chance of fire spreading, that also benefits you, so it makes sense to include everyone in the plan. But while the $7500 was paid for by everybody else, the only person with the $0 electric bill is GP, which does not have any fairness property. The socialist mantra "from those with the ability" includes GP who has the ability to pay for this so that other people's needs can be met.
  - NotSammyHagar 2y ago
    The police force in the next city doesn't really benefit me, so F them, right? Reducing greenhouse gases and the price of electricity (such as from super cheap customer provided solar power on the grid during the day) actually does benefit me and every other electricity consumer. Some conservatives are really stuck on the $7500 rebate, they are so excited to maintain our existing industrial base. They are in extreme denial about the public subsidies of the oil industry industrial complex, when we offer something visible for an EV they lose all reason. All those other public goods were paid by everyone who pays taxes but many people don't benefit from them. Say an elderly retired person doesn't benefit from educating kids, because they are kicking the bucket in the next few years, burn it all down behind them, they might say, reduce my taxes now.

asciimov 2y ago

It's too bad that the only people benefiting from all green power subsidies are the people that least need them. We should be investing solar in lower income communities, as those people could really use cheaper utilities, and any saving they get would immediately go back into their communities.

solarpunk 2y ago
>We should be investing solar in lower income communities, as those people could really use cheaper utilities, and any saving they get would immediately go back into their communities. Good news, these are called "community solar gardens" and they exist all around the USA, here's a large one based in Minneapolis: https://www.cooperativeenergyfutures.com/ https://www.cooperativeenergyfutures.com/
- hedora 2y ago
  Community net monitoring isn’t allowed in California. Instead, PG&E let the grid fall apart, so now they’re charging crippling amounts of money to people that can’t afford solar. On the one hand, with the help of subsidies, our house is off-grid capable, and our power bill is $0-50. On the other hand, there’s a red-tagged neighborhood near by (they built homes despite not having power grid access), and they usually end up having a generator fire take out a few houses every couple of years. Anyway, I really wish California had a second political party (not the GOP).
  - r00fus 2y ago
    PG&E is a factor in net emigration out of CA. Agreed single-party-controlled states are full of inefficiency (aka corruption).
    - entropicdrifter 2y ago
      On the other hand, living in a purple state doesn't necessarily help with corruption either. I live in PA and we had billions "go missing" from our Department of Transportation over the course of over a little over a decade. Things have improved in the last like 6 years or so, but we had to get to the point where our bridges were crumbling and just having permanent detours setup around them first before people really got on a crusade about properly fixing our roads. Josh Shapiro's done a bang-up job actually properly allocating the funds we managed to get from the big infrastructure bill, but that's been a major change from how things have been for the last 30 years I've lived here.

bluecalm 2y ago

What do you use for energy storage and how much can you store? When we were considering solar panel solution for our small apartment complex that was the major cost and the reason we decided against a few years ago.

NotSammyHagar 2y ago
It's getting cheaper all the time, look at tesla powerwalls and many other companies are using them. But the really cheap thing to do it get an older EV like a leaf, they are much much less per kwh than standalone cars.

SoftTalker 2y ago

It's great now but when it starts to degrade and needs maintenance and replacement that's now entirely your problem, there is no utility with a huge staff of electricians and linesmen ready to deal with that on a sub-zero winter day or in the middle of a rainy night.

jebarker 2y ago
With this kind of setup you can stay connected to the grid. In the event that your solar and storage fail unexpectedly you can still pay for grid electricity.
- vel0city 2y ago
  The grid you've been refusing to pay to support for years, that grid is going to be your backup?
  - jebarker 2y ago
    You still pay service fees to maintain a grid connection. Not to mention that many people with these setups contribute excess generation back to the grid or allow their batteries to discharged by the grid during demand spikes.
    - vel0city 2y ago
      A lot of those service fees were designed to scale with the amount of electricity used. If you've got a net metered bill chances are you haven't really been paying much for service fees. I don't know anyone who bothers discharging their home batteries to the grid. The rates they get wouldn't cover the cost of the wear and tear to their batteries.
      - jebarker 2y ago
        I am part of a plan that discharges my batteries to the grid. I don't initiate this happening, it is based on a pull from the grid upto 60 times per year when demand is high. Full disclosure that I received a rebate on my batteries for allowing this. Also, I just checked my bills and my service fees are a flat amount independent of how much electricity I pull from the grid.

hedora 2y ago

The thing is, we paid $50,000 to drive a brand new, mid trim line kia 99kwh ev9 off the lot. It supposedly will also support V2H with an upcoming update. They’re moving production of that model to Georgia, for what it’s worth. Anyway, the lightning looks great. It’s definitely a tempting replacement for our ICE truck.

GseLlc 2y ago
It’s an amazing truck and you’ll never go back to ICE!
r00fus 2y ago
There was a recent article about Kia reconsidering the EV9 factory line in GA since the incoming Trump admin is likely to squash the IRA/BBB stuff Biden set up - specifically the $7500 tax credit for EVs. As an EV6 owner I strongly considered the EV9 - which apparently fixes some of the annoyances of the EV6 and other eGMP vehicles.
xattt 2y ago
I’m conflicted about buying Kia again. I’ve got a recent model Sorento and the dealer where I have to take it is dogshit. I say I have to, because the next dealer is a $50 bridge toll and 2-hour drive away. I’ve been charged for things that should be under warranty. They refused to do a permanent fix for a recall after they did a temporary fix. Dealing with corporate is an exercise in being gaslit and living in a Kafkaesque nightmare. Kia and possibly Hyundai are in purgatory right now: they’re innovating and making cars that no one else is. Their dealer network, however, can have some sleazy used car sales personalities and make for a terrible experience that can ruin your week. Pick your poison.

laidoffamazon 2y ago

Unfortunately due to recent events this will likely be nearly fully repealed for anybody that might be interested in doing this in the future.