Saving about U.S. $450 PER MONTH off Edenorte bill.
Sorry... long.
We put in 4 solar panels and a controller about 3 years ago as our back-up system for when Edenorte went out so we would not have to start our generator. Worked fine and at times I could cut off Edenorte and go on solar during the day only but Edenorte still did the bulk of the battery charging.
The thing is, we could never get our Edenorte bill down to anything reasonable. We would have both our guest apts occupied with full kitchens and all going. Our bill would be between $20K to 22K D.R. With the apts empty, shut down and only my wife and myself on the property we still had a problem getting down to 18K. NO one could explain why we are using around 65KWh per day.... even when I turned Edenorte off during the day the bill still showed the same averages and price.
With the new ?Smart Meters?, it became very easy to run around and turn things off and on and check the meter. I take readings every few hours and noted that with an 8 hour Edenorte black-out we had racked up 8KWh while Edenorte was off-line.
We installed 4 more solar panels so are primary power is from them and now Edenorte is our stand-by system with inverter pass-thru only when the batteries get low; no charging the batteries. If we do not have Edenorte power and the batteries are low, the generator takes over the load and charges the batteries. When the batteries are charged, the generator shuts down. The only thing that Edenorte powers is the pool pump for 5 hours a day (est. 1.5Kwh per hr.) and a wine cooler that will be switched over to the solar system soon.
We went solar the last week of last month the same day that the new ?Smart Meter? went in. With only ONE WEEK our Edenorte bill went from $20K to $8,500. That's a savings of about U.S. $308. (we think that Edenorte made a mistake and took the ?Smart Meter? reading and figured the whole month on that not knowing that we had changed to solar.)
I've had to read and re-read the Xantex and Outback manuals over and over and change setting countless times along with generator settings and getting more info about batteries. I ALMOST know what I'm doing.
So far for this month; August 17th, we have used 202KWh at a daily average of 11.5KWh vs the old +-65 per day. IF we can stay at our daily Edenorte usage, we should be around 345KWh for the month. That comes to less then: U.S. $63.00 vs the U.S. $515.00 old average. About a $452. savings PER MONTH. The 4 new panels should pay for themselves in about 8 months. NOT including the other 4 panels, controller, wire and installation but that should be paid for in another year NOT counting what they have provided already.
We did do other changes. Keep in mind that our Solar is for the 120VAC ONLY so Edenorte is still needed for the 220VAC pool pump. (Working on that too.)
12 AC unit breakers turned off.... at the breaker in the box.
Guest pool emptied for the summer, not needed. Our main pool is still in use.
ALL TV cable boxes and TVs put on a power strip that turns off completely with a button/switch.
Hot tub emptied for the summer and breakers off. To hot for the hot tub.
Guest micro waves, radios, clocks, WiFi units all unpluged. Nothing is on in the apts.
We don't use the ceiling fans anymore, only small portable ones that work fine. Turn off when leaving room.
Garden water pump breaker off, but we can still use the house pump that is on solar and we have just enough Coraplata to water the lawns with one hose.
Adjusted the coffee maker to turn off when coffee is made.
Unplug the cell phone and tooth brush chargers when not charging.
Puter screens dim after 1 minute and off after 5.
We really went around to squeeze every amp we could find to establish a base usage. (ede is NOT helping with the pop-up power usage that we DON'T USE.)
We have NOT really changed our life style much. Push a button to watch TV. Turn on a breaker if we need AC that we have not needed.
What we have:8 solar panels: Peak watts 210. Peak volts 28.7 Peak amps 7.32 EACH. (That is NOT what you will get.)
The last 4 came to about U.S. $3,500 installed. We already had the Outback controller ($700 ?) and all the wiring from before.
The controller gives all sorts of info and we are getting around 25 amps at noon. The inverter tells us that we are using 3 amps so the rest goes to charging the batteries. Avg. about 50 volts in the batteries at the end of the day and around 8Kwh for the day has been produced.
We do have a small AirX marine wind generator that also helps and paid for it's self a a few months. But not near enough amps to keep the batteries up. Just a trickle charge.
Xantrex 5548 plus inverter. (not made anymore) This controls everything and is a great unit.
4 banks of 6 volt batteries. 32 total batteries. Batteries are about 4 years old and I moved some around and took one back off line due to some bad cells. So 3 banks in service now.
Our Generator is a 50Kw that can suck up the fuel just fine and with the price of fuel @ U.S. $5.00 a gallon so we don't want to use the Generator unless absolutly needed. Even with a very lite load it uses 1.6 gallons per hour. Max is 4 gallons per hour.
We STILL see unexplained Edenorte spikes with nothing on. I'll turn off Edenorte at the generator transfer switch and STILL I'm using power. Seeing 4KWh show up with nothing on. This morning 11KWh showed up with nothing on. After a black-out, extra Kwh's show up with no power. I also can compare the meter readings with my generator output meters and my inverter meters. Funny how my generator and inverter figures match but the Edenorte meter is WAY off. Not too Smart.
Keep in mind that this is summer with strong sun and long days. Winter will up our Edenorte needs with more pass-thru elec needed since the batteries will not fully charge. Also winter guests will increase our power demand.
Now we are working on how did we EVER use 65KWh per day? Our atty and others are working on that AND the pop-up Kwh's that we are still getting. ?Smart meters? may NOT have been the smart thing for Edenorte to do; but I'm starting to love mine.
OK Windeguy. Have at it. I know you will find some boo boo's but the bottom line comes out the same. Lol.
Sorry... long.
We put in 4 solar panels and a controller about 3 years ago as our back-up system for when Edenorte went out so we would not have to start our generator. Worked fine and at times I could cut off Edenorte and go on solar during the day only but Edenorte still did the bulk of the battery charging.
The thing is, we could never get our Edenorte bill down to anything reasonable. We would have both our guest apts occupied with full kitchens and all going. Our bill would be between $20K to 22K D.R. With the apts empty, shut down and only my wife and myself on the property we still had a problem getting down to 18K. NO one could explain why we are using around 65KWh per day.... even when I turned Edenorte off during the day the bill still showed the same averages and price.
With the new ?Smart Meters?, it became very easy to run around and turn things off and on and check the meter. I take readings every few hours and noted that with an 8 hour Edenorte black-out we had racked up 8KWh while Edenorte was off-line.
We installed 4 more solar panels so are primary power is from them and now Edenorte is our stand-by system with inverter pass-thru only when the batteries get low; no charging the batteries. If we do not have Edenorte power and the batteries are low, the generator takes over the load and charges the batteries. When the batteries are charged, the generator shuts down. The only thing that Edenorte powers is the pool pump for 5 hours a day (est. 1.5Kwh per hr.) and a wine cooler that will be switched over to the solar system soon.
We went solar the last week of last month the same day that the new ?Smart Meter? went in. With only ONE WEEK our Edenorte bill went from $20K to $8,500. That's a savings of about U.S. $308. (we think that Edenorte made a mistake and took the ?Smart Meter? reading and figured the whole month on that not knowing that we had changed to solar.)
I've had to read and re-read the Xantex and Outback manuals over and over and change setting countless times along with generator settings and getting more info about batteries. I ALMOST know what I'm doing.
So far for this month; August 17th, we have used 202KWh at a daily average of 11.5KWh vs the old +-65 per day. IF we can stay at our daily Edenorte usage, we should be around 345KWh for the month. That comes to less then: U.S. $63.00 vs the U.S. $515.00 old average. About a $452. savings PER MONTH. The 4 new panels should pay for themselves in about 8 months. NOT including the other 4 panels, controller, wire and installation but that should be paid for in another year NOT counting what they have provided already.
We did do other changes. Keep in mind that our Solar is for the 120VAC ONLY so Edenorte is still needed for the 220VAC pool pump. (Working on that too.)
12 AC unit breakers turned off.... at the breaker in the box.
Guest pool emptied for the summer, not needed. Our main pool is still in use.
ALL TV cable boxes and TVs put on a power strip that turns off completely with a button/switch.
Hot tub emptied for the summer and breakers off. To hot for the hot tub.
Guest micro waves, radios, clocks, WiFi units all unpluged. Nothing is on in the apts.
We don't use the ceiling fans anymore, only small portable ones that work fine. Turn off when leaving room.
Garden water pump breaker off, but we can still use the house pump that is on solar and we have just enough Coraplata to water the lawns with one hose.
Adjusted the coffee maker to turn off when coffee is made.
Unplug the cell phone and tooth brush chargers when not charging.
Puter screens dim after 1 minute and off after 5.
We really went around to squeeze every amp we could find to establish a base usage. (ede is NOT helping with the pop-up power usage that we DON'T USE.)
We have NOT really changed our life style much. Push a button to watch TV. Turn on a breaker if we need AC that we have not needed.
What we have:8 solar panels: Peak watts 210. Peak volts 28.7 Peak amps 7.32 EACH. (That is NOT what you will get.)
The last 4 came to about U.S. $3,500 installed. We already had the Outback controller ($700 ?) and all the wiring from before.
The controller gives all sorts of info and we are getting around 25 amps at noon. The inverter tells us that we are using 3 amps so the rest goes to charging the batteries. Avg. about 50 volts in the batteries at the end of the day and around 8Kwh for the day has been produced.
We do have a small AirX marine wind generator that also helps and paid for it's self a a few months. But not near enough amps to keep the batteries up. Just a trickle charge.
Xantrex 5548 plus inverter. (not made anymore) This controls everything and is a great unit.
4 banks of 6 volt batteries. 32 total batteries. Batteries are about 4 years old and I moved some around and took one back off line due to some bad cells. So 3 banks in service now.
Our Generator is a 50Kw that can suck up the fuel just fine and with the price of fuel @ U.S. $5.00 a gallon so we don't want to use the Generator unless absolutly needed. Even with a very lite load it uses 1.6 gallons per hour. Max is 4 gallons per hour.
We STILL see unexplained Edenorte spikes with nothing on. I'll turn off Edenorte at the generator transfer switch and STILL I'm using power. Seeing 4KWh show up with nothing on. This morning 11KWh showed up with nothing on. After a black-out, extra Kwh's show up with no power. I also can compare the meter readings with my generator output meters and my inverter meters. Funny how my generator and inverter figures match but the Edenorte meter is WAY off. Not too Smart.
Keep in mind that this is summer with strong sun and long days. Winter will up our Edenorte needs with more pass-thru elec needed since the batteries will not fully charge. Also winter guests will increase our power demand.
Now we are working on how did we EVER use 65KWh per day? Our atty and others are working on that AND the pop-up Kwh's that we are still getting. ?Smart meters? may NOT have been the smart thing for Edenorte to do; but I'm starting to love mine.
OK Windeguy. Have at it. I know you will find some boo boo's but the bottom line comes out the same. Lol.