Supply Chain Blah Blah Blah Blah

 We have now ordered and are awaiting:

• 200A Service Upgrade
• Home Battery Backup
• Span Smart Panel
• Electric Vehicle

I've spend tens of thousands of dollars but don't own anything yet. Kinda like an NFT.

Our Powerwall is going to cost an additional $16,400?!????

In 2019, we installed solar panels, which locked us into a particular utility rate (Net Metering 2.0) for 20 years. Great! 

In 2021, we ordered battery storage to add to our system. The Powerwall backorder is quite long, so we don't expect installation to complete until late 2022. Annoying, but I get it... supply chain, etc etc.

Last month, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) made a ruling that would, among other things, decrease the locked-in rates from 20 years to 15, and require that any new rooftop solar pay an additional $8 per KW per month.

To add insult to injury, adding a storage battery to an existing system is considered a "substantial update", which will trigger the new rates! 

So a battery we ordered last year and don't even have yet will cost us an additional and unexpected $8 * 9KW = $72 / month in perpetuity?!!

In other words, over the next 20 years, this battery is going to cost $16,400(!) more than we expected when we signed the contract.

If you're reading this, please call Gov Newsom and tell him that this is not OK, and that he needs to intervene to save rooftop solar.

Socializing an Induction Cooktop

Probably the last appliance to go in our house will be our gas stove. My wife is an amazing cook and LOVES her gas stove. We've got a fantastic 6 burner Viking and her (reasonable) perception of electric stoves are the old crappy coils from the 80s that we grew up with. It also works fine, so we're not super motivated to get rid of it, at least not this year.

But I do want to start socializing the idea of an induction cooktop... see what we like and don't like, what cookware we have and what we need, how much of "now you're cooking with gas" is actually better vs marketing campaigns, etc.

So to try it all out, we bought a portable, single burner, induction cooktop on Amazon for just $75. It plugs in and we can start trying it out next to our regular stove as part of the transition. 

It arrived yesterday so I'll post my experience in the coming days.

Update: aaaand none of our existing pots work. Sigh. Off to a rocky start convincing her this is the bright and shiny future we get to look forward to...

Adding Powerwall Batteries to Existing Solar

Earlier this year, Tesla stopped selling Powerwall batteries standalone... they currently only sell them to new solar customers.

We wanted to add storage to our home but we already have solar, so this was really disappointing to hear.

On a whim, I called SunPower, the company that installed our solar panels, and they told me that resellers/installers like them DO have access to batteries. So we were able to order our Powerwall batteries last month!

It's not all good news... the current estimate is 12-18 months(!) until they arrive. But at least it's in progress! More on our battery learnings in future posts.

Upgrading to 100% Renewable Grid Energy

One super easy change we made to get greener was transitioning to a renewable energy provider, in our case East Bay Community Energy. We did the same when we lived in NYC and we bought energy from Green Mountain Energy.

Changing energy providers away from the well-known and (relatively) trusted PG&E sounds scary. Why would you trust all the power in your home to a community provider that you've never heard of? That's what I thought, but it's not like that at all.

You see, PG&E is still delivers our energy. They repairs issues and send us our invoice. But the underlying electricity is provided by a 3rd party who purchases100% renewable energy from wind and solar. 

Making this change is WAY easier than it sounds to. You fill out a web form. There is no step 2.

In the form, I could choose 100% renewable for slightly more money, or a mix for slightly less. We went with the former. It's unfortunate that getting energy from EBCE (or similar community provider) is more expensive than  getting directly from PG&E. Having to pay a premium to switch to renewables -- with no change in lifestyle or performance -- is a shame, and hopefully this will change over time and come down in price. 

The be clear, the actual difference in our utility bill is completely negligible - literally pennies different (after our rooftop solar). But it's a bummer when trying to convince others to make the change. It's WAY easier to convince someone when the pitch it "and it's cheaper" or "and you'll have no change in price" and not "well... um... technically it's more expensive."

But this is such an easy change for anyone to make -- there's no reason not to make this change yourself today.

Sizing Our Solar Panels

We got solar panels last year. This was before we were on the whole #ElectrifyEverything kick, but we felt some time pressure:

• Tax Credit: We wanted to lock in the 26% tax credit before it decreased. The credit has since been extended, but we didn't know that at the time
• Lock in Utility Rate: Our utility, PG&E, was looking to make pricing changes, most notably around connectivity fees ($10 => ~$60), time-of-use rates (more expensive in the evenings), and the price they purchase excess solar back (it's dropping). We wanted to lock in the current rates/policies (Net Metering 2.0) for 15 years, which meant installing our system before Net Metering 3.0 gets passed. (as of this writing, the new regulations are still being decided. If you live in CA, call Gov Newsom and urge him to keep solar affordable)

That's the boring part. The more interesting part was how to size our solar panels AKA how many panels to get. (a note on sizing things being "the more interesting part": I personal like combinatorial optimization like the fixed-size knapsack problems. YMMV)

We went with SunPower (a very reputable CA solar installer. hit me up if you want an introduction). Our sales rep looked at our existing utility bills to help us size our system. The problem is, our life is almost entirely natural gas, so historical data was unhelpful.

Rather, we had to size our system based on probability that we would switch to electric, and when. 

There's a vast difference in the number of panels needed for our life today, and our future with 2 EVs, an electric jacuzzi heater, and more. But we didn't know when we would be switching everything over... it could be 10 years! So our payoff calculations change drastically if we oversize now but don't use it, or undersize now but transition to electric quickly. Upgrading later is possible, but without the same tax credits and paying for labor twice. Oh, and there are different manufacturers and photovoltaic density on panels, each with different costs. Another variable.

Aurora Solar, one of the really cool tools that installers use to estimate projects, just doesn't handle this much ambiguity from a customer. 

I quickly realized this was going to lead to an overconstrained series of equations, so I got all the ratings, metrics, and costs and plugged it into Google Sheets. 

In the end, we sized for 2 EVs and a hot tub. This was definitely overkill for 2021 but will likely serve us will in 2022 and 2023. It's likely too small for an all electric future, so we may want to revisit later as we upgrade appliances too. (Note: utilities buy power back at pennies on the dollar. It's not like you make a profit there. So an over-sized system is generally just wasteful)

Oh, and one interesting hack we found... newer panels are denser, which gives more energy per square foot. We have a very large roof, so the number of panels wasn't a concern for us. Turns out we could purchase more of the older, less dense panels for less money than fewer high density ones. It takes up more space on the roof, but we have plenty of room, so that seemed like a nice money saving trick. 

Conclusion: this stuff is remarkably hard to get right! Maybe I was overthinking some of this by trying to optimize carbon footprint with economic payback time, but sizing a system and laying out tens of thousands of dollars (or signing a financing contract) BEFORE you've electrified everything and your electricity bill is small (like ours today) is a tough leap of faith to make.

Our Service Upgrade: Municipal Utility Code and Zoning Regulations

Who clicks a link with that title? Seriously. That's literally the exact OPPOSITE of clickbait. 

We live in Oakland, CA and according to code, an electric meter (or main panel? or both? not sure) can't be within 3 feet of the gas meter. 

Our house was built before that regulation, so the meter is just 2 feet away. The electric meter is the box/circle right in the center, and the gas meter is the gray contraption in the lower right, next to the flower pot.

Replacing the 100A main panel with a 200A main will require moving the panel left so we can pass inspection. The astute observer will notice there isn't actually any enough additional space to slide the panel over!

The only option we currently envision is moving the panel left around to the FRONT of the house. There is probably enough clearance to put a meter here:

If that's do-able, then fine, that's our path forward. But a few questions and concerns here:

1. Can an electrical meter be that close to a window? One electrician said no, another said yes as long as it doesn't open (which it doesn't). So fingers crossed on this one.
2. Is there enough width? We measured and I think so, but it's gonna be close
3. Will Oakland zoning allow us put a meter on the front of the house? We contacted the city. This is allowed as long as it's obscured by landscaping or similar. So it's probably fine. 
4. Isn't it ugly to have a meter on the front of the house? Yup. Plus all the conduit running 200A wires. Ugh. We'll likely plant in front of it, so it shouldn't be too bad. Alternatively, if we get a Span meter, it's really well designed -- white and sexy -- which you can argue makes our house look a forward-thinking progressive home. I'll probably lean into that :-)
5. Isn't it going to cost more? Absolutely! That's the theme of this project, and should probably be the name of this blog. 

PS This post an example of this blog getting into our super specific circumstances. But I imagine everyone will have something like this.