Direct solar charging with Solaredge

EDIT: I did not want to start another tread. I changed the title to reflect the new direction that my solar investigation took me. Please see (my) post #5.

I start looking into solar system and just found out that for a system that is manufactured in WA state the utility (in WA State) will buy your power at $0.54 per kWh (gets up to $1.08 for community projects ). I will research this more but, if true, a 10kW system will get you $5000 (max limit) back every year. The initial cost will be around $40000 and after federal tax credit $27000. In six years, the system will pay for itself (if rules do not change).

Does anybody have any more info on this? Does it really work this way?

Are there any solar panels manufactured in WA? :lol:

I found two manufacturers of panels in WA:
Itek Energy
and
Silicon Energy

It does look like you get paid $0.54 per kW for what you put out to the system, for out of state manufacturers is $0.15 per kW.

I need to find out how much they cost and see if it is worth the extra cost compared to out of state.

I would prefer a ground installation with adjustable tilt for a few reasons:
- more power generation by manually adjusting the tilt once ... a month
- easier to DYI
- less grass left mow

Can you still get the federal tax credit if you do a DYI ground installation?

The incentives are indeed that high (I got my 2nd payout since installing my system in early 2010).

10 kW peak power for $40k or $4 per watt installed seems to be a
very low estimate...my recent inquiries showed numbers closer to $8-9/watt and I have been told
that most of that is actually hardware cost, so DIY will not help much to lower the cost.

The best you can expect (if you have a professional installer putting up the system) is a nominal ROI in 10 years.
Keep in mind that the Washington state incentives are set to expire in June 2020.

Adjusting the angle will not give you much, maybe 10-20%, but its not worth bothering.
Getting a big system will help, because of economies of scale..If you decide to get one, get the largest possible.
I think the incentives/tax credits are independent of who installs the system, so DIY should work also.

The only risks involved are the legislature (which could ax the incentives, but not very likely) and the weather up here...but my experience with my system so far is that I get ~ 3800 kWH out of a 4kW system. Since its battery backed up, it is a little less efficient than a pure grid tied system, so 1000 kW per kW installed is a realistic estimate.

I looked into solar panels before for our house, and unfortunately at the time with the trees around us it really wasn't worth the cost. However now that we've had to take out two of the offending trees, and the incentives are better, I should take another look again.

HOWEVER, I have a question regarding whether it's actually a good idea in Washington State anyway. I mean, we have a very high percentage of our generated power coming from Hydro and Nuclear, and several rapidly growing wind farms. Very little coal. Combine that with extremely cheap power rates, and SHOULD we really be getting all those incentives?

My PSE bill basically comes down to about $0.090 - $0.095 per kWh on average, primarily renewable energy. Should I be entitled to getting back $0.54/kWh for installing solar panels? It's not like it's really PSE's money, that's got to be coming from taxpayers in some way, right? I mean, I'm all for supporting the industry, and local jobs for the locally-produced panels, but it doesn't sit completely well with me.

Am I missing something? What would be the ENVIRONMENTAL reasons for installing solar panels on your home in Washington?

Don't get me wrong, there are other benefits. If you're going to have the system a long time it can pay for itself and start making a profit (after a large up front cost, that takes a while). It can also shade your house in the summer (sun hitting the panels rather than heating up your roof) meaning a cooler house without AC. It's a tech toy (which is always a big plus in my book). You're showing support for the industry and local jobs (if you buy local manufactured panels). I'm just wondering if it's really the right thing to do.

blorg said:

Am I missing something? What would be the ENVIRONMENTAL reasons for installing solar panels on your home in Washington?

Don't get me wrong, there are other benefits. If you're going to have the system a long time it can pay for itself and start making a profit (after a large up front cost, that takes a while). It can also shade your house in the summer (sun hitting the panels rather than heating up your roof) meaning a cooler house without AC. It's a tech toy (which is always a big plus in my book). You're showing support for the industry and local jobs (if you buy local manufactured panels). I'm just wondering if it's really the right thing to do.

Click to expand...

About the incentives: I think its ok, because as you said, we are supporting a local industry. That is what incentives are for.

Money-wise
I pondered this for a long time...Moneywise it is NOT a wise move, but no a terrible either. If I recoup say a $30k investment in solar panels over a 10 year period (and make ~ 400-500 $ (not corrected for inflation) annually after the incentives run out , thanks to the ridiculously low electricity cost here (tier 1 is just 0.046 c/kWH for me)), this cannot by any means beat putting that same amount of money into my mortgage (which would earn me the equivalent of my mortgage interest rate on the $30k for the duration oft he mortgage) or into even mediocre investment vehicle earning say 4% a year.

If you assume that rate of return, then the solar panels would have to make $44k after 10 years to break even...Ok, you would still have the material value of the panels, but I doubt that people will appreciate this and reflect in e.g. a higher value of my house. I had an appraisal at the beginning of 2011 and the solar panels did add exactly 0$ to the value...
But as you say, its a cool tech-toy, nominally, you can still get your investment back in Washington State over 10 years, and there is still the possibility that energy prices will go up significantly at which point maybe the panels can compete with Wall Street...

Then of course there is the long term value, which will hopefully benefit my children and grandchildren, a world as nice to live in as I will hopefully have had it in my lifetime.


About the environmental impact:

1)The region is growing, so there is real need for more energy...maybe not right now, but as soon as the economy picks up things might change. For every kWH produced right now with solar, the coal powered plants can run a little less than they would have to otherwise.

2) I increased my annual electricity consumption by ~ 2000 kWH due to the LEAF, which is offset by the solar panels. So the car is really CO2 neutral.

3) Eventually the powergrid in the US will be modernized and exchange of excess energy between the local networks will become easier than it is now and then it wont matter if there is a glut of green energy in the Northwest, because this can then be used to truly offset "dirty" energy production elsewhere.

While looking at solar options and wanting to achieve my goal of being able to charge the Leaf when grid is down, I found a note about "Solaredge" optimizers.

"I asked the SolarEdge engineer at a convention last week about how the powerboxes control their output. It is pretty tricky as there is no continuous communication with the main inverter and they essentially sense the string impedance and autonomously stay in balance with it. If the string voltage goes too high then the inverter turns on harder increasing the string current to compensate. Then the power boxes sense the bigger load and turn on harder as well which increases their current for a lower voltage."

It looks to me that it should be easy enough to make this constant DC voltage output of the array to charge the leaf battery (ignoring the communication). The battery can easily handle most of the home arrays outputs, how many of us have more than a 50 kW array. All the car will have to do is give the impedance that is required by the optimizers to give the right voltage (until higher SOC when the current needs to be lower). Can a device like this fit in the car?
Anybody have any thoughts about it?

Even with the cheaper prices of power in Washington and Oregon we are still competitive for power costs with as little as 0 down mainly because of the rebates offered there.

As for ground mounts, be careful on these, depending on the territory they can be expensive to install due to the permitting required for the structure itself.

camasleaf said:

EDIT: I did not want to start another tread. I changed the title to reflect the new direction that my solar investigation took me. . . . .snip

Click to expand...

From the title, I thought you were going to discuss DC PV power directly fed to the traction pack (like engineer is doing). I'm workign on spoofing my 2 inverters into seeing grid power when none is available ... but being off topic, apparently, I'll carry on elsewhere.


.

hill said:

camasleaf said:

EDIT: I did not want to start another tread. I changed the title to reflect the new direction that my solar investigation took me. . . . .snip

Click to expand...

From the title, I thought you were going to discuss DC PV power directly fed to the traction pack (like engineer is doing). I'm workign on spoofing my 2 inverters into seeing grid power when none is available ... but being off topic, apparently, I'll carry on elsewhere.


.

Click to expand...

I should have started another thread. But yes, while looking to solar panels it crossed my mind that we have a high voltage DC source on the roof. But after more reading looks like the PV panels are more a current source then voltage. I thought that Solaredge modules might help. They seemed to change their current so that the voltage at the inverter stays constant. I believe that is an important step in that will not need to be done on the DC charger for the car. The result would be a cheaper/smaller charger, while the PV system cost will not increase much.

Is there a tread where engineer is talking about putting DC PV directly to the battery? I can not find it.

No ... he's simply (not simple though) charging direct to the pack - bypassing the Chademo connector altogether ... but the source is not PV.

Can the LEAF (theoretically?) be trickle-charged directly from a PV array bypassing the grid? Or, is that wishful thinking with all the battery controls loaded into the LEAF software?

Post subject: Re: Direct solar charging with Solaredge

Im very interested in this type of PV 2 EV charging where the PV DC current is used
to charge the DC batteries.
I haven't seen anything out there that does it. Someone must b e doing it. the question is,
'Is it cost effective'?

blorg said:

HOWEVER, I have a question regarding whether it's actually a good idea in Washington State anyway. I mean, we have a very high percentage of our generated power coming from Hydro and Nuclear, and several rapidly growing wind farms. Very little coal. Combine that with extremely cheap power rates, and SHOULD we really be getting all those incentives?

My PSE bill basically comes down to about $0.090 - $0.095 per kWh on average, primarily renewable energy. Should I be entitled to getting back $0.54/kWh for installing solar panels? It's not like it's really PSE's money, that's got to be coming from taxpayers in some way, right? I mean, I'm all for supporting the industry, and local jobs for the locally-produced panels, but it doesn't sit completely well with me.

Am I missing something? What would be the ENVIRONMENTAL reasons for installing solar panels on your home in Washington?

Click to expand...

Have you looked at where PSE gets its power? I take you haven't since you said very little coal.... The majority of PSE power comes from burning fossil fuels.

Installing solar PV does good things in Washington just like everywhere First it encourages the alternative energy industry and it means more alternative energy is being produced which means less fossil fuel has to be burnt to generate electricity.

The 54 cents is coming directly from tax payers through the state of Washington. The reasoning behind it is to promote jobs/economy in the State of WA as well as promote the benefits alternative energy for society in general. I'm not much of a fan of it either, although the 15 cent production credit is what really pushed my installation into a break even time frame that I was comfortable with.

Phoenix said:

Can the LEAF (theoretically?) be trickle-charged directly from a PV array bypassing the grid? Or, is that wishful thinking with all the battery controls loaded into the LEAF software?

Click to expand...

The question is unclear . . . which are you asking:
1- can Leaf DC trickle charge w/out the grid?
2- can Leaf AC trickle charge w/out the grid?

both are possible if you have the time / know-how / moola
but you better have a lot of all 3

.

hill said:

Phoenix said:

Can the LEAF (theoretically?) be trickle-charged directly from a PV array bypassing the grid? Or, is that wishful thinking with all the battery controls loaded into the LEAF software?

Click to expand...

The question is unclear . . . which are you asking:
1- can Leaf DC trickle charge w/out the grid?
2- can Leaf AC trickle charge w/out the grid?

both are possible if you have the time / know-how / moola
but you better have a lot of all 3

.

Click to expand...

Without the grid, I am asking re DC to DC into the LEAF's battery bank. If technology advances fast enough, might be worthwhile to get another LEAF for backup charging while using the fully charged one.

I know it is an old tread, but I finally ordered the solar panels. 22 panels (a pallet), 285W with maximum power at 36.08V. When I divided them in two strings it came down to 396.88V and immediately remembered this tread. Hey, I could almost just connect them to the battery without a charger

Somebody, and we know who, should work on a solution to get the panels to charge the battery directly if the grid is down. It just makes sense. Did anybody see anything out there that can do this? And be a grid tie inverter in the same time?