I tried for a couple of years to find a contractor to install solar electric panels on my roof. In July 2018 I got an estimate from PPC Solar, but at that time our utility Kit Carson Electric Coop (KCEC) was paying retail to residential customers with solar panels. Because retail electric price does not cover the administrative and distribution costs, the rich who can afford solar panels were being subsidized by the poor, who cannot afford the investment.
The coop has since changed, and now pays only wholesale for power it buys from residences. KCEC also changed providers to one with primarily renewable sources (wind and solar) and also has installed a number of large solar panel arrays around Taos County. We are now 100% solar at mid-day in summer.
Last month my bill (net of administrative and distribution costs) was only $5 for electricity! KCEC is nearly 100% mid-day solar. [An anomaly.] This does not make investing in solar financially worthwhile. However, if I combine the solar generation with battery storage, I can reduce the load on KCEC. Most of my electric use I suspect is heating early morning and evening in winter, when the sun is not shining. My use of gas is very small in summer. I estimate that I use about 14 kWh of power to heat my house overnight — based on gas use and the time that my 80,000 BTU/Hr furnace runs in the morning. [Yes, the furnace is oversized.]
So a couple of months ago I did find a solar contractor. At least their contracted salesman offered an installation. So I signed up on October 5. I searched for info on the salesman and discovered that his company only makes sales calls. The solar installation contractor is new. I checked with KCEC (who has finally received the application for connecting the panels to their power grid) and KCEC says this company is new — meaning, to me, inexperienced. That inexperience really shows.
My goal is to run my house off the sun most of the time. In summer this is easy, because the climate is warm in summer and the eye-brow shades over my windows keep the sun from over-heating the house. Mid-day winter the sun keeps the house warm on cold days. It is only after dark and before dawn that I need heat.
I have enough room on my roof for 8 kW of solar panels. But my need is when the sun does not shine. So I would need storage. The roughly 14 kWh of electric storage is about the size of the battery in a plug-in hybrid car. A Plug-in hybrid would fill my need for trips within town without petrol and enable me to drive to Santa Fe without finding a charging station.
Toyota has a new generation of Prius Prime plug-in hybrid with 15 kWh battery. A company called Plug Out Power makes inverters to power the house from Prius batteries. I have ordered a 2023 Prius Prime from Toyota of Santa Fe. The first allocation they received (in April) did not contain the model (SE) with the trim level I desire. So I wait.
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