Best Of

We still have our gas dryer, gas stove and gas boiler because I'm a natural (gas) guy. Hard to give up something that's taken care of me all these years and I'm not ready to jump in on a heat pump for my heating. There aren't enough good equipment choices yet.

We're getting a battery later this month and I look forward to importing-exporting less to the grid.

Hi, To riff on what @clammy said, I'm in an 1800 square foot house that now runs on 1500 watts of PV. I started with 890 watts, but added panels as I reduced my use of propane. I can get by with this small system because I made the house efficient. No utility credits because I'm off grid. My measured energy usage is at one tenth the normal per square foot.

Like @OffGridICF I've gone from lead acid to lithium. After nearly twenty years with lead acid, I was glad to have a choice. Not hooking up to the grid saved me far more than the cost of the solar system initially, and then no monthly bill. My conclusion is that we far underestimate what we can do to make buildings efficient. Getting down off my box of soap now. 😁

Yours, Larry

Totally off grid here with about 8kW of panels, a Schneider/Xantrex 6kW inverter and large battery bank. There are three MPPT charge controllers tied to parallel strings of modules. We run almost anything we want to with no problems. Cabinet saw, TIG welder, small window A/C, etc. Just not all at once ;-) Since our solar resource is not great during the short overcast winter days we burn about 50 gallons of diesel each year in a backup generator. If you are building a new home any distance from the grid the cost to extend the grid can be more expensive than a large solar system.

Changing from lead acid batteries to LiFePO4 was a great decision. They don't need to be fully charged every week and don't have to be watered.

In our previous home we were grid-tied. Having battery backup was great since the transfer from grid to inverter and back was maybe just a flicker, if that. I never even saw a PC crash during the transfer.

Having some modules oriented both a little east and a little west can be beneficial since that will increase the output in the morning and evening. The peak output will be less, but it seems like a good trade-off. All of our modules are facing due south at a steep angle so they actually shade themselves late in the day during summer. The surrounding terrain also limits their production. They are almost all ground mounted to allow safe snow removal, a big deal here. The previous system had modules on a tracker but that doesn't make sense now that modules are so much less expensive .

NJ is #11 for residential solar installed, , Michigan #25

NJ was always one if the top solar dhw states also.

look like bio heating oil receives a lot if federal and state tax dollars for incentives. What about those that do not heat with oil? Are they paying?

I don't usually really like incentives… as you all know. The income tax incentive for the solar was definitely a factor in making it cost effective, however, and like @ethicalpaul , if someone is going to give me a big break on something… I'll take it.