Board Feet of Oak

Leo Voisine

Member
Messages
5,703
Location
East Freeetown, Massachusetts
I had some trees cut down to make room for solar. I had the trunks cut into boards at the local saw mill. I ended up with about 488 bd/ft of some really nice Red Oak. Some of it is quarter sawn. Some of it is 2" thick.

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That does look like a nice little haul, when is the solar going in?


Solar is going in as soon as possible. HUGE paperwork, but the installer is doing all of it. Massachusetts is really promoting it and giving some great incentives as well as a 30% Federal incentive and solar renewable energy credits. I am NOT leasing, I am buying, which makes a HUGE difference in savings, but is a bit more to go through the process.

"aggravation" - goes between more and to after , but is a bit more............... -- but the typing keeps location to above Solar. aggravating

On the wood - I will be sealing the ends before I sticker and store for drying.
 
Nice haul of wood there Leo, soon you will be catching up to a Michigander I know. Oh wait you would have to cull a forest to get to his stash level. :D

So whats the solar going to be capable of producing when all done as in how many watts per hour?
 
I don't really know how it relates. I need to look at my electric bill. I know I am at about 7500 per year and I want to increase some so I can convert some things to electric. The new system will be about 9000 per year TOTAL.

The chart I have has an average about 600-800 kWh
 
do you really exspect to save money with this? whats the life span of the equipment before you need to repurchase it? and how does that compare to your present electric bill and the cost of the system? around here it doesnt pay its just a high cost hobby that makes some feel good..
 
For me it would not be about saving as much as getting away from reliance on a service from utility company.

Here if one examines our electric bill we pay debt recovery and delivery charges which double the cost per KW . I object to paying for debt of a utility company thats getting paid for their product anyway.
And we have just sold off a huge chunk of our utility company and now have shareholders looking for a return so we can expect to be paying even more for the commodity.
The crazy part here is that to get solar going our prov gov started out signing 20 year contracts with people installing solar @85 cents/ kw then 65c and latest is 35cents when current rate for the commodity is around 12/ 13c per Kw.
of course the way this was done is by putting a debt charge on the normal folks utility bill.
So here for the sake of looking green we paying through our nose for a commodity makes zero sense to me, but hey we going green lol.

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Solar is planned for my house, but then I have lots of sun here. Cost per kilowatt is currently north of 16 cents. It is not coming down anytime soon.

Going green means putting more money in someone else's pocket. With the power company having to buy back power from the customer who makes more than they use is moving the money pocket. At least that is the current situation here. They have challenged the buy-back in the courts here but have lost each time so far, because they cost of buyback is less than the costs of new generation for them. That works as long as the demand continues to increase, and people keep coming here to live.

Where they get us is an availability charge, just as the water companies do. If it is available to your property, you get a bill whether you are hooked up or not. I see that cost increasing in the future. Infrastructure is expensive and shareholders expect a return on their investment. No relief from any of this.

As for cost of upkeep, much depends on changing technology, but I know people with solar units over 20 years old and still producing.

There is maintenance. With us it is keeping them clean in the dry season. Other areas have high wind situations or hail which presents a problem. Snow doesn't help either. No damage. Just no production until the snow is cleaned off!

I have a local friend who invested in solar for his house. His summer bill with A/C was ~$500/per month. Now he breaks even or even gets a credit during A/C months. He elects to take a check from the power company each quarter. I have been watching his experience with interest since he had it installed about 18 months ago. I haven't asked him about payback, but he originally calculated 7 1/2 years. After it was in for a few months, he recalculated to around 5 years. That may have changed again. I just don't know. Original investment was ~$25,000 for a 3,000+ sqft, 2 story house. Mine should be 1/3 of that.
 
I am paying in the neighborhood of .21 per kWh We have one of the highest rates in the nation.

With the Mass incentives, SREC's, FED incentives, savings on Electric - the system basically pays for itself in 3-5 years. The SREC's last 10 years, meaning about 5 additional years AFTER the system has paid for itself, (that is money in pocket). I am figuring a NET savings of about $50k over 20 years - that is NET savings, after everything is paid off. Savings from leasing don't come close to that. It does not cost near as much to replace the system (maybe $20-$25k if the entire system failed, which it will not). Failure would most likely be a panel, or 3. They are basically plug and play and can be replaced by any electrician.

Then again - I am NOT leasing. THAT - is a rip off. Solar City can go pound tar. The leasing companies are making out like a bandit.

My electric bill will be ZERO after the system is paid in 3-5 years.

Right now - Massachusetts is adding Solar at am amazing rate. We are seeing it everywhere.
 
I think you're smart getting in when you are Leo. I see in a lot of places where they're shutting off new solar interconnects because of the potential for grid instability. I also don't see the incentives lasting as market penetration grows.

The only suggestion I would make is to oversize the interconnect and control system. The price of panels is roughly halving every 12-18 months and some of the newer ones that will be coming on market over the next 5-10 years have marked efficiency gains so being able to add more panels or replace existing panels with higher wattage panels could be a solid payback in a few years.

You might naively think that solar wouldn't be a very good deal further north but the efficiency goes up as temperature goes down so winter tends to perform better than expected and during the hot summer days the sun is overhead anyway.

As to Carols point on the interconnect cost, that's a huge looming problem in my opinion. I do think there's a large shake up coming there and not to the better. The issue is that the interconnect cost generally covers only a small part of the infrastructure cost and the rest is made up in per kw charges. The per kw charges are high disproportionate in the populace in that richer people use a LOT more energy than poorer people and so they tend to subsidize the cost of infrastructure to poorer areas (there is also a fair bit of rural/urban divide but the concept tends to hold ~mostly~ true there as well). Solar is somewhat disrupting this model because it is largely being installed by people who can afford it - these are the same people that are currently subsidizing the rest of the grid. As the penetration of solar energy rises the base rate cost to interconnect will also have to rise in order to accommodate this. If the cost of energy storage drops sufficiently (which looks likely although its not quite there yet), I believe that this will eventually drive either individuals or groups of individuals off of the main grid. This will be a MASSIVE disruption in the current cost model. The best idea I've seen so far to stabilize things somehwhat is a buddy of mine is working on a smart grid/"continuous delivery" setup where you have distributed battery setups adjacent to the solar generation (say 30kw of battery storage alongside your house for 2-3 days of usage equivalent) and it buffers the power back out to the grid, the battery setup could be owned by the electric company (they're working on a 100kw-400kw banks that would go in alongside neighbourhood transformers). I think that that probably delays the disruption but I'm not sure it completely eliminates it. I could see there being some weird property tax regimes or other wealth to power redistribution ideas happening in the future in order to continue being able to cost effectively deliver power to lower usage areas.
 
The little guy NEVER NEVER wins.

Every time there is a little plus on the little guy the big guys find a way to muscle in and take it away. No different here.

I think of this like I think of computers and of Netflix and cable TV.

With computers there is always technology advances that make the current systems obsolete. THAT - is going to keep happening. SAME - with solar. My first computer was at the end of the 286 run and I got a 386-16SX with a math co-processor. In it's day it was the cat's meow, but today would not do the most basic functions. BUT - I was there and learned and benefited.

With Netflix, the BIG cable companies are finding that they NEED to comply with the market flow. Same with electric companies.

There is also a BIG NEED to get better with those carbon credits. In a way, every solar installation helps the electric company with those green carbon credits. They get to make the claim that some of the electricity in THEIR grid is coming from renewable resources.

So --- YES --- there is risk. I don't think the risk is going to produce bad results. I am anticipating that is will be good.

And YES - I do believe there is a window of opportunity, and that window WILL close.
 
With computers there is always technology advances that make the current systems obsolete. THAT - is going to keep happening. SAME - with solar. My first computer was at the end of the 286 run and I got a 386-16SX with a math co-processor. In it's day it was the cat's meow, but today would not do the most basic functions. BUT - I was there and learned and benefited.

Yeah the main advantage I see with your solar install in comparison is that you have a lot better opportunity for upgrading the processor (panels) for quite a while into the future. That makes the math of the base system install even better (imho).

We pencilled it out for the current house and being on a north slope with poor exposure in a cloudy area with ~7c/kwh rates it wasn't nearly as compelling :D The big problem we have is a lot of low overcast days where the yield drops to about zero (based on some friends experiences) - low hanging cloud/fog is what really kills the yield and with 2-4 months of that a year... ouch. Just for a quick (and very rough) comparison we're at 177 sunny days and a uv index of 2.8 vs 201 sunny days and 3.5 uv index where Leo is so he's at least 25% better on the generation side and 300% on the electric rates so combined ROI is closer to 400% better without counting local incentives. I believe our house is actually closer to a uv index of 2 because we get a lot less sun than in town so that puts it closer to 5-5.25x better for Leo (and correlates pretty closely with my guestimated payback time period although the other incentives change all the time so apples to oranges a bit).


BTW, that's some nice looking oak! :D
 
I have looked at annual usage vs annual generation.

Snow will definitely put the screws to generation.

Overall though, I will produce more than I use, until I learn what it takes to make it a break even and reduce other fuels like oil and propane. That will be my best utilization and highest savings.

I will most likely need more panels than Carol for the same amount of production.
 
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