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Spring Banter & General Discussion/Observations


CapturedNature

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9 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Maybe you can help Kevin now. He's been trying to figure it out for almost 10 years.

Pretty basic station until our renovations are done then I will put up a Davis. Very very easy to install and setup. Serves the purpose. Anemometer is only at 18 feet for now. I can't do roofs anymore. Got it from Amazon when someone linked the sale they were having, 70 bucks off. 

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1 hour ago, Ginx snewx said:

Wx channel dude just said warm ground will limit accumulations, here we go again

Well at least they said it in March and not November. For those getting crap rates with marginal temps it could be a little meh accum wise. Especially if the dry air issues pan out on the northern fringe.

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2 minutes ago, dendrite said:

Well at least they said it in March and not November. For those getting crap rates with marginal temps it could be a little meh accum wise. Especially if the dry air issues pan out on the northern fringe.

Yeah I agree with that on the streets. It won't do much on the nrn fringe. More grassy areas. 1-2SM  snow will just be wet streets.

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Way off topic but anyone on here have solar panels? I'm in the process of buying a 5kw system with cash. After state incentives and 30% federal I will be paying less than $10k for a $20k system. As fellow CT and New England residents know how expensive our power is the payback will be around 6-7 years with a 17% return on investment. Then free power after that and a nice return on my investment.

For those of you in Massachusetts the incentives and payback there is insane. Mass in ranked #1 in the nation.  You can sell your excess power there as srecs for $200 a mwh.  The payback is 4 years with 28.5 return on investment!

capture 3.JPG

capture2.JPG

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I am leasing a 6.5kw system from Solar City. The process was easy and installation was a breeze. The way it works is I pay $100 per month for 20 years. They guarantee a certain amount of production.  The power company buys all my electricity above my usage. I build up credits during the sunnier times that I will draw on during the times I am not producing much. I looked at buying but felt more comfortable with the fact I never have to worry about repairs or anything. My bill will stay at $100 for the next 20 years and the system was designed with growth in usage like if I get a plug in hybrid car or switch to a heat pump for example. The downside is the time of year I had it installed, last November, is not the beginning of optimal solar generation time. I actually didn't go live until the end of December and then my panels were covered in snow for quite a while. With my location though, I expect to start really cranking up production in the coming weeks. 

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10 hours ago, mreaves said:

I am leasing a 6.5kw system from Solar City. The process was easy and installation was a breeze. The way it works is I pay $100 per month for 20 years. They guarantee a certain amount of production.  The power company buys all my electricity above my usage. I build up credits during the sunnier times that I will draw on during the times I am not producing much. I looked at buying but felt more comfortable with the fact I never have to worry about repairs or anything. My bill will stay at $100 for the next 20 years and the system was designed with growth in usage like if I get a plug in hybrid car or switch to a heat pump for example. The downside is the time of year I had it installed, last November, is not the beginning of optimal solar generation time. I actually didn't go live until the end of December and then my panels were covered in snow for quite a while. With my location though, I expect to start really cranking up production in the coming weeks. 

Time to start cheering on suppression?

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10 hours ago, mreaves said:

I am leasing a 6.5kw system from Solar City. The process was easy and installation was a breeze. The way it works is I pay $100 per month for 20 years. They guarantee a certain amount of production.  The power company buys all my electricity above my usage. I build up credits during the sunnier times that I will draw on during the times I am not producing much. I looked at buying but felt more comfortable with the fact I never have to worry about repairs or anything. My bill will stay at $100 for the next 20 years and the system was designed with growth in usage like if I get a plug in hybrid car or switch to a heat pump for example. The downside is the time of year I had it installed, last November, is not the beginning of optimal solar generation time. I actually didn't go live until the end of December and then my panels were covered in snow for quite a while. With my location though, I expect to start really cranking up production in the coming weeks. 

If that's your thing I hope it works out for you. If you plan on staying there and not selling . But you'll never sell your house locked into a lease like that. There's so many horror stories of solar companies and home owners I've heard. They are crooks 

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16 minutes ago, Damage In Tolland said:

If that's your thing I hope it works out for you. If you plan on staying there and not selling . But you'll never sell your house locked into a lease like that. There's so many horror stories of solar companies and home owners I've heard. They are crooks 

They guarantee that if I sell, the new owners will qualify to take the lease over or they will move it to a new house for $500 (or $1000, i don't remember off the top of my head).  Also, we do plan on being here for another 20 years at least.  I wanted to move to a bigger house but my wife refused to even look because she likes the neighborhood and our neighbors so we just put on an addition and are redoing our kitchen.  I've got about 20 years until I retire so it looks like we are locked in.

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12z NAM has a -29C H85 temp here 15z tomorrow and never gets 2m above 10F. The GFS is close at -28C. That'll be back-to-back Saturdays in March with highs around 10F. There's a good chance that's never happened before at my locale. The top 3 record low max temps for CON are...

3/11 18 in 1874, 21 in 1880, 22 in 1960+

So this is record territory with the caveat being early midnight temps. Can we cool fast enough by 5z to not have a cheap midnight high? Either way, it's another January-like miserable March weekend.

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3 minutes ago, dendrite said:

12z NAM has a -29C H85 temp here 15z tomorrow and never gets 2m above 10F. The GFS is close at -28C. That'll be back-to-back Saturdays in March with highs around 10F. There's a good chance that's never happened before at my locale. The top 3 record low max temps for CON are...

3/11 18 in 1874, 21 in 1880, 22 in 1960+

So this is record territory with the caveat being early midnight temps. Can we cool fast enough by 5z to not have a cheap midnight high? Either way, it's another January-like miserable March weekend./

How much snow do you have OTG?

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24 minutes ago, dendrite said:

12z NAM has a -29C H85 temp here 15z tomorrow and never gets 2m above 10F. The GFS is close at -28C. That'll be back-to-back Saturdays in March with highs around 10F. There's a good chance that's never happened before at my locale. The top 3 record low max temps for CON are...

3/11 18 in 1874, 21 in 1880, 22 in 1960+

So this is record territory with the caveat being early midnight temps. Can we cool fast enough by 5z to not have a cheap midnight high? Either way, it's another January-like miserable March weekend.

Shame we launch the balloon at 11z, will be close to an all time March 850 temp record.

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2 hours ago, dendrite said:

12z NAM has a -29C H85 temp here 15z tomorrow and never gets 2m above 10F. The GFS is close at -28C. That'll be back-to-back Saturdays in March with highs around 10F. There's a good chance that's never happened before at my locale. The top 3 record low max temps for CON are...

3/11 18 in 1874, 21 in 1880, 22 in 1960+

So this is record territory with the caveat being early midnight temps. Can we cool fast enough by 5z to not have a cheap midnight high? Either way, it's another January-like miserable March weekend.

I think those records are just for 3/11.  My CON records date back only thru 1920, and the coldest max for any date is 11, on 3/3/1950.  Only 2 other days stayed below 15, with highs of 13 on 3/18/41 and the same date 26 years later.  Which is more odd, that they would be the same temp on the same date or that 2 of the 3 coldest March highs came after the ides.

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5 hours ago, tamarack said:

I think those records are just for 3/11.  My CON records date back only thru 1920, and the coldest max for any date is 11, on 3/3/1950.  Only 2 other days stayed below 15, with highs of 13 on 3/18/41 and the same date 26 years later.  Which is more odd, that they would be the same temp on the same date or that 2 of the 3 coldest March highs came after the ides.

Try the threadex site for the full period of record.

http://threadex.rcc-acis.org/

The monthly record low max is 5F on 3/6/1872.

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21 hours ago, BrianW said:

Google has a cool program called google sunroof. You can put in your address and it analyzes your solar potential. I have had site surveys from companies done and mine is off the charts. No shade facing due south/southwest. Here was my house on there.

 

https://www.google.com/get/sunroof#p=0

 

 

solar.JPG

That's fascinating.  Thanks for the link.

Can use it to assess snow retention too, ha ha.

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10 hours ago, mreaves said:

They guarantee that if I sell, the new owners will qualify to take the lease over or they will move it to a new house for $500 (or $1000, i don't remember off the top of my head).  Also, we do plan on being here for another 20 years at least.  I wanted to move to a bigger house but my wife refused to even look because she likes the neighborhood and our neighbors so we just put on an addition and are redoing our kitchen.  I've got about 20 years until I retire so it looks like we are locked in.

Kevin is right. But since you plan on staying there for 20 years it might not matter much. What you might not be aware of is that you have a lien on your house now for 20 years for those panels from Solar City.  You probably also have an escalating lease at 2.9%. Electricity has actually been going down in price. What Solar City and the other big solar companies do is get people to lease or sign up for ppa's (Power Purchase Agreements) and basically sell your roof and panels to investors. They get all the state incentives, federal rebate and small renewable energy credits for selling power back in the grid.

What you should have done is taken out a low interest home equity loan and bought them outright. You could have taken the monthly money you would have spent on your electrical bill with savings from solar and put it towards the loan. In 7-8 years your panels would be payed off and you would be making a nice profit for the next 13-18 years on having no power bill.

 

 You would basically divert your electric bill to the loan and when its payed off its pure profit.  Instead of paying the electric company your paying towards the panels for a impressive return on your investment after they are paid off in 7 years.

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6 minutes ago, BrianW said:

Kevin is right. But since you plan on staying there for 20 years it might not matter much. What you might not be aware of is that you have a lien on your house now for 20 years for those panels from Solar City.  You probably also have an escalating lease at 2.9%. Electricity has actually been going down in price. What Solar City and the other big solar companies do is get people to lease or sign up for ppa's (Power Purchase Agreements) and basically sell your roof and panels to investors. They get all the state incentives, federal rebate and small renewable energy credits for selling power back in the grid.

What you should have done is taken out a low interest home equity loan and bought them outright. You could have taken the monthly money you would have spent on your electrical bill with savings from solar and put it towards the loan. In 7-8 years your panels would be payed off and you would be making a nice profit for the next 13-18 years on having no power bill.

 

 You would basically divert your electric bill to the loan and when its payed off its pure profit.  Instead of paying the electric company your paying towards the panels for a impressive return on your investment after they are paid off in 7 years.

I considered the purchase but like I said, was afraid of the maintenance and any repairs. As for the lein, I do not have one on my house. I made sure that wasn't part of the deal. 

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15 minutes ago, mreaves said:

I considered the purchase but like I said, was afraid of the maintenance and any repairs. As for the lein, I do not have one on my house. I made sure that wasn't part of the deal. 

I just checked the data in Vermont and you are right . It's much different in other New England states where buying them outright is the best option. My wife is from VT and I lived up there for many years with her and know the economic situation up there.

The incentives in VT seem to be geared towards loans/leases and ppa's with no money down. Not much savings on buying them outright up there.  The state seems to have it setup where the benefits are aimed towards the middle class/ lower income who can't afford to buy them but they reap the best benefits with a lease or ppa which I completely agree with.

 

 

vt-npv.png

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23 minutes ago, BrianW said:

I just checked the data in Vermont and you are right . It's much different in other New England states where buying them outright is the best option. My wife is from VT and I lived up there for many years with her and know the economic situation up there.

The incentives in VT seem to be geared towards loans/leases and ppa's with no money down. Not much savings on buying them outright up there.  The state seems to have it setup where the benefits are aimed towards the middle class/ lower income who can't afford to buy them but they reap the best benefits with a lease or ppa which I completely agree with.

 

 

vt-npv.png

Yes, I think that compared to other states, we are pretty renewable friendly. And while I am not well enough versed in how it works to reall be an expert, I had been keeping an eye on it for several years and it finally got to the point where I felt it was a break even proposition at worst. Time will tell though. They have claimed that the system has been designed to cover my average electricity usage plus the additional load that I added with some under tile electric heat I had installed. Like I said, the guarantee a minimum amount of production or will pay a portion of my electric bill. 

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