Friday, March 16, 2012

Early Stagnation

Wow, warm weather and sunshine have topped the 150gal tank off with hot water all the way. Collector return line hit 160F and the system stagnated for the rest of the day. :)

Saturday, March 10, 2012

March Update

It's been a while, so I figured I'd give an update on how the system is working. To date, it's generated over 2500kWh of energy to heat our water and offset over $350 in electric costs. Our old water heater was also less efficient, so the electric bill is actually down more than that. Over the winter we also added more blown in insulation in the attic and done a few other small things like go to T-8 lamps in our kitchen main light. We've started tracking the savings on the Share MyGreenQuest website: http://share.mygreenquest.com/kaptainkriz
Overall, we're down nearly 42% on consumption in no small part because of the solar system. Maryland now allows the generation of SRECs for certified solar systems utilizing the OG-300 Estimated Annual Output (kWh). We are in the process of registering with SOLSYSTEMS http://www.solsystemscompany.com/ to sell our output quarterly. Our OG-300 rating is 2933.00kWh for the area and the Equivalent Nameplate Capacity is 2.444 (kW). We anticipate earning an additional $527 a year for the next few years from these SRECs.