Today is a good day. Alectra finally installed the net meter. From my previous post, I noted that without a net meter, any excess energy being sent back to the grid will be interpreted as usage. With the addition of the net meter, we can finally export our excess electricity from our solar panels without being charged for the generation. Instead, we can start earning and storing credits for the excess energy that we will supply to the grid.
Prior to the presence of the net meter, we gained plenty of experiences on going off grid. Effectively even on a cloudy day, we were able to generate enough energy for the house and charge our batteries to get us through the night. Below is a depiction of our energy utilization from Alectra.
The process of getting this net meter installed was not an easy feat! It took 22 days from the time of ESA inspection (April 12th) to Alectra installing the net meter. In summary, we played with the solar system to see what it can do for 11 days (April 12th to 22nd), while paying for the excess generation, and went off grid for the remaining 12 days (April 23rd to May 4th).
The small usages from the 23rd to the 30th that you see above were primarily charging our Toyota Prius Prime from the garage. That circuit is still grid tied and is independent of our Solar system. I cannot get an updated chart that contains data all the way up to today. Perhaps Alectra is doing something in the background in preparation for them to switch to net metering. In summary, we were pretty much off grid from April the 23rd to around 2pm today (May 4th). There was one exception, when we charged our backup batteries during off-peak hours from the grid on the evening of the 26th. We didn’t have to, but I was bit anxious with the battery at 50% whether it will last through the night and to the next evening, so this was more of an insurance. As we get more experience, we now have the confidence that even during cloudy / rainy days in the month of April, we should have no problem charging the batteries from solar that will last to the next night time operation.
Once again, I have to thank New Dawn Energy Solutions for their correspondence and baby sitting the net meter installation process, as well as closing out the building permit from Richmond Hill. I am certain there was plenty of red tape that must be cut by them to get to where I am today, so kudos to them!
Today was also the day when we completed our second audit with Enertest. Once again Nick Crosby, A Certified Energy Advisor did a professional job. This audit is mandatory for the participation of the Canada Greener Homes Grant program.
If you are thinking of installing solar, New Dawn and Enertest are partners and experts in your endeavours.