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Indira1009 t1_j52m1ae wrote

I’ve been thinking of getting solar too but my husband doesn’t want to. I’m wondering if it really works the way the pre presentation say it does. Sound too good to be true.

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mdurg68 t1_j52yoj9 wrote

We looked into and it all seems really good. We were looking at buying not leasing. Unfortunately the break even in my case (approx 10 yrs) is probably longer than I plan living around here. My roof faces perfect direction and we have no trees. I think they are cool, and most of all I would have liked the F-U factor towards the power company.

The awful thing is that they don’t allow homeowners to overproduce if the roof space is available. They try to estimate your last few bills and maybe go slightly over. I think it would help the state situation somewhat if homeowners who had a good roof and were willing, to overproduce to help out the grid.

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Shot-Perspective2946 t1_j53es8k wrote

Yeah the limitation on power is super annoying.

Also - pro tip - if you’re planning on getting an ev, buy the solar system a couple months after buying the ev

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plaverty9 t1_j53h9uw wrote

You're allowed to overproduce to 125%, but that is the limit.

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cbri OP t1_j56s2c5 wrote

What happens to the 'excess' energy that's produced, or it just doesn't get that far?

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mdurg68 t1_j58iztk wrote

Sell it back to power company as credit. Basically it goes like this… In summer you should have good producing months, hopefully above what you consume. The excess goes to RI Energy and they credit you for it. Winter months you produce less and you probably end up using those credits. The hope is you at least end up with net no electric bill.

Now there are so many factors like your house location, tree cover, your personal consumption etc.

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cbri OP t1_j53f9iu wrote

I have no doubt solar works itself, but the vendors are questionable. I'm wondering if they have battery storage that is used at night, or do they revert right back to the grid. If battery are they using something like the tesla wall or similar new technology?

I also wonder about just doing a diy setup, but I'm sure there's steps you have to do to get connected to the grid.

Overall I think it's definitely worth it one way or another.

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mdurg68 t1_j53k69w wrote

Battery is not for night usage, it’s for backup if the grid goes down. If you sign up for connected solutions they will pull from it at peak times. Everywhere I’ve seen says they give you 5000 for connected solutions but when the solar guy was here for the quote he said it doesn’t really work like that and it’s at the discretion of the power company.

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cbri OP t1_j56sp5q wrote

Part of me just says get a standalone system so you don't have the limitation but it's expensive up front.

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