In the past 10 years more people have been installing solar on their homes. They live in a variety of locations from city to rural and its not just homes but its businesses that are installing Solar Power Systems. In some cases like rural homesteading the power grid might just not be available to your property and Solar is more of a necessity than an option. In other cases people want to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and especially businesses have mandates to lower their emissions. In this How To we will look at the deciding factors of supplying your own power and whether it is a smart option for your home.
Should I Grid Tie My Solar Power?
There are two options for solar either you grid tie or you are a stand alone system. If you grid tie there are a few options such as not having control over your system because it was installed by a company for free and you are paid to run the system on your home or you may have purchased the system outright or with incentives and the power you generate during the day is used by your home or sold back to the utilities for offsetting the cost of the electric you purchase on off generation times such as at night. So in the first case where your system was installed through a contract you won’t have a choice if you want to grid tie because the company that you contracted is selling your extra power to your community to offset power generation from traditional power plants. In the second case you can grid tie your owned system to offset your cost of purchase and this is a good idea because it will allow you to buy back power in off times and it will let you pay down your system slowly over many years. Don’t misunderstand the idea of selling electricity from your panels because you will not produce so much extra power that your system pays for its self in just a couple years. Payback comes after you break even and then start producing more power than you consume so it would take a very large system that costs a lot to generate any reasonable amount of money.
Grid tying for most homes is a benefit but there are situations where it can’t be done. If your system uses used panels and equipment then your electric company inspector won’t allow you to connect it to the grid. There are other factors such as areas that have too much solar tied to the grid and in many states a good 30% of the state is under restriction where no new homes are being allowed to sign up for grid tie.
How Much Does It Cost To Grid Tie A Solar Power System?
The cost to grid tie your solar power system will vary from property to property with the lowest costs being for homes that are already connected to the grid and adding solar later.
If the power grid runs along or through your property but you are building a new home then you will need to factor the costs associated with getting power to your home. In many locations electrification of a new home is normally covered by the supplier but if you live on a larger property or rural community you might find that you bear a very large percentage of the cost of running cable from the road to your home. Costs will depend on the distance but it is not uncommon for a couple hundred feet of above ground line to cost $10,000 or more. If the line needs to be installed underground then the cost can be double or triple of overhead lines.
In addition to the drop lines to get to your home you have the system connect equipment charges that even homes that now use grid power will have to pay. For many people those costs will be about $5000 but you may find those costs as high as $20,000. Newer systems will allow your electric company to monitor and control your system remotely.
The higher cost of connecting to the grid can be a deciding factor of installing a Solar Power System on homes that have grid power available when the payback time has doubled over the basic equipment costs and now is well beyond the expected life of the system. This means at maximum output your system could never pay for its self before the expected 20-30 year life where all parts must be replaced. In this case you are losing money and it is not a benefit.
What Costs Can You Save By Grid Tying Your Solar Power System?
Because most power systems have a very good up time of over 95% even in rural areas the benefit of grid tying your solar power system can be seen in a variety of ways. We have already covered the factors of payback through selling your extra power back to the system and offsetting your nighttime use with daytime generation but an additional factor is the storage and backup requirements will be reduced or eliminated.
Some companies don’t want you to have a battery storage system if you grid tie because an outage could have your system feeding power back into the system. However if your system does allow you to have local battery storage then your necessity for it will drop dramatically. During winter months and cloudy days your system if off grid will normally have at least 3 days of minimal uptime but this is not necessary if you are grid tied. It can still be an advantage if you expect the grid to go down during a storm but you will still have some output from your panels that can store in a much smaller battery array.
Additionally an off grid solar power system should also have a generator backup system. This means running your own large generator that can power your necessities. The generator its self can be expensive but also the storage of fuel for the generator can be expensive if you are not tying your generator to natural gas lines. Tying your system to the grid will save you from needing your generator during normal down times and lower output days. Like local battery storage a backup generator is not a bad idea for many homes whether they are city, suburban or rural. Your needs will have to be evaluated.
Final Note
There are reasons for and against tying your homes solar power system to the grid but in the end it comes down to cost and ability. If you are in a rural area and homesteading then the option might not even be there for you but if you are in any other location then the consideration has to be evaluated.
You can pay a lot of money to get your system connected so in that case it might not be worth it to you but on the other hand it can reduce your downtime on days where power generation is not very good such as in the winter or just when it is cloudy.
The other factors of equipment choice limitations such as not being able to buy used equipment is also important because used solar panels can be purchased for less than half the cost of new ones and will likely last 10 to 20 years but power companies have restrictions and do inspections of systems before they are allowed to connect.
If you do decide to connect to the grid the decision should be made before you purchase your solar power equipment because the power company will require that your system be installed by one of their approved contractors.
There are a lot of decisions to make and you must research your options fully before you spend a lot of money only to find out you are paying 4 times as much for Solar electric than you would have if you stayed with grid power.