Above is what our system looks like from my phone app. I have the battery set to self-consumption so we can use anything over 50% charge to run our house rather than send it back to EWEB. My reasoning is this: we pay $0.095 per KWh to have electricity delivered and when we have a surplus and send it back to EWEB, they only credit us $0.036. I’m going to monitor and adjust this to get the best value.
But that isn’t today’s story. Today is about Twende Solar.
Twende is Swahili for “let’s go”. It was Brandon Little and John Grieser, from Elemental Energy and “bridges the gap between renewable energy experts and economically marginalized communities with a need for a reliable, affordable source of clean energy to power their work.”
We donated our old inverter that I mentioned earlier in this series. When Elemental Energy removes and updates equipment such as what we did, if the homeowner so chooses, we can donate that old equipment to help add solar to marginalized communities in developing countries and even here in the US. Here is a great example of a local project at the Portland Rescue Mission.
This vision makes our choice of Elemental Energy even more satisfying.
Monday: Sent one of their electricians down on Monday to finalize the WiFi router issue. Got it resolved by tagging on to our electrical wiring for the signal boost. Apparently, even though we have a pretty straight shot from our router to the unit, because we have very thick walls and lots of insulation, it had troubles connecting.
Friday: We’ve been up and running all week. working well. City inspection was today and we passed with flying colors. But no surprise there. The Elemental Energy team was top notch, professional and friendly. Highly recommend!
After day one, Brenda and I got home late in the evening after they had left. The garage was clean, their tools were neatly stacked to the side and I was a happy camper.
I stopped by at lunch on day two and the panels were back up on the roof, they were finalizing pulling the wire and connecting/moving our critical load to the new sub-panel, and they were making good progress.
Everything was completed by the end of the day. Except… the system was not connecting to our WiFi router. They tried a booster, but it didn’t cut it. So on to Plan B.
I cleared out the garage around the area where the new system would go. Zach, from Elemental Energy in Portland and his crew showed up at 9:00 and started to work.
To those of you who know we have a Tesla, you may be wondering why we didn’t go with a Tesla PowerWall. Easy answer: Tesla wouldn’t sell one to us.
Tesla will only sell their PowerWalls to those who also buy Tesla solar. And we already have 6kW of solar panels that are working just fine. In my research, I came across the Enphase battery, which seems to be slightly more efficient than the PowerWalls.
The first order of business was removing each solar panel so that the old inverter could be replaced with new, more efficient, micro-inverters. Then they started cutting holes, running wires and generally revamping our system.
Tomorrow: cutting holes, running wires, and putting it all back together.
After 2,435 days, our SunnyBoy solar inverter is going away. During its time perched silently on our garage wall, it effortlessly logged every watt of electricity our solar array produced.
And in that time period, we generated 50,370,000 watt-hours of electricity. Yes, 50 MWh. That’s an average of almost 21 kWh per day, every day. Not too shabby.
But as with all things, technology advances. And with climate change becoming even more prominent, we felt we wanted to add a measure of comfort and security in case our electricity went out. We’ve had ice storms in recent years and smoke from fires to the extent that sometimes the electric grid in our area goes down.
Our solar system was originally installed with a 110v outlet in case the power went out, we could switch over to solar and run at least a few items off that plug. But it was manual. And cumbersome.
So on February 23, we are having our SunnyBoy removed (and donated to a non-profit that installs off-grid solar in developing countries, more on that later) and a new Enphase system installed. It will have battery backup and be controlled via an app on our phone.
Brenda has an excellent eye and is a great photographer
As I moved my office computers home (again) to work during our latest COVID shut down, I realized I hadn’t really done a five year update of living downtown. And we’re now at almost five and a half years living near downtown Eugene.
In fairness, the last 18 months has brought helping our son purchase and renovate a 1907 fixer-upper (MAJOR fixer upper) AND a world-wide pandemic, to name just two major events. Our son did finish his renovation and just signed papers on his mortgage a few days ago. Twelve months of renovating and six months dealing with the bank. Don’t get me started.
We moved our staff home in March because of the virus. We moved back into the office sometime in July (I think; everything the last nine months is kind of a blur) and then we just moved back home yesterday.
So as I was sitting at my home office desk and Brenda was on a work break and taking some pictures of our landscaping, I thought I should update you on our life on Lawrence Street. And it’s good.
As we head into celebrating Thanksgiving next week, we personally have much to be thankful for. None of our immediate family have contracted the virus, although we know some who have. Our son got his mortgage at a reasonable rate and is off on the journey of homeownership. Scarlett, our Tesla Model 3 is still running along well, not needing anything more than an occasional plug into the wall for a recharge. Our landscaper is running late trimming our shrubs and that has allowed us to enjoy those beautiful barberries in the photo above just a little bit longer. Work has gone well for both of us and neither of us has experienced any layoff or reduction in salary. Our neighborhood gatherings are now on “pause” but that’s ok for now.
Life at the edge of downtown Eugene is still very very good.
Please consider this our five year update and a time to be thankful. Have a great Thanksgiving holiday!
Today marks the fourth anniversary of us moving into our Lawrence Street home. As we reflect on those years, here are some thoughts.
NEIGHBORS This is probably singularly the best part of living where we do. We have come to know, socialize with, care about and just enjoy the company of our neighbors. We have twice a year potlucks for the “extended” neighbors (about 25-30 attend), monthly “Thirsty Thursdays” for the closer neighbors (about 8-10 people), an occasional soda on our front porch or glass of wine on a neighbor’s front porch. All in all, it’s just wonderful.
WALKABILITY Being close to downtown Eugene, we have a very walkable neighborhood. Just tonight, after dinner, Brenda and I walked a loop around the neighborhood, stopped at the corner market for our Haagen-Dazs bars (a summer ritual; we figure the walk cancels the calories). We often walk to close by restaurants for dinner, or downtown to get coffee and stop by the farmer’s market. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, we sold our second car and now only have one car.
SUSTAINABILITY If you have followed my blog, you’ll know we built our home to a very high sustainability standard. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a benchmark rating system for sustainability. Our home achieved the highest level: Platinum. In fact, for the first three years in our home, we actually produced more electricity than we consumed. And this is in an all-electric home.
But then Scarlett came along in February 2018. Elsewhere in this blog, I also discuss our commitment several years ago that our next car would be an electric vehicle. Just one year after moving in, we sold the second car, then prayed our 2001 Passat would last until we could buy an EV. That happened in February 2018 when we took delivery of our Tesla Model 3. Going bold and buying a red car (most of our previous cars had been some level of gray), we appropriately named her Scarlett.
We charge probably 99% of the time from home, with a 240v plug we wired into our garage. Our monthly fuel bill went from $62.50 to about $7.80 switching from gasoline to electricity. The caveat is we are now, after just over 16 months with an EV, no longer net zero. In four years, we have received from our utility 23,741 KWh of electricity while delivering to them 21,843 KWh. In four years, we have used a net of 1,898 KWh of electricity.
That kind of bummed me out a bit until a realized the average home uses between 800 and 1,200 KWh per month. Our monthly average is just over 39 KWh per month. INCLUDING our car fuel costs. So, OK, I feel better now. (Thanks, Eli for that perspective).
CONCLUSION If we had all of this to do over, we’d do it. In a heartbeat. And we’d do it the same as we did.
We are so blessed and so happy in our ‘hood. Life is good.
As we sat on our front porch this afternoon, we took pause to reflect on our now almost two years (!) living in our neighborhood. It’s hard to believe it’s been that long!
Today was a beautiful, sunny spring day with some clouds, a fair amount of sun, and a cool breeze. We went for a walk to the local supermarket and on our return decided to just take a bunch of photos on our walk home. Some I posted on my personal Facebook page and some I didn’t post. But we enjoyed everything from my barber shop just a few blocks away to rows of houses, all with front porches, to our mail carrier and a neighbor all converging near our front porch at the same time.
As we relaxed on this sunny Saturday afternoon, enjoying mochas on our front porch, bicyclists went by as well. Not as many as a couple of weeks ago (44 in just 30 minutes; I didn’t count today), but quite a few nonetheless.
In October 2002, I bought a new 2003 VW Turbo S Beetle. 6-speed. Fast. Loved it.
In June 2009, we bought our lot where we now have our new home. The idea was to be able to walk more and be less car-dependent.
In June 2015, we moved into our new home. From day one, we decided we would see if we could live using only one car. The Beetle had 111,000 miles on it. Our thought was, if we could do this thing, we would sell one of our cars. We have been blessed to have two cars our entire married life.
I started riding my bike to work. Every day. We walked most everywhere on the weekends. I would start and drive the Beetle every once in a while just to keep it running. I bought a battery trickle charger for those weeks I would forget to start the car.
Now, one year later, and 130 miles more on the Beetle (yes, I only drove it 130 miles in a year), we put it on Craigslist and within four days it was sold. A little bittersweet, I must say, because I’ve had the Beetle almost 14 years. It’s been a good little car. It’s been a fun little car to drive.
But times change. Lifestyles shift. And we are in a new chapter of our lives.
Has this last year using only one car been easy? Actually, yes it has. I’ve enjoyed biking to work. I biked a lot prior, but now it’s even easier and more direct. We have enjoyed walking more. The bus, when needed, is actually quite easy and convenient most of the time. I still have my Car2Go app for when we take Amtrak to PDX or SEA. We’re still hoping they come back to Eugene someday.
And I just downloaded the Oregon Taxi app today. Just in case.
One year ago today, we moved into our new home. It has been an amazing year!
We have not only met virtually all of our neighbors, we’ve become good friends. We’ve gone to plays, concerts and had dinner together. We had a Memorial Day Potluck that was a blast with 22 friends from the ‘hood.
Brenda and I have loved living downtown. We walk most places, so much so that the VW Beetle we own will be for sale soon; no need for two cars anymore.
The house is performing impeccably well. Energy use is so low, we actually are a “net producer” both for the house and the cottage. As of today, the cottage has generated 867 kWh more electricity than it has used and our house has generated 1,073 kWh more than we’ve used. So not only have we achieved net zero, we’ve exceeded it.
And as you may have noticed from my Facebook posts, our garden is going nuts. This is the first house we’ve had where we have enough sun for a garden. I don’t post food pictures, but last night we had sautéed crookneck, zucchini, green onion and basil pesto, virtually all from our garden.
