Waiting on PTO

This past Wednesday Tesla acknowledged receipt of our final payment and submitted for Permission to Operate from the utility company. And now we play the waiting game!

It sounded like the utility will actually come do something to our meter — “interconnection” and “pulling the meter” were mentioned. Maybe they have to upgrade the electric meter before it will be capable of recording how much power we’re sending back to the grid for Net Metering?

Speaking of which, I also did get Tesla to confirm that our utility company does Net Metering. My wife had seen an article saying that in cases where the utility is run by the city as opposed to the company actually generating the power that they often don’t do Net Metering, but Zuky the Tesla Experience Specialist pulled this quote from the Manassas connection agreement:

“If the power output (kW) of the customer generation exceeds the load (kW) of the customer premises at any time during a billing cycle, the resulting energy (kWh) returning to the City’s system will be netted against the energy (kWh) consumed by the customer during that same billing cycle. If during a billing cycle the netted amount is a credit, this energy will be carried forward and applied to the usage in the next billing cycle. If no energy is used or the net result is a credit, the customer will pay the Customer Charge for the billing period.”

Going by that, it doesn’t sound like I can “make money” from generating power but at least I can build up a credit during the parts of the year I won’t be using as much as I generate. Considering I used 98 kWh of power this past Sunday when it was over 100 degrees I’ll definitely wind up using the banked kilowatt-hours! Of course, either way I’ll still pay the “Customer Charge” which is intended to be my share of the cost of keeping the power lines in working order.

I continue to stop and just gaze upon the solar tiles and think to myself “Damn, that’s beautiful.” One of my co-workers is now considering getting a solar roof too, although in his case it’s because his roof needs replacing and his Homeowner’s Association requires everyone to get cedar shake shingles which cost an arm and a leg — and he knows there’s a federal law that requires HOAs to allow homeowners to install solar panels, so with the Tesla “infinity or life of the home” warranty he would save money in the long run by just getting solar tiles even before you factor in the actual power generation.

That’s about all the news for now!