NET METERING - HYDRO ONE IS STEALING YOUR MONEY

NET METERING

Net metering world wide is generating some electricity for you own use and selling the rest of the energy to the utility.

This is NOT a microfit contract.

Hydro One has started (according to Flexible Solar Steve) to KEEP any excess revenue generated by your home PV system.  They keep a balance on how much energy you generate and subtract it from what you use.  Any excess energy is sold by Hydro One who keeps the profits without any Operating and Maintenance costs.  I call this STEALING. Your tally should run monthly not yearly as we are not the bankers for Hydro One and if your balance is positive, then the money MUST be given to the electrical generator.  If negative then you pay for the difference.  This is fair.

Is this what the Ontario Government calls going green?

Is this a violation of the Green Energy Act?

I suspect that this policy has NOT been approved by the Energy Review Board.

Large electrical generators like wind turbines will be paid for the power produced when their contract ends and so should the small home owner.

The Plan.  Contact everyone that you can think of and write letters.

List:

1. The Premier of the Province
2. Your local MPP
3. Your local TV stations
4. The energy review board

When your microfit contract ends, you should be able to net meter at the current electrical rates and if you generate an excess then you should be paid monthly for this.  Hydro One has NEVER liked the microfit program.  They charged us $1500 to connect the meter and charge $800 for net metering.  Why is there a difference if not to steal as much money from the little guy as possible?  They definitely do not like green energy producers.  They can not see that if everyone generated some PV power then the users would not need a carbon tax.

Failing to fix this greed from Hydro One just shows that any carbon tax is just another revenue stream.

Solve this problem NOW so that when you microfit contract ends you will be treated fairly.

Most PV systems produce power during the peak demand times.  Peak demand costs are typically much more than 18 cents per kW and I have read that they are closer to 50-60 cents per kW hr.

DO NOT WAIT. ACT NOW!

Your feed back is appreciated.  Written January 19 2017

It is NOW or Never for the microfit Solar Panel System

The roof mounted Ontario microfit system started at 80.2 cents per kW, then 54.9, then 39.6, then 38.4 and soon it will be down to 29.4 cents per kW.

How much can you earn per year from a Microfit Solar Panel System

You can earn about $5000 per year from a microfit solar system dependent on your layout up to a maximum of about $8000 per year based on 39 cents per kW hour.

Still the costs are about the same if not more than when we installed 2 years ago at 39.6 cents per kW.

You will have to pay the $1500 connection fee for Hydro-One, engineering analysis of your roof, local building permit charge per panel of $10, plus higher installation and higher panel costs due to the drop in the Canadian Dollar.

If you have availability in your area.  If the numbers work out for you at 38.4 cents per kW then you

MUST ACT NOW!!

I remember when people baulked at 80.2 cents and others refused the 54.9 cents contracts.

I find it interesting that rates are dropping so low, you would think that the Conservatives won the last election.  The Ontario Energy Review Board failed to monitor or put limits on what Hydro One charges for connection fees.  They even allow them to charge you $6.10 every month when Hydro One pays you for the power that you produce.

If you are thinking of going Solar then I recommend that you read this blog starting from our first post.

Avoid straight string inverter systems.  You can read why to avoid them in my blog.

Avoid people who just want to rent your roof area and pay you pennies for it's use.  You can get a line of credit loan for about 3% interest and still make money.

Avoid people who do not use SolarEdge inverter systems with optimizers.  Make sure you specify Schletter Racking systems.  Make sure that your roof is less than 7 years old before you install the system and put in the best roofing that you can with the best backing system under the shingles for the entire roof area.  Also make sure that they seal all of the penetrations and use alum or SS flashing materials available from Schletter also.  Recommend that your system be wired for 2 strings per inverter for future expansion.  Get the extended warranty for the inverters.

Get 3 quotations including Flexible Solar.  Recommend next generation poly panels from Canadian Solar.  See my review on these panels.

GETTING EVERY THING IN WRITING - ALL OF THE DETAILS AND DO NOT PAY LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY UP FRONT.

On a 10 kW system with no shading, you should be able to produce 12 MW per year depending on your roof pitch and location.  Email me or call me if  you have any questions.  You can google my name and use our photography link.

West facing solar panels are no good...or that is what we were told!

Designing a Roof Mounted Solar Harvesting System"

Getting our fundamentals correct will result in the best or optimum solar panel harvesting system.

We have 4 orientations that we can use for solar panels.  Unless under extreme conditions, I would never use north facing panels.  You will get some energy harvested from north facing panels, especially in the summer months but it is far from ideal.

A microfit solar panel harvesting system injects a limitation of 10 kW inverters into all design considerations.  There is a limit of what the electrical lines feeding your house can carry.  For a 200 A system that is around 16-17 kW or so peak or maximum power output.  The lines are under ground which keeps them cool which is a good thing.

Anything that limits the amount of solar energy hitting your roof, like fog, clouds, shade from trees, poor roof angle, etc, hurts you. We have a 22.5 deg roof which we can not change.  It is great from April to September and poor at other times of the year.  That said, it is optimum when we have the longest days and most sun energy to harvest.  One feedback comment recommended 30 deg was ideal and that seems to me to be good or correct.  A 45 degree slope will help with snow melting off in the winter.

My Golden rule is this:  Grab or harvest all the sun's energy when ever you can.

Maximize your output first from your south facing panels followed by east and then west facing panels.  OPA should strongly encourage harvesting from the east and west because of the electrical peaks that need to be met at this time of day.  They do not do that.

If you are new to solar, South facing panels give you your best ROI or return on investment.  East and West facing panels are great from sunrise to sunset respectively, and help significantly to harvest more energy when it is need the most before your south facing panels get going.  You need a combination of all 3 to maximize energy production.  Of course, solar trackers would be the best but that is not a roof mounted system.


We were initially told that west facing panels do not work well.  That simply is not true at all.  We need west facing panels to produce power for the 6 and 7 pm peak demand.  In the summer, west facing panels start producing over 100 W as early as 10:30 AM  and of course continue until sunset. East facing panels stop producing around 5 pm.  South facing panels also have reduced output after 6 pm.  Choosing solar panels that produce the best off axis harvesting is also an important decision.  See my reviews of some solar panels, especially the newest generation of poly panels.

I noticed in Windsor area that in the fall, we get early morning fog and dew on our panels.  This makes having some west facing panels important to have as you lose the effect of your east facing panels on many days.  We are seeing excellent results in August, September and hopefully the other fall months as well.  I will admit that the fall of 2014 was very poor.  2015 is looking for +20% for September over 2014.  It all depends on how much cloud cover we get.  The sun light is always there.

The sunlight has to travel further though the clouds in the fall/winter/spring because of the lower angle of the sunlight due to the tilt of the earth on it's axis.  Add the shorter days for that time of year and production will diminish.  On over cast days, all of your panels work about the same, including any north facing panels.  I am against north facing panels for obvious reasons.

With the microfit limitation on inverter output, you want to reach maximum inverter output as fast or as early as you an and to maintain that output for as long as you can.  SolarEdge is outstanding for this as you can mix east, south, west facing panels with no penalty.  The smart inverters simply turn off some panels when maximum power levels are reached and the bus voltage is increased at this time to help lower the current flow and hence reduce the power line losses.  The inverters themselves do not seem to get hot ever.  The microfit program should never have been limited to 10 kW but rather 50 kW and individual limitation based on the maximum allowable current flow back to the transformer.  For our house that would be 15 kW but we can only dream of that.  Never add more inverters to your system.  We put our two 5000 W inverters on the north side of our house to keep them cooler in the summer and to reduce exposure to rain and snow.  They are also beside the electrical meters with easy disconnect if needed.  When shut down, bus voltage drops to 1 V dc per panel and NOT 600 V by some manufacturers.

In conclusion, choosing the right inverters from the start like SolarEdge will give you the opportunity to produce the maximum power from your system.  Remember this, at 39 cents per kW, if you harvest only 1 kW hr more  per day, you will get $3000 over the twenty year contract.


Beware of contractors.  We have had no problems with Flexible Solar.

Review of Sundial Trax Inc London, Ontario Reid Aldridge and Keith Luckhardt

Review of 

SUNDIAL SOLAR TRAX INC. (Reid Aldridge and Keith Luckhardt) London, Ontario microfit solar panel installers London Ontario

Another group we recently had to deal with tried to play these games:

1. Billed for time not even on the job
2. Sat on roof for more than 1 1/2 hours saying that they didn't know what to do.  They were shown the four wires that had to be joined together as soon as they arrived and had to be instructed step by step on how to do the simplest job.  They had wired the original system.
3. Caused the problem in the first place by not following the engineering specification so that they could save some time and wire.
4. Tried to charge $30 for a $1.50 part and over charged for other parts while lying about the real cost
of the parts.
5. Estimated 1 man hour for job and tried to bill for 7 man hours while they played around (that is called stealing).
6. Refused to run wire through the attic as they had done before.- damaged roof
7. Told me to my face that he does not markup the cost of materials yet markups reached 2000%
8. Tried to play the game, we forgot parts over 5 times so that they could increase the time on the job: Again, that is STEALING

Note:  One of the first things that a tradesman learns is to organize their work.  You get all of the parts you need for the job and put them in you tray.  You do all the work that you can on the ground first and then go up to the roof.

9. Laughed every time they tried to extend the time to do the job
10.  No respect for customers and having a job

We had to back charge them for not running the wire where we told them to and have to hire someone else to finish the job.  A back charge is a reduction of the invoice because the job wasn't done to specifications.  It normally means that you have to remove the work that was originally done and re-do the job making it costly.  You don't have to pay twice for doing the same job.  I worked as a Tradesman for 10 years.  Do the job correctly and you will not have this problem.  I also do not pay for someone doing the above nonsense.  This is childish behavior from a person who has retired and should know better.  He thinks that he is smarter than other people and it is all a game to him.  I had a much better opinion of them until this day.  Your mileage may vary.  We gave them hot coffee when it was cold and cold pop when it was hot.  This behavior was not accidental but intentional.  Apparently they had made a lot of money earlier in the day.  My guess is by triple charging people.  You make pennies in the solar business and have to watch your costs closely.

A manager in Ontario Hydro taught me this:

"If it appears a certain way, then it usually is that way."

They drive a big white diesel truck with a large trailer.  It is just fine for someone to write off the cost of their vehicle.  It is not right for you to pay for their toys.  In this case, the large truck is used to pull his boat.  You should not have to pay for that.  I call the smart one GREED (Reid Aldridge and Keith Luckhardt) his laborer.  They hail from somewhere near London, Ontario.  Two more people who will lie to your face and steal from you.

Who would hand over $40,000 for them to install your solar system?

 Email me if you have bad dealing with them.

If you are using these people, use them through a middle man and get the cost up front.  They will try every trick in the book to over charge you as they did not make any money last year and want to double/triple up this year.

HIGHLY NOT RECOMMENDED  5 STAR GREED RATING

Trust is a key element when hiring people to do work for you.  They can do a fair job when working for other people.  On this day they decided to get Greedy and to try to steal from us.  Job was NOT done according to our requirements.  Told never to return to our house and if we see them, then the police will be called.  I FIRED BOTH OF THEM.

What was the job they had to do?

The original engineering specification stated two strings per inverter.  They installed 1 string per inverter saying it was better and not needed.  (see my blog on why this is not true).  The job was to return the system to two strings per inverter as per the original specification and all wires to go though the attic.

You simply have to cut each string some where in the middle, join the two lines and run 4 more wires back to the inverters,  The system was naturally divided on this account where it went from the south roof to the east/west roofs over the garage.

Time needed to cut the four wires --- under 1 minute.
Time to join two strings together with MC4 fittings  about 5 min.  (there is a 3 min video on U tube showing you how to make the crimp MC4 fittings).  With the right tool, you can strip the wires in 5 seconds.  I have such a tool and the MC 4 crimp tool also.  There were 2 MC4 fittings required in total.

Time to run a wire back to the inverters No more than 20 min through the attic.

Time to make connections in a electrical box on the roof no more than 20 min.

Total is less than 1 man hour.  

They arrived at 1:45 pm and Reid tried to tell me that he arrived at 1:00 PM  I said to myself, He just lied to me, what ELSE is he lying about?

They did nothing for the first 1 1/2 and then did the dog for the next 1 1/2.  I had to show them the wires to cut 3 times and how to pot the lines and validate the strings back at the inverters.  They claim to be the experts.  Total time billed 7 man hours.  Total time on the site 2 hours 45 min.  Not working is called stealing by one of the electricians that I spoke with.

Reid knew exactly what to do.  He is not stupid just Greedy.  The helper is color blind and can't do any wire connections.  He had worked the night shift and most likely went to sleep in the truck out of sight.

Reid spends most of the winter on some southern island and dosn't return until April.

The previous year they gave themselves a 25% pay raise.  With the way they charge people, they want to get paid $150 each per hour.  Neither one of them is an electrician.

They love to tell people we charge for two hours up front and $150 per hour after we arrive.  If you pay for two hours of work make sure you get two hours of work and then pay more if the job really takes that long.  They are just charging people triple time.  Don't buy into this scheme.

I learnt this in life.  If they steal from someone else, then they will steal from me also.  If they lie, then they most likely also steal.

Note:  Get yourself proper material quotations from an Electrical Supply Company and document everything that was done.  Any Judge will then be able to see though their dishonesty.  Hold back any funds that you know are dishonest.  Pay them for what they did and not for what they didn't do.  Back charge them if they didn't do what you told them had to be done and then must be done by someone else.  Personally, I don't believe a word that they say anymore.  I FIRED BOTH OF THEM!!

The Union Mindset

This reminded me of a small job done in Ontario Hydro.  The electrician had to connect 3 wires.  He took 8 hours to do the first 2 wires and billed 4 hours overtime for the last connection at time and half.  All of that work could have been done in 15 min.  He exploited the system.  

How to Weed Out Dishonest Solar Panel Installers

We live near Windsor Ontario.  We entered the nefarious business of Solar Panel Systems with much fear and trembling.

Here is a Review of some local Windsor area people with a bad track record:

1.0         Consumer Alert Against Certified Solar Windsor (Click to see): 

These have got to be the absolute worst thieves and liars around.  Ripped off over 300 people, took their money and never installed any thing.  This was one of the first installers to contact us.  They have ripped off over 300 people who trusted them and believed their lies.  They wanted us to give them up front, $35,000 .  That should set off warning bells.  You should only give people money when the product arrives to protect your self.

Others they put up expense systems that do not perform.

GREED RATING 5 STARS

2.0 Unconquered Sun

Online customers reviews all say the same thing.  Lying to their customers.  Did the same thing to me.

GREED RATING 5 STARS

Review of 

3.0 SUNDIAL SOLAR TRAX INC. (Reid Aldridge and Keith Luckhardt) London, Ontario.

Another group we recently had to deal with tried to play the games listed below.  They drive a big white diesel truck with a large trailer.  It is just fine for someone to write off the cost of their vehicle.  It is not right for you to pay for their toys.  In this case, the large truck is used to pull their boat.  You should not have to pay for that.  I call the smart one GREED (Reid Aldridge and Keith Luckhardt) his laborer.  They hail from somewhere near London, Ontario.  Two more people who will lie to your face and steal from you.  Who would hand over $40,000 for them to install your solar system.  Email me if you have bad dealing with them.

Many people who lie to you and make up stories have been doing that for a long time.  You shouldn't really have to pay electrician  rates for non-electricians.
They can do a respectable job when working for others.  They try to over charge on material markups (2000%), and hours worked. They simply can't be trusted when working on their own.  Score

GREED RATING 5 STARS

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Listing of Contractors Who Work For You:

1.0  Flexible Solar of Windsor, Ontario

We only found one company in our area that gave the best and most honest recommendation

for our Solar Panel System

Recommendation:  5 STARS

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NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, GIVE LARGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY UP FRONT TO ANYONE.


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There is a process that MUST be followed to protect yourself.  

You should firstly educate yourself about solar energy.  Then get an application to OPA for a contract.  You must get your approval before spending any money.  Many rural locations are NOT approved because the wind turbine people have taken all of the capacity away. 

Secondly, you must have a roof with the proper orientation and area to hold or support solar panels.  Next get your quotations from at least 4-5 people.

Read the reviews on line.  If they are lying to you they most likely lied to some one else before you.

If it sounds to good to be true it usually is.  A 10kW system will only produce a maximum of about $5000 per year.  Never use micro inverters.  Only a SolarEdge type of system is recommended.  All components should be stainless steel or aluminium. 

We can learn from the strangest people in life.  The Mafia's most famous statement is "you give me no respect".  You don't lie to or steal from people that you respect.  If an installer lies to or steals from their customers, then they should be put out of business.  You should never knowingly risk $40,000+ with people like that.

Finally you want a system that is flexible, reliable and will give you the best return on your investment.  The only one that I found that meets that criteria is a SolarEdge based system.  You can read my other posts on this one.

Working with Contractors:

Beware of this one:  We need two hours pay to come to your place and then you pay us say $150 per hour once we arrive.

This is translated as:  We want to charge you double or triple of what we should if you are stupid enough to hire us.  If you fall for that one watch out.

If the people do not do any work or work extremely slowly, then only pay them for the work that they actually did.  This is called stealing.  People who charge high  rates of pay have to be watched closely.

Over charging for materials.    On large items, 15%.  Do not pay extreme markups.  If an item costs $1.50 and you are charged say $30 again that is stealing.

Get the estimate in writing.  

If they don't do  what you asked for, then you can back charge them the cost for having someone else come and fix the work that they did.

One of the first things that a tradesman learns is to organize their work.  You get all of the parts you need for the job and put them in you tray.  You do all the work that you can on the ground first.

Best month of the year for solar harvesting near Windsor Ontario

Hi, again.  In my original post back in 2013 I mentioned that May would be the best harvesting time of the year, or least that was what I was told.

On paper, the best month should be when the days are the longest and when the sun is over head perpendicular to your panels.  That said, the weather, or rather, the cloud cover will determine your best month of the year.  I also notice that in June the Sun sets and rises north of west and north of east.  We have some trees in our front yard that I never thought would bother us but they do in June.  West facing panels are not the demons that they were presented out to be.  A balanced system with south, east and west facing panels is the best.  It is important to have some west facing panels to help out the grid in the evening.

High temperature has about a -5% effect on your panels in the summer.  In the winter even with the extremely poor roof angle, a really cold day with a nice wind can make the panels produce maximum output for a little while.  The days are too short to produce a lot of power in the winter and the snow has to be cleared off of the panels.  You can harvest 250% more in summer than in the winter months.

For the past  two years JULY has been our best month.  This year will be a new record for us of around 2.455 MW hours.  Last year was 2.127 MW hours.  The last two weeks of sun really helped 2015.  Like wise the record rain in June reduce our output by about 300 kW hours.  Our peak day record was 103.8 kW hours this year.  This is a non-tracking fixed roof mounted system.  Only a SolarEdge system will work like this as the output of one panel does not effect the output of the string.  Micro inverters also will not work well in our system.  We simply have two 5000 W inverters giving us our 10 kW microfit system.


We are doing our share to help reduce the global CO2 levels and even drive a hybrid Ford C-Max to boot.  We thank the Good Lord for shining on our roof this year.

I did notice that on some really hot  days that the wind was under 3 mph.  That meant that solar panels were the only ones helping the grid that day and Not the wind turbines.  Our line  voltages were also lower showing the lack of wind generation.

Cutting our CO2 Emissions

A recent Toronto Star post stated that using wind turbines and solar does not reduce CO2 emissions.

Every watt of power from wind or solar panels gets its energy source from the Sun.  The sun produces NO CO2.

I do agree that there are problems integrating such energy sources into the grid.  Storing energy is difficult.

The problem with the review is that the CO2 problem is Global one and not just a Canadian one.  Unless all countries like China, USA, etc who are building a new coal burning station about every week use none carbon energy producers then the problem will only get worst.  Google ocean acidification to see the first stages showing about the problem.  This is now starting to effect the global food source and can result in horrific future food shortages.

It has been my observation that the rich don't want to do their share.  Why would they?  That means living like others and not flying around the world on a wimm just because you can.

Coal can be used if the gases produced are scrubbed.  That adds cost and is not normally done.

Unless there is a major problem people will continue to ignore their carbon foot print and live like they always have.  By that time it will be too late to reverse the damage done.

Another equal problem is world population growth.  Here, China and India will very soon have over 2 billion people each which each person has a CO2 AND a methane foot print.  This is equally as important as stopping the burning of coal.  I don't see a bright future for your children or grandchildren.

Everyone every where must do their part or the world will be far worst off.  As the world warms up more methane is being released and the snow ball effect will take over.

One of the big problems that I see if good old greed.  Every where I see people with their hand out to try to capitalize of these new energy sources.  This includes charging for building permits to install solar panels, greed of many installers, greed of Hydro One charging $1500 just to connect you to the grid.  The list goes on.