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We did get our interconnect permission from Southern California Edison back in November. Fortunately it was retroactive to the end of September, so we have been getting credit for our contributions to the Net for a few months.

Then with the December bill came a notice from SCE of a rate change proposal. Basically what it said was the people not using very much electricity needed to pay more and those using lots of electricity needed to pay less. (Sort of like the California Gas tax. When people (...)

Today the building department came out for the final inspection. We passed (didn't really expect otherwise.) You can view the project photo album by clicking on the meter below.

Yesterday the hole around the new service box got stucco. Today paint.

Now it is just a matter of time before all the details are in place and Southern Callifornia Edison starts crediting me for the excess power I generate. (Right now they are getting it for free.) Even without the credit (so that I have to pay for power used in the evening rather than drawing down on the credits) it looks like my August power bill will be $100 less than before solar.

The new electrical service is installed and the solar panels hooked up. The meter now “runs backward"!

We got a couple of good breaks (pun intended?) with the new breaker box. First, remember the power outage that took out the wine refrigerator? Well Edison was not done. They scheduled another outage for some finish up work on the transformer. Good news is that we were able to get the new service upgrade done on the same day. So we had only one day of no power, not two.

The second good news (...)

The timing seemed right. We had some extra cash and roof top solar seems to have come of age. There is still a rebate for Southern California Edison customers who generate their own power and the Federal tax credit will be in place a few more years.

We selected Nexgen Construction Services to do the project. They started last Thursday and today we have panels on the roof. There is still some work to go—we are upgrading our electrical service panel as part of the process. That wll happen next (...)