Ten Megawatthours

Four year back, I was pretty excited to mark the passage of being able to create a million watt hours of electrical power in twelve months with my photovoltaic system.

Yesterday I reached another important goal, a total system production of ten million watt hours of production, or "ten megawatthours". Here's the face of the production meter this morning:

That's one-zero-zero-zero-one, or 1001 Kwh.

OK, so at my utility's energy rate, that's, uh, $631.00 worth of power from my $13,000 solar power system. The total is actually somewhat higher, but for a number of years, I reset the dials on the meter to zero when I loaned the system out to power a remote festival. The current total probably began some time at the turn of the century, 2000 or 2001 or so.

The system, in it's current configuration was put online on Sept 9, 2005, at 4038 Kwh, and production since then has been interrupted a few times, once for six months after I moved and took the system apart and left it in storage. Since assembling the system at this location, I've averaged 775 Kwh per year for the last five years.

Not calculated, but never the less very valuable, is the amount of power that the system has provided during the frequent utility power outages that occur in this area, particularly during winter storms. During those times, the power generated, stored, and supplied by the system is worth it's weight in gold (although, electrons are pretty lightweight). My neighbors use noisy gasoline generators, huddle around candles, or simply move into town and stay at a motel when things get rough out here in the woods. I click over a transfer switch, press a button to start the inverter, and carry on as usual.

Today I started accumulating the next 10,000 kilowatt-hours of power. If I could just upgrade my small hydro system, the disc would be spinning night and day, and bring the next milestone into view much more quickly.