Well, we finally did it - we installed a solar electricity system on our house.  I say "finally" because we've been talking about solar for a couple of years but I couldn't overcome my inertia to call some contractors.

First, a short review of solar electricity for home use.  Photo-voltaic (PV) solar panels generate electricity when exposed to sunlight.  They generate Direct Current (DC), the type of electricity generated by batteries.  Your house uses Alternating Current (AC) electricity so an inverter must be used to transform the DC from the panels to AC for use in the house.  Electricity that is generated but not consumed on the premises (excess) feeds into the power grid and helps power everyone else.  When you are generating excess electricity, you get a credit from the power supplier, in our case, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E); this is what happens when your electric meter spins backwards because you are generating onto the grid.  When the meter spins backwards, it subtracts from your kilowatt hour usage, giving you a credit.  You will use some or all of this credit when the sun goes down and you are no longer generating any electricity at all.  In this way, the power grid sort of acts like a virtual battery to store the electricity you generate so you can use it later.  Actually, the meter spinning backwards doesn't actually happen any more because PG&E uses new, smart digital meters for solar installations that do not have that spinning wheel, but you still get the credit via electronics.  If you are a PG&E customer, you can get your last two years of electricity usage in kilowatt hours by month on their web site.  This is useful in planning the capacity of your solar system.  PG&E also has some energy audit stuff on their web site but it mostly deals with stuff you probably already know. 

To help determine the real power usage of some of the devices in the house, I use a "Kill A Watt" model P4400.  I picked it up on Amazon.com for 20 bucks.  You plug it into an electrical outlet and then plug the device you want to measure into it.  It gives a variety of readouts but the two most important are the watts consumed in real time and a cumulative kilowatt usage over time.  Using it, we have determined that we need a new refrigerator and computers that are not in use should be turned off or put to sleep.

In July, I started my search for contractors and began my education of solar electricity.  There is a wealth of information about solar electricity on the internet.  The California Energy Commission (CEC) maintains a list of solar contractors on their web site.  The list can be searched using various criteria; I asked for contractors that did business in Santa Clara County and then I looked at their web sites to get a feel for their capabilities.  I settled on four contractors and started calling.  The four I chose where Horizon Energy Systems, Renewable Energy Concepts (REC), ReGrid Power, and Vista Solar.  All of the companies except REC sent out a representative that was a salesman that also did the pre-engineering work on the system design; REC sent a person that was sales only.  Ultimately, they all made proposals but I eliminated REC early on because their proposal was made without measuring the sunlight available and the price seemed to shift around a lot.  ReGrid was very late with their proposal because their rep got sick; unfortunately that dropped them out of consideration.  Vista and Horizon had very similar bids but Horizon's plan produced more power by using photo-voltaic panels that produced more power.  We accepted the Horizon proposal but I want to stress that we could have done business with Vista or ReGrid just as easily.  I liked all three of these companies; they were all professional, courteous, knowledgable, and patient.  REC was the only company of the original four that made me uncomfortable.

I'm going to discuss the price here because I think most people considering a solar electric installation would like to know what it might cost.  Each installation is unique but should be in the same ballpark as our cost for an equivilant sized system.  Our installation was relatively standard:  a south-facing roof with a few shade tree issues.  Our system is probably larger than average at 6.7 KW DC (5.5 KW AC).  It consists of 30 Sharp photo-voltaic panels (model ND-224U1F) that are rated at 224 watts DC, a Fronius IG Plus 6.0 240 volt inverter, a couple of circuit breakers, rails and hardware for the panels, and all installation labor.  Also included with our system was a thermostatically controlled attic fan to help reduce our air-conditioning load in the summer.  The price, with tax but before rebates and credits was $38,711.  The California Solar Initiative (CSI) rebate, paid directly to the contractor, reduced this by $7,683.  We paid Horizon the remaining $31,028 but will receive a 30% federal tax credit of $9,308 when we file our income taxes next year.  That reduces that actual out of pocket expense to $21,720.  Based on current electricity price trends and our own usage patterns, the system should pay for itself in a little over seven years.  It also adds about $40,000 to the value of our house.  I'm not including about $2,800 in tree work as we had a severe shade problem at the west end of our roof.  We topped some trees, removed three trees, and planted three more trees to replace the removed trees (the new trees are a shorter variety so they won't cause the same shading problem).

The installation was done in mid-October and took four days.  The working crew size varied from seven (on the first day) to three (on the last day).  Part of the work included relocating three plumbing vent pipes in the roof.  They spent a lot of time getting the rails straight on our somewhat wavy roof.  Here are some progress pictures.

First, the roof before any solar work:

Day 1 - a driveway full of Horizon Energy trucks:

Day 1 - a roof full of Horizon Energy workers:

Day 1 - the first rail is getting installed:

Day 1 - the first rail is complete:

Day 1 - two rails are installed by the end of the day:

Day 2 - the rest of the rails are installed:

Day 3 - 30 Sharp photo-voltaic panels arrive:

Day 3 - Fronius inverter installation:

Day 3 -panel test fitting; also, this was the day the vents were moved:

Day 4 - about half the panels are installed and wired together by noon:

Day 4 - testing a string (10) of panels; that's a 250 VDC 9 amp spark:

Day 4 - securing the tops of the panels at the end of the day; the shade in this picture is now gone after some tree work:

First day of operation - 6 KW from the sun:

Finally, here's a link to a short video that shows our PG&E meter spinning backwards (this is the old meter before PG&E installed a newer, smarter meter).

The solar system has been operating a couple of weeks now and we have generated more electricity than we have used.  When you connect a solar system to the PG&E grid, your electric billing changes to an annual reconciliation.  A year's worth of generation is subtracted from a year's worth of usage and if you used more than you generated, you pay PG&E.  However, thanks to a shiny new law in California, if you generate more than you use, PG&E pays you.  I think we will be a little short on generation this year but we might be able to conseve our way into the black.  In any case, our carbon footprint just got a whole lot smaller.

Well, I haven't blogged for awhile and I am sorry to have to resume with some sad news. Our dear Max, the orange cat in the DosGatos picture, has passed away. About a year ago, Max was diagnosed with fibro-sarcoma in the form of a large malignant tumor. He underwent surgery but the prognosis was that he would not live out the year. Well, he beat that and up until about three weeks ago, we thought that he was going to beat it completely. Then his cancer returned with a vengeance and his suffering ended today, May 11. Doris and I are extremely saddened by his passing but we are both happy that he was with us these last 12 years.

We got Max from Nike Animal Rescue Foundation (NARF) in mid-1997 when he was about eight weeks old. Max and his two sisters were raised by a foster family after his mother died when he was three weeks old. I had always wanted an orange cat, and Max was an orange tabby (though Doris always referred to him as butterscotch). He was cute and he loved people. Unfortunately, Muffin didn't think he was so cute and never did any more than barely tolerate his presence. As he grew, we realized that he had just about the longest and densest fur of any cat we had seen. That hair, combined with his general lack of personal hygiene, made grooming Max a never ending but mostly fruitless task.

Max sleeping in a hat (about nine weeks old)

Baby Max could sleep anywhere, anytime (about nine weeks)

Max was a big cat, peaking out at over 19 pounds. He had many aliases but Sweetie Boy was the most common and the most descriptive. Though he loved almost all people, he loved Doris most of all. He liked to sleep on her pillow with his body wrapped around her head like a hat with ear muffs. If she sat in a chair, he wanted to curl up on her lap. He liked to stretch out on your body and touch your face with his paw. And he had the best purr. It is so soothing and comforting to pet a cat and listen to that purr.

Young Max and Muffin sleeping in with Doris.

Max loved being outdoors. When we lived in Santa Clara, he would wander all over the neighborhood, sometimes more than a block away. His wandering worried us a lot and we often combed the block when he didn't come home at a reasonable hour. Once, when he didn't come home, we called the Humane Society, and sure enough, he was there. We bailed him out and then I went door to door to find why someone had trapped him and sent him to kitty jail. I finally found the culprit - his excuse was that Max was hunting and killing wild doves that frequented his backyard. He didn't like this very normal cat behavior and then went on to tell me how he was a dove hunter himself and enjoyed the "sport" of shotgunning those creatures. He didn't see the irony!

First time outside and he immediately climbed a tree (about three months old)

Max returning from a foray into the neighbor's yard (about one year old)

Since I work at home, my day was never complete without spending some unproductive time with Max on my lap. He always had to be in the same position: head on my left, feet facing me. He would sink his claws into my side and proceed to knead my torso. It was painful for me but heaven for Max; he would purr and purr. At night, we often fought over part of the bed - he liked to sleep on the corner of the bed where I liked to put my feet. Even when I won the battle at night, I would wake in the morning to find him stretched out on his corner with my feet moved to another part of the bed.

Max was not too fond of fast-moving little people and usually went outside when the grandchildren visited. He hated the sound of loud machinery; lawnmowers and vacuum cleaners terrified him. And he liked to bully Muffin for no discernible reason, reinforcing her disdain. But otherwise, he was quite mellow and mostly liked to just hang out. Want to watch TV? Max would watch with you, albeit with his eyes closed. Eating something tasty? Max would be glad to share it with you. Want to sleep? Sure, move over a little for Max.

When we moved to Morgan Hill in 2003, Max finally had the yard that he wanted and he almost never went beyond it's boundaries. He let Muffin have the house and he took the outdoors. He spent most of his time outside in one of his favorite sleeping spots: the front deck in the corner, the back deck against the railing, and behind the back deck in a bare spot under the trees. He is buried under the latter.

Max in his Morgan Hill backyard (seven years)

Max, we miss you. And we always will.

Yesterday morning we had a four point mule deer buck foraging in our front yard.  We get lots of does and fawns but bucks usually stay farther up the hill, so this was an unusual visit.  Here is a short (less than a minute) video of him before he wandered away.  Muffin (cat numero uno of Dos Gatos) was laying on the front porch at the time and was somewhat upset about this visit as she does not like deer.

By the way, despite my previous analysis of inexpensive video editing software, I have drifted back to Adobe Premiere Elements.  I recently applied an update to Ulead VideoStudio and afterwards, the help file was gone.  That, and thedifficult interface, made be revisit Adobe Premiere Elements.  After spending a little more time with it, I realized that some of my previous misgivings were caused by ignorance on my part.  I figured out how to do a couple of export options and, viola!, it does do what I want it to do.  I then thought I should update to the recently released version 4 but after reading some reviews at Amazon, I decided to stick with version 3 for now.

So my new video toolbox for creating videos in streaming Flash format is simply Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 and Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash version 2.3.  Nice and simple (and cheap).

Here's a quick restaurant review of El Rincon Mexicano in downtown Morgan Hill.  Located on East Second Street, a couple of doors east of Monterey Road, El Rincon is quite small but the food is great.  It has just a few tables inside and a few outside but this is no Taqueria.  Doris and I ate there for the first time a couple of weeks ago.  We came a little early and ate at an outside table on the sidewalk; it was very pleasant.

For starters, we had the fresh Guacamole which is constructed at your table.  Alberto the Chef brings avocado, diced tomatoes, chopped cilantro, onions, and diced peppers to your table where he combines the ingredients, letting you choose the quantity of peppers to be added.  It is served with a stack of warm corn tortillas.  It looked like way too much guacamole for the two of us but it was so delicious that we polished off the whole bowl.  By the way, Alberto is also the host, waiter, and busses the tables. 

We each had a salad, Doris choosing the mixed greens salad (Ensalada Mixta) while I had the Jicama salad.  The Jicama sticks were joined by thin slices of tomato, avocado, nectarine, orange, and, I think, blood orange (it looked like a pink grapefruit but tasted like an orange.  It had a chile dressing that had just the right amount of kick.  We both thoroughly enjoyed our salads.

For the main course, Doris had the Chicken in Green Mole and I had one of the best Chile Rellenos of my life.  The Poblano chile was stuffed with the traditional cheese plus peas, slightly crunchy carrots, and ground beef.  It was served over a tasty brown sauce.

Alberto brought the bill before we could order dessert, so I guess he thought we had had enough to eat (which was probably true).  We want to go back, but Alberto has opened a larger version of his restaurant in Gilroy and the Morgan Hill branch doesn't seem to be open during the advertised hours.  I hope it doesn't close, but if it does, it will be worth the trek to Gilroy for some more of Alberto's excellent cooking.

El Rincon Mexicano
40 East Second Street
Morgan Hill, CA 95037
408-778-6769

8/10/2007 Update:

El Rincon is still operational and we have been back twice since the first visit.  If you go, I highly recommend the Lamb Shank in mole - it is outstanding.  Most everyting we have tried is excellent except the Carnitas which I thought was just average.

 DF

I wanted to start a category about living in Morgan Hill; what we like and don't like, tips for new residents, and stuff like that.  This morning, we had a taste of what we like about living in Morgan Hill, particularly in Jackson Oaks.  Just before breakfast, we found two Mule Deer bucks grazing in our front yard.  Their antlers were just starting to grow, six points each, so far.  I haven't seen two bucks co-existing before.  The one other time I saw two bucks together, they were fighting (it was mating season).  By the time I got my camera, they had wandered away.

One of the bucks has been sleeping in various parts of our yard for the past couple of weeks.  Doris took a picture of him with her cell phone camera.  He was chewing his cud in the gravel next to the driveway.