When Tim D. bought his house in Sanatoga, PA, he realized it was time to make a lifelong dream come true: to create sustainable, renewable energy right from his own home. In his words, “we want[ed] to create our own micro-grid.”
While researching local providers, Tim found our team here at TerraSol. After a consultation to discuss his goals and requirements, he decided to partner with us to bring his plans into reality. We designed a PV solar system that would provide enough power year-round to completely cover his existing residential electrical usage.
That’s when Tim hit a road bump. Although he wanted to maximize his PV system to generate as much power as would fit on his home – inherently, every solar project must first receive approval from the utility provider.
Solar, by nature, means producing power on the utility provider’s grid. Thus, they have a right to decide the safe amount of power to produce at a single home. Typically, the utility provider will look at the home’s historical energy usage profile and determine a safe amount of solar power to backfeed to the house and the grid.
In Tim’s case, his big plans were a bit of an issue. He hoped to increase overall electrical usage over the years by eventually adding another electric car (or EV) and switching from a gas lawnmower to an electric one.
In the long-term, Tim wanted to move over his energy usage systems to electric, so they could be powered by clean and renewable energy produced from the PV solar electric system rather than traditional on-grid methods. Ultimately, to achieve his goal Tim and TerraSol had to fight for the right to produce more solar power.
Initially, the utility provider reduced the overall system size Tim was allowed to put on the home. Meaning Tim could only put on about 80% of what he originally intended/needed to meet his goals.
Flash forward to 2 years later. Tim showed the utility provider physical proof of his need for additional power and his desire to power that with solar energy. Our team at TerraSol helped him reapply to the utility provider asking for additional solar panels to fill in that final gap of 20% to reach his original goal.
Through our help, Tim received approval for his originally intended size solar system, and today he’s achieved the dream of energy independence thanks to his home solar system.