A home EV charger, rooftop PV solar, and programmable connected LED light bulbs
I'd really like to upgrade my home from cozy to cutting-edge. These three items would put me well on my way.
The ChargePoint Home 32A Level-2 Charger
Taking EV ownership to Level-2.
When I leased my 2015 Kia Soul EV, I was hooked. Driving an electric in the Bay Area car is awesome. It's quiet, ultra-low carbon, and it lets me use the HOV-3 lane when crossing the Bay Bridge (which means a toll of a mere $2.50, as opposed to the $6 the gas-guzzlers have to pay). With a full charge of over 100 miles of range, the Soul EV has half the MSRP of a basically equipped Tesla Model S, has more cargo room, and doesn't signal that I've got a cool $73,000 to spend on a car. Oh, and maintenance? None. Except tire rotations and windshield washer fluid fills.
Having a home Level-2 charger would take ownership of an electric car to the next level. The ChargePoint Home 32A, 240V Level-2 charger would charge my car from empty (which is a rarity) to full in about six–seven hours. A typical charge from 50 percent would take about two or three. The charger is also smart, and can show me statistics on charging, miles added, and carbon reduced via the ChargePoint app on my Android and on the web.
There are a lot of Level-2 chargers available for EV drivers, but ChargePoint caught my eye for a few reasons. First of all, ChargePoint's public Level-2 chargers are very common, and is the charging network I use most frequently. That means installing the charger at home will give me a clearer picture of what it's costing me to charge, and what my charging habits are really like.
ChargePoint offers amperage, line connection, and cable length options for its Home charger. Since I'm renting the house I'm in, going with the 240V plug-in charger (as opposed to hard wired) is the best way to go, since when I move, I can just unplug and take the thing with me. Using the 32A model means more electrons get pushed at once, and thus faster charging. It also means that if (when) I get another EV at the end of my lease, it can provide a higher level of charging throughput. As for cord length, going long with the 25-foot cord means that I can put the charger almost anywhere in the garage and run the J1772 connector out to my car with ease.
All configured, the unit would cost $750. However, that's not the prohibitive cost. Using a 32A charger requires a 40A breaker, and the breaker box on the house doesn't have room for a new 40A line. That means I'd have to hire an electrician to install a new breaker box. That's a permitted job and costs can quickly climb.
What would the ChargePoint Home provide me that I don't have now?
Right now, I'm using the 120V charger that came with my car to charge up. From "empty" it takes about about 23 hours to get back to full. From my typical one-third to one-half charge to full, it takes over twelve. That charge time means that I often don't get a full charge before heading into work, and results in me having to grab a quick charge every couple of days.
Getting a home Level-2 charger would also allow me to be able to keep my charging to off-peak times, which would mean that my car wouldn't be drawing power from dirty peaker power plants.
It also means that if my roommate wants to get an EV, we could both grab a charge in one night.
Rooftop Solar Panels
Cheap power, how I covet thee.
If there's one thing California has during the summer, it's plenty of sunshine. We also have higher electric rates, since that sunshine means heat, and heat means HVAC systems start spinning up. Solar Panels can offer a bit of financial relief during the hot months when prices can spike during peak times of day.
I took a quick look at PG&E's rate schedule, and things can get pretty nasty if you draw a lot of power from the grid using a time of use plan. I work from home a day or two per week, so using a time-of-use plan would kill me from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. at 32.7 cents per kWh. That time of day represents part of the peak sunshine hours, so going solar may make sense.
There are several financial models with which you can go solar. The first (and most obvious and expensive) route is to buy the system outright. While solar adds a lot to the value of a house, it has really high up-front costs. It's basically like buying a car.
The next route is similar to the first: Get a loan for the panels. I took a look at Solar City's Solar Loans and they're basically small 30-year mortgages. Yeowch. At least it comes with a 30 percent federal tax credit.
The third option is a solar lease, where you pay no up-front installation cost, but are stuck with a monthly lease payment. In many solar lease models, payments go up each year (about 2.9 percent to account for inflation) for the life of the 30-year lease. Solar City's example shows a first lease payment of $75.20. (For reference, my last PG&E bill was about $149.)
The last way to get solar is to get a PPA (no, not an Ubuntu repo). A PPA is a lot like the solar lease, only instead of paying for the lease regardless of how much power is used, you pay a price per kilowatt hour pulled from the panel. A Solar City PPA example shows that the rate for solar power is about 15 cents per kWh. For reference, PG&E's four-tiered plan's lowest rate is 16.7 cents. Even with a time-of-use plan, the lowest tier (low-demand, winter rate) is 13.9 cents. Between the cheap 15-cent solar rate and the 14-cent grid (read: nighttime) rate, ratepayers stand to save a bunch of money. Especially with net energy metering.
All this seems great, but alas, I'm a renter. As a tenant, you can't have solar installed on a roof you don't own. You can always have your landlord install the system, but you'll end up paying part of your power bill to the landlord. That makes for a more complicated rental situation, and poses a significant investment risk for the landlord as well.
What would solar panels provide that I don't have now?
If there's one thing solar would do, it's lower my energy bill. It would allow me to switch over to a time-of-use rate plan with PG&E, since peak load times generally coincide with times of day that the sun is out. For the days that I'm working from home, I can run my PCs (and A/C in the summer) without worry about running up the bill. Charging my EV at night would be a lot cheaper using off-peak rates and the benefits of net energy metering.
And if I can cut down energy usage during the day (by sweating it out during the summer), it's possible to get a refund out of net metering at the end of the year. That's right, I could have PG&E pay me.
Philips Hue Connected RGB LED Light Bulbs
$200 for three bulbs. But they're awesome bulbs.
Light is just light, right? Well, if we're comparing bulbs for home use, I recommend LED bulbs for most people. Sure, LED bulbs are more expensive than regular bulbs (I have a bunch of 2700K Cree 60W equivalent bulbs), but they'll last longer and use less energy than their incandescent and CFW counterparts. And LED bulbs don't have mercury in them like CFWs do.
Philips took the LED bulb a bit further by making an RGB LED bulb that connects to a wireless bridge. The bridge connects to the 'net, and pow! You have a smart, connected light bulb. The Philips Hue system integrates with IFTTT, so I can have lights that slowly turn on to wake me up at night, bulbs that flash when I get an important email, or have them flash red if there's severe weather/a zombie apocalypse.
The problem is that Philips' RGB Hue bulbs are way more expensive than the simple white Cree bulbs I have now. The Hue starter kit comes with three bulbs and a wireless bridge to control them. The kit costs a cool $200. For three bulbs. Each additional bulb costs $60.
That's no cheap light bulb, but it is better.
To replace all the lights in my house, I'd need the starter kit and 28 more bulbs. Just to replace all the common A19 bulbs in the house. That's $1,880. For light bulbs. Not counting some floodlights and fluorescents in the kitchen, garage, and outside. But they're awesome light bulbs. With colors.
What would these lights provide that I don't have now?
Having fully customizable and programmable light options for your home is cooler than you might think. Besides just being great for parties, being able to tune in light color according to time of day would be amazing. Need to feel awake? Add a little more blue light. Need to get to bed? More warm reds, yellows, and oranges will help you feel drowsy.
And there's something to be said fort being able to tie my home lighting to the Internet. I'd be able to turn the lights on or off with a mere text message. Light switches are so 2000s.
