.

You need to have a vision of what you want to end up with . . . you can for example buy a big inverter now; add capacity ( PV ) to it as budget permits . . . but you need to know where you're going to begin with. You also must early on; decide if you're gonna be grid tied or not . . totally separate system for only some things . . battery back-up or not . . . etc.

You should also know up front, that every dollar you spend to reduce your present consumption; will save about 20 dollars in PV etc that you DON'T need. Reducing your consumption will GREATLY affect what you end up needing . . .

You've got some major consumption . . your July usage is higher than ANY annual usage I had here in this place before I went PV / grid tie. I now supply about 85% of my annual electricity here in central New York state . . far from the sun capital of the world . . . and nowhere near as sunny as Texas.

My system is 2.8 kW ( nominally ) and I've got 16 panels @ 175 watts each. One Xantrex inverter and a 1000 lb battery bank ( my choice for battery back-up ). Installed it started out ~ $30k; incentives and state / fed tax breaks brought the final cost to about half that.

I'll mention that if you DO tie into the grid; you MUST do it properly for the safety of all . . my local ( friendly ) utility had all sorts of flaming moving hoops to jump through; but that was all handled by the place that put the system in. It is important to do it properly . . NEC now has a section dealy specfically with PV systems . . . grid tie or not.

I can supply some pix / a write-up about my system if you'd like . . email me to my member email with a real email address for yourself if you want it . . .

Good luck . .

Bob

Hello,
Texas has several renewable energy groups sponsored by the State of Texas. Some are more visible than others. txses.org

PV in Texas is very expensive. Wind seems to be a better price. For PV, read Homepower. September is the time of the big show in Fredericksburg ?

I believe in energy reduction.
My next concern is the cost of AC.
One project that seems to save, is solar preheating of hot water.

B4 committing to a project, you need to check on the responce of local HO organisations. In N. Texas, a member had considerable resistance to solar on the roofs this spring.

One very difficult problem is grid connections. Texas was a early leader in the National initative, but the rules regarding it are lame at best. If you belong to a Co-Op, they do not have to allow you to be a co-generator.

In the Dallas area, TXU is not against it, but does not make it easy officially.

Oversize inverters cost extra power. With 4 panels, and a large inverter, the power may be mostly spent with inverter needs.