Thanks in advance for any advise. I do appreciate it.
tsp
(Tomas)

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

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.