typical electrical bill for all heat and electricity ~$150
[...]
regional cost per kwh ~$0.075
my monthly usuage~2000kwh+
Based on these numbers it sounds like you're heating your house with electricity? Do you know whether you're using resistive heat or a heat pump? If you're using the former, this is a *huge* energy hog. A heat pump is roughly 3 times as efficient - i.e., it will generate the same amount of heat with 1/3 of the electricity usage. You may also want to look into gas heat if it's available in your area (though with your ultra-cheap electricity, the heat pump may be more cost effective).
If I could find some kind of Bell Curve of performace by month/week with watts peak and hours in the day, I could be a little more sure but I know there are other factors, clouds and rain etc.
The site you're looking for is here - it even takes your local weather into account:
http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/The point is somewhat moot, though - at $.075/kWh, your electricity is so cheap it'll be very hard to make Solar pay for itself. As another poster mentioned, conservation is probably more what you should be thinking about.
Since heating appears to be your main electricity expense, that seems like a place to focus first.
I wonder if I just like the idea of having solar panels and maybe one day going off the grid, but in reality this does not make sense. Has anyone had success? What is your specifics?
Off-grid vs. grid-tie are two *completely* different propositions. Solar won't produce energy when it's dark - meaning long periods of overcast, and every night pose big problems. You'll need a battery bank to make up some of the short-term shortages, and you'll need a backup generator for the longer-term low production periods. Given how ridiculously cheap your electricity is, this makes no sense. (National average is $0.125 per kWh, and here in California, it's $0.167+)
Here's a forum that'll give you a lot more information:
http://www.solarpaneltalk.comBTW: quick note on units:
kWh - kilo-Watt-hour - this is a unit of energy (similar to therms, BTUs, calories, etc.) and represents 1,000 Watts of power generated for an hour.
kW - kilo-Watt - this is a unit of power (similar to horsepower) and represents the capacity of the system to instantaneously generate power.
Solar system are usually rated on their DC power capacity - i.e., the maximum amount of DC power they can generate - this will be given in kW - so your system is quoted at 7kW, and the price is $3.50 per kW. Note that you will not actually get that many AC kW delivered to your house, since there are losses through the inverter and the solar panels will rarely (never) be operating at full efficiency.
pvwatts will tell you how many kWh you can generate per year (and per month) using your system - this replaces energy you would otherwise be buying from your power company.
