The Great Energy Mystery

The Great Energy Mystery

As I have explained, my day job is building a company involved in scientific R&D to develop an efficient green hydrogen synthesis system using the latest in proton-conducting ceramics. I like joking that what “Plastics” was to The Graduate and what Silicon is to the Bay Area and electronics, ceramics will be to the new Millennium. Its quite flippant of me as a non-scientist to say this, but if something that can efficiently transport electrons can change the world to our current digital reality, imagine what something that can efficiently transport protons will be able to do to the industrial chemical and energy worlds. In addition to this, one of our partners that is designing and building our reactors is in the business of building and selling hydrogen fuel cells that can fill in the last 20% of the off-grid agenda (complimenting solar and batterywalls with an intermittent fuel cell that recharges the battery using small amounts of propane to drive the hydrogen fuel cell). So, professionally, I am up to my eyeballs in alternative energy.

But let’s be clear, I am no engineer, I am no electrical contractor and I am just barely able to do minor home repairs without the help of my Handy Brad or B-I-L Jeff. When I decided to move out here a few years ago, I decided to try to make my home as energy efficient as possible. It wasn’t just a game, it was also practical. Every month, San Diego Gas & Electric was sending me my bill with a little added annoying chart that told me how much more energy I was using than the average SDGE customer, as well as my neighbors. Month after month, they were in my face reminding me of how energy inefficient I was. It got to me, but so did the outrageous seeming electric bills. We were only using the house episodically, so I couldn’t understand the source of the energy use.

I attacked the problem with a vengeance. I started by buying a Sense meter, which I had installed on my electric panel, so it could tell me where I was being inefficient. Unfortunately, not being out here regularly made that data less than useful, so I proceeded to step two. I negotiated with the best electric company in the area to right-size and install solar. I was going to add a Tesla battery, but then the added cost of the flat roof replacement (only under the portion where the panels were to be placed) made me balk on the battery. I figured I could address that later when I moved and thought the price of batteries were likely to fall by then as well. They installed a 9.6kW system (the prices didn’t fall after all), which they deemed was more than enough to support my future needs when I was living here full-time as well as my Tesla car. Indeed, over much of 2019 my electric bills fell precipitously to the $10/month range. However, I was still not in residence, so who knows what that meant. What I also learned was that when I generated excess energy with my big, bad solar system, not only was I throwing it into the grid during off-peak times, but SDGE was paying almost nothing for it compared to what they charged me for it during the same times.

I wanted to gain every advantage as well so when the move dates were set, I also had a new furnace and new A/C units installed and tuned to three Nest thermostats. I was geared up to slay this dragon. One of the first things I did when I moved was attend a Tesla battery conference put on by my electric vendor. I worked out the optimal configuration with the salesman and determined to put in two Tesla batterywalls. My energy program had now cost me about $100,000, but I was sure I would be done paying in anything to SDGE. The solar payback was to be 5-6 years.

As I have been living here I have come to realize (initially from the Tesla battery app) that I still can’t cover my energy use. I replaced lights with low-energy LED’s, I installed three (about to be four) Big Ass Fans to reduce the need for A/C, I installed solar Ring security so they wouldn’t draw energy from my system. As I move into the warmer weather I find that I am running up SDGE monthly bills in the $150-175/mo range and that is destined to be much higher in the hot summer months. It has forced me back to my Sense data for some answers. Unfortunately, Sense is now telling me that 78% of my energy use is from something called “Other”. What I know is that its not my car charger, my A/C, my refrigerators, my spa motor, my fans, my TV’s, my other kitchen appliances, my hot water system or my lights.

In speaking with my sister, my brother-in-law and, as of today, my neighbor with a comparable sized house and pool (I’ll see your spa and raise you a pool), and they all agree that my energy use it nuts. That’s a technical term. Nuts. My sister just got a Tesla battery (one, not two like me) so she and I compared Tesla app data and she uses 1/3 the power I use. They pay SDGE once a year (as do all the others) and anyone with solar pays between $40-100 per year. What?! My neighbor has a solar system half the size of mine and STILL only pays $40 for the year. Double What?!

That revelation caused a joke I had been telling for several years to come to life. I mentioned that I wondered if one of my neighbors was taping into my power supply. That’s when I found myself wondering if the mysterious “Other” might connect with what I thought was a joke. My conspiracy theory suddenly blossomed. The nearest neighbor has lots of mystery surrounding them. No one on the street really knows them (even those who have lived here for 25 years). And then, six weeks ago the woman who owned the house died of old age and within a week her 60-year-old son died of COVID-19-related heart failure. I have a spa motor and filter that is positioned somewhere over by those neighbor’s property line and it is heavily shielded from view for us. Could they have taped into my line over there? I’ve owned this house for eight years and have hardly ever been here until recently. I’m sure if someone wanted to do that they would figure I might never notice.

It was then that my neighbor Winston (the one with the pool who lives across from the mysterious house) told me that years ago there was a marijuana field down below that house (vacant property) and when it got busted they found that whoever was doing it had taped into another vacant lot’s water supply and that it had been going on for years. Boom!

So, this week my solar company is coming over and I have said (as a joke) that I am closing my gate and not letting them out until we solve this excess energy use mystery. I must admit I am officially suspicious now and its less about the money than finding the answers to the great energy mystery. More to come.