Marin County couple saving hundreds a month since going solar

MARIN COUNTY (KPIX) – Rolling blackouts and constant Flex Alerts this week are making the switch to solar energy more tempting for Bay Area residents. 

For the Barr family in Marin County, their decision to change power sources in April has been paying off in more ways than one during the heat wave this week. 

“The Flex Alerts are just going to continue. The outages are going to continue. And we’d like a little protection from that too,” Lynn Barr told KPIX 5 on Wednesday. “It’s just great to be off the grid essentially and being able to control what our energy needs at any time.”

The couple has lived in the same home for about 30 years but decided to add solar panels and a storage battery this spring when they were updating their roof. The change has eliminated any stress for them this week during the ongoing heat and accompanying power emergency.  

“Our energy costs just kept going up. And we realized that with solar we would not only be helping the earth, we would be doing green energy, but our bills would go way down,” she said. “We were comfortable in the heat because we had air conditioning we weren’t paying for. It was wonderful.”

Barr says they are saving hundreds of dollars a month on their energy bill and the purchase of the solar equipment will be an investment into their home. 

By using a Tesla battery system, they store energy generated during the day that can then be used at night. During the triple digit temperatures, they were comfortable in their home and even turned off their air conditioning during the Flex Alert. 

“When we started seeing the outages, we said, ‘There really has to be something we can do,'” Barr said. 

They were able to send power back to the grid. With the battery, they can offer up unused energy during peak hours and receive the highest prices from PG&E for the power they are selling to the utility. 

“All hands on deck experience. Any little bit that anybody can provide is helpful,” said Scott Peattie, a business development director for Sunrun. “What we’re trying to do and what my team is trying to do is provide our customers with more opportunities to be engaged using their batteries to help support the grid.”

Sunrun sold the equipment for solar energy to the Barr family and convinced them to get a battery. Peattie says they have 20,000 customers in California alone. Cal ISO data reported on Wednesday that around 26 percent of the supply was from renewable energies and almost 80 percent of those sources were solar power. 

“It will take you off the grid and you could even help save the grid,” Barr said.