# Getting harrased by solar panel sales people due to my solar potential with aerial imaging. .



## Brian26 (Feb 25, 2017)

They are ringing my doorbell at 9 am on a Saturday or Sunday. Relentless solar sales people stopping by and its getting annoying. Apparently they are using satellite aerial imaging to seek out to target the best homes for solar potential. Some of the most aggressive sales people I have ever encountered. They all want me to sign for a lease or PPA (Purchase Power Agreement). Any mention of what if I want to buy them outright they want nothing to do with it... It usually ends with them handing me a card and saying if you know someone that wants solar you will get 1k for a referral if they go with it. Anyone know what these sales people are making of an install? 

While our solar potential is really good our electric bill just isn't enough to justify it from a cost. We are currently using around 500kwh a month. Here is google's solar analysis.


----------



## DBoon (Feb 25, 2017)

What is no doubt pretty annoying is also a siren sound that you have a pretty good site for solar with quick payback.  Even at only 500 kWh per month, you can likely buy your own solar PV system, go net-metered, and have it pay off pretty quickly in Connecticut's really expensive electricity market.  With a 5 kW roof mount system at $3/watt or so (rough guess) owned outright, that is a $15k cost, you get 30% tax incentive, so only $10.5k (not counting state incenvites), and at 6000 kWh/year and 20 cents per kWh, you are saving $1200/year, or a payback in 9 years.  Not too bad.  

And if you have a solar PV system on your roof, the annoying salespeople will stop ringing your doorbell.


----------



## Corey (Feb 25, 2017)

"No Solicitors" sign + report to BBB if they violate that.


----------



## peakbagger (Feb 25, 2017)

From what I can figure out, they get a nice commission and bonuses if they meet certain targets. Like any other sales effort if they contact enough people they will get some percentage of contacts as sales. I expect there may be some desperation in that many are worried that the new political structure in Washington may change the rules. The Koch funded efforts to change solar incentives in individual states is also probably of concern.to solar firms.

The reasons folks are pounding on the door trying to get non outright purchase deals is that's where the money is. Most installations are now "plug and play" and not very complicated. The firms buy the components in bulk and they can slap up a system in day with a relatively unskilled crew. If a company can effectively rent your roof they can tie into various incentives and possibly SRECs that generate long term revenue and tax write offs that are then packaged and sold to a hungry financial industry. Its highly likely that the firm you have contact with will not be around for long and even if they are they will have sold you contract to someone else.

That being said, the fundamental concept is not something you should brush off. If you are bit handy and capable of reading technical manuals you probably can design your own system. Granted you may not use a lot of power but that means you system doesn't have to be very big. If you have few minutes take a look at this website (don't worry its an educational institution)  http://www.dsireusa.org/. Then look up the incentives for your specific area (I expect they are good as the salesman wouldn't be pounding on your door). Now search for a program called PV Watts on the web (again its non commercial) enter where you are and it will find a nearby location. Now enter some real basic information on the next page. It defaults on a pole array so change to roof mount and enter your roof angle in along with the direction the array would be facing. Once done have it calculate your yearly generation. I swagged milford CT and just changed to roof mount and it looks like a 5 KW system might be good fit as it puts out 6300 kwh per year.

The rule of thumb is usually $3 per installed watt if you pay someone to do the install soup to nuts. Realistically given current pricing and local competition you may be able to get it down to $2.50. Lets work with $3 a watt. It looks like CT offers a 0.513 cents  per watt incentive http://www.energizect.com/your-home/solutions-list/residential-solar-investment-program so you are down to $2.48 a watt so your out of pocket cost is $12,400. There may be other incentives but I will let you go through the DSIRE database. The federal government has 30% net rebate tax credit which reduces your tax bill $1 for $1 of credit (its a credit not a deduction) so uncle sam kicks in $3,720 next April. so you are now at $8,680 installed cost for the system. There are DIY folks that by shopping the surplus market are getting down to $1 an installed watt after the federal rebate so the low end cost is possibly $5000. One solar supplier that I have dealt with in the past is ALTE store in Hudson Mass. They can price up an entire DIY system, they are going to use first line equipment so I would expect they might price out to around $1.5 (after fed rebate) a watt for all the pieces. CT also appears to have "ZREC" program which pays you for every MWhr of power you produce (1MWHh = 1000KWh). With a 5 KW system I guessed 6.35 MHhr per year. I am having a tough time figuring  out how they price them but the rate might be quite high [possibly up to $300 MWhr) If that is the case you might get check for $1900 every year plus not pay for power as all you are only selling renewable attribute of the power. The utilities in the state have to buy these by law. Mass has similar program. In NH I only get about $40 an SREC but it covers my connection fee to the utility. Depending on the ZRECs you may pay off the system in three years. I expect the ZREC program may be why solar firms are pounding on your door as they can make bundle on them and most folks are clueless about them.

The other reason for solar is the utilities aren't paying for ZRECs out of their own pocket, they are adding a surcharge to your power bill to cover these costs meaning as more folks add solar your power bill goes up. We tell folks in Mass the choice is pay for your own solar or pay for your neighbors solar through surcharges on your power bill.

Looking at the aerial photo it looks like several other houses in your area might be good for solar. Ideally you could do a group buy where you buy in bulk and then either get together and DIY the installs and hire an electrician to do the actual panel work or just go out to bid to electrical firms for the multiple installs.


----------



## georgepds (Feb 25, 2017)

Plus..if you buy a PV system in Ct.  You'll piss off my brother..head of metering for one of the Ct utilities, and bearer of  one of the most regressive point of view regarding solar I've ever encountered. He's always coming to me about the demerits of solar, chief of which it will lower the ROI of utility investors ( my heart bleeds for them, not) , that and the high voltage on the roof scares firefighters ( even though I point out to him microinverters work at line voltages, disconnect the line and you are at most 24 volts)

Just to make a point he lives under a high voltage line... nothing to do with solar..but just another way to toe the utility line. You know... solar PV is ugly, power lines are beautiful( I've nothing against HV lines, I'm with NREL, they re an effective way to move wind and solar energy to where you need it... )


For those of you who think the utilities are neutral, here's a clue,they're not. You are hitting them  where it hurts... in their overstuffed pockets full of dividend cash.


----------



## EatenByLimestone (Feb 25, 2017)

I think I'd have some fun with them.  Start trying to sell them stuff.  See if they'll buy a 1/2 drank jug of milk from the fridge for $5.   Ask them if they have enough life insurance.  Let them know your cousin sells cars and  give them a good deal.  Do they like Mazda's?  Do they have kids?  Tell them stories about your brother's kids....  Be creative.


----------



## georgepds (Feb 25, 2017)

EatenByLimestone said:


> I think I'd have some fun with them.  Start trying to sell them stuff.  See if they'll buy a 1/2 drank jug of milk from the fridge for $5.   Ask them if they have enough life insurance.  Let them know your cousin sells cars and  give them a good deal.  Do they like Mazda's?  Do they have kids?  Tell them stories about your brother's kids....  Be creative.





 And ask them if they're saved


----------



## EatenByLimestone (Feb 25, 2017)

Good one!


----------



## Brian26 (Feb 25, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> From what I can figure out, they get a nice commission and bonuses if they meet certain targets. Like any other sales effort if they contact enough people they will get some percentage of contacts as sales. I expect there may be some desperation in that many are worried that the new political structure in Washington may change the rules. The Koch funded efforts to change solar incentives in individual states is also probably of concern.to solar firms.
> 
> The reasons folks are pounding on the door trying to get non outright purchase deals is that's where the money is. Most installations are now "plug and play" and not very complicated. The firms buy the components in bulk and they can slap up a system in day with a relatively unskilled crew. If a company can effectively rent your roof they can tie into various incentives and possibly SRECs that generate long term revenue and tax write offs that are then packaged and sold to a hungry financial industry. Its highly likely that the firm you have contact with will not be around for long and even if they are they will have sold you contract to someone else.
> 
> ...



Thanks for the very informative and detailed post. This issue is I just don't have the outright cash to buy the panels. Wonder if there is a finance option. Even if it was a wash where my solar production canceled out the payment I would be happy knowing it's green energy and not going to the big utilities. 

I would likely produce an insane amount of power. My house is perfect for solar. Facing south/southwest, brand new roof a few years old, no trees, etc.


----------



## iamlucky13 (Feb 26, 2017)

My thought reading your post was along the lines of what peakbagger said - if there's multiple salesmen approaching, it's because they perceive a big potential profit for them. In other words, there's a lot to be saved by buying outright from the best (not necessarily the lowest, although that's often case) of multiple bids from several installers.

You can probably finance a solar install using a home equity loan if you have sufficient home equity. If you're seriously interested, finding out the terms of your bank's home equity loans is probably the first place to start, and maybe also finding out what a couple other local banks or credit unions offer.


----------



## peakbagger (Feb 26, 2017)

If the house can be enrolled in the ZREC program, the ZRECs cover the payments on a solar loan and its a very short term loan


----------



## woodgeek (Feb 26, 2017)

One of them is probably my brother in law.  If an older guy with a Tom Selleck 'stache shows up, give him a beer and tell him to beat it.


----------



## Brian26 (Feb 26, 2017)

Going to look into the loan option and the ZREC program. We have a ton of equity in the house as we bought it from my great uncle for cheap and put 30% cash down on it. Googles project sunroof are showing these numbers which are pretty impressive if accurate.


----------



## NateB (Feb 26, 2017)

Brian26 said:


> Going to look into the loan option and the ZREC program. We have a ton of equity in the house as we bought it from my great uncle for cheap and put 30% cash down on it. Googles project sunroof are showing these numbers which are pretty impressive if accurate.
> 
> View attachment 195294
> View attachment 195295


If the incentives make or break the deal I wouldn't buy in right now.


----------



## peakbagger (Feb 26, 2017)

I think the federal rebate is pretty reliable as that's an front end payment. The state payment looks like the same. The ZRECs are another story as they appear to be an ongoing payment subject to political winds. I didn't look heavily into them but it looked to me that the state signs up a block of  ZRECs for specific systems for a specific term and associated with that block is ceiling price on SRECs.

There is a push for CT to be able to count Canadian hydro in their REC program which would drive down the ZREC prices for future projects.

I do feel that some of the incentives programs like ZRECs are way overboard and need to be reigned in as the intent was originally to offset the extra cost for generating power with solar. It looks to me that the financial sector has figured out this big giveaway and are rushing to lock it in.

My theory is see if it makes sense with the front end payments and then regard ZRECs as gravy.


----------



## Where2 (Feb 26, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> I do feel that some of the incentives programs like ZRECs are way overboard and need to be reigned in as the intent was originally to offset the extra cost for generating power with solar. It looks to me that the financial sector has figured out this big giveaway and are rushing to lock it in.
> 
> My theory is see if it makes sense with the front end payments and then regard ZRECs as gravy.



I expect the financial sector is building their renewable portfolio as a hedge against potential carbon taxes in the future. Talking to my dad yesterday, he said his electric bill last month was right around $100. Mine was $27. (same street in the same town) Solar does work. Even without REC's, I'll install solar on every property I own.



georgepds said:


> For those of you who think the utilities are neutral, here's a clue, _they're not._ You are hitting them  where it hurts... in their overstuffed pockets full of dividend cash.


You a re definitely right. Electric grid customer base continues to expand in FL, yet the power companies donated millions toward a ballot referendum here last fall. If they didn't see solar as a threat, they would have simply passed those millions along to their shareholders as dividends and ignored the solar segment. My utility continues to add hundreds of acres a year into their own solar farms, so they can continue to be the middle man making a percentage on every kWh used. I keep waiting for the next power company bait-n-switch: I expect it will be an offer to buy energy produced from solar for a $0.02/kWh premium over fossil fuel energy.


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 3, 2017)

Got appointments with a few companies to get some quotes and more information. I found the solarpower rocks website to very informative for those that haven't seen it. It ranks each state and breakdowns all the policies and incentives. We are still ranked quite high here in CT but wow to Massachusetts. If I lived there it would be a no brainier to install panels with that payback time and roi.


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 3, 2017)

How important is the roof angle with panels? I few sites say its very important. I have been messing around with the pv watts website but not sure what my roof angle is. Here is a google streetview shot of my house. Can anyone give me a rough estimate of me roof angle?  My house is the one on the left.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that I had a deck built last year and had to move my electric service coming into the house. So I have a brand new line from the pole, outside disconnect with meter, and new 200 amp panel. It cost me around $2500 so I am guessing I probably don't have to worry about any electrical upgrades. I have read that some people have had unexpected expenses of having to upgrade their panel when getting panels installed.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 3, 2017)

I wont guess but its pretty easy since you have siding. Measure the siding spacing and then count the number spaces from the lower corner of the front roof then multiply the number of spaces by the spacing, that gives you the height of the roof slope. Now  figure out the horizontal distance from the peak to the front corner of the triangle. Next find a calculator with inverse tangent function.(or a website with trig functions). Now divide the height of the triangle by the width and you end up with decimal. Now push the inv tangent function (usually a combination of buttons) and that gives you the roof angle. The photo is distorted and but I would make a WAG and guess is 25  degrees?. If you have an attic hatch the best way is to measure the angle directly on the bottom of the rafter angle finders are cheap and most hardware and big box stores have them.

Now go to PV watts  and punch in the angle you calculated and jot down the results, now repeat for plus or minus 5 degrees and that gets you a rough idea on error. Guessing a latitude of 41 degrees for CT,  a 30 degree tilt angle means you are optimized for summer production so if you have high summer use its a good fit. One trade off with a shallow angle is that snow will take awhile to slide off after a snow storm and looking at the picture its not practical to get a roof rake up there. Probably not a big issue in CT.


----------



## georgepds (Mar 3, 2017)

Re "wow Massachusetts"

I agree. I've got 4.6 kW on the roof and another 3 kW going in Monday. My plan is to use the extra to heat the house



The ROI is ~20%.     Roughly 50/50 srec/electric bill.


----------



## Circus (Mar 3, 2017)

Brian26 said:


> read that some people have had unexpected expenses of having to upgrade their panel



I've heard it's the buss bar that's limiting, not empty fuse locations. Say you've got a hundred amp service with a hundred amp main. Add twenty amps from the PV panels. The buss bar could overload.
Looks like you have a 4/12 roof, just shy of 20 degrees pitch.


----------



## georgepds (Mar 3, 2017)

Re"Guessing a latitude of 41 degrees for CT, a 30 degree tilt angle means you are optimized for summer production so if you have high summer use its a good fit."

With net metering you should really optimize for annual production..


http://www.solarpaneltilt.com

"Use one of these formulas to find the best angle from the horizontal at which the panel should be tilted:


If your latitude is below 25°, use the latitude times 0.87.
If your latitude is between 25° and 50°, use the latitude, times 0.76, plus 3.1 degrees."


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 3, 2017)

The Mass program is unsustainable but you might as well jump on it while you can. At some point the ratepayers who cant install renewables  are going to revolt at the steep increase in overall electric cost. It happened in Germany and Spain, the incentives got too high and many financial firms cashed in and stuck the governments with costs they couldn't fund. Germany ramped down their incentives and Spain just dropped them despite long term contracts.


----------



## georgepds (Mar 3, 2017)

Circus said:


> I've heard it's the buss bar that's limiting, not empty fuse locations. Say you've got a hundred amp service with a hundred amp main. Add twenty amps from the PV panels. The buss bar could overload.
> Looks like you have a 4/12 roof, just shy of 20 degrees pitch.




It is the bus bar... if you open the panel door there's a sticker that says the bus bar rating

G


----------



## georgepds (Mar 3, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> The Mass program is unsustainable but you might as well jump on it while you can. At some point the ratepayers who cant install renewables  are going to revolt at the steep increase in overall electric cost. It happened in Germany and Spain, the incentives got too high and many financial firms cashed in and stuck the governments with costs they couldn't fund. Germany ramped down their incentives and Spain just dropped them despite long term contracts.




True.. but it will be a while.. solar is still a small part of the picture here..but maybe not

The Srec 2 program ends this year. The new rules are to address the issue you raise.

So far, Ma is honoring the srec1 rules, and following the srec2 rules for the reminder of this year


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 3, 2017)

Circus said:


> I've heard it's the buss bar that's limiting, not empty fuse locations. Say you've got a hundred amp service with a hundred amp main. Add twenty amps from the PV panels. The buss bar could overload.
> Looks like you have a 4/12 roof, just shy of 20 degrees pitch.



The rule is you cant connect more than 20% of the rated circuit panel bus rating. Unless you have an odd panel, the buss rating is usually the main breaker rating. Most homes have 200 amp main panels so that means that only 20% of the 200 amps can get connected for a total of 40 amps which is roughly 9 KW of panels. If on the other hand the panel is 100 AMP panel its down around 4 KW. In that case the panel can be upgraded to a panel with a larger bus rating. The service entrance doesn't need to be upgraded to do this and actually there is an advantages to it if the main breaker is kept at 100 AMPs  but most folks would go with a line side tap that connects into a new box located between the panel and the meter and leave the panel alone. The problem is that the electricians usually are subcontractors who bid the work low they try to make up the lost profit by selling extras so things like panel upgrades adds a lot of extra profit n their part.

The potential unexpected cost I didn't mention that surprises folks is that the roofing really should be new or near new under the panels. Its not required its just a practical decision in that once the panels are down reroofing is a PITA as the panels need to be removed. If you have a recent 30 year roof and new solar panels odds are someone else gets to worry about it. BTW, some folks deduct the reroof as part of the installation, its definitely one of these see your tax advisor situations but I personally wouldn't want to be audited on it.


----------



## georgepds (Mar 3, 2017)

georgepds said:


> True.. but it will be a while.. solar is still a small part of the picture here..but maybe not
> 
> The Srec 2 program ends this year. The new rules are to address the issue you raise.
> 
> So far, Ma is honoring the srec1 rules, and following the srec2 rules for the reminder of this year




Some data re it will take a while:

https://solarpowerrocks.com/massachusetts/boston/

Massachusetts’ RPS sets a target of 15% renewable energy by 2020, with a 1% increase every year thereafter. No expiration date is given. What’s more, the state legislator has set a specific target of 400 MW of solar electricity generated by 2020!

Right now there’s about 22 MW of solar power installed, and only 9 more years to go until that due date. So, with a limited budget to encourage solar power how in the world are they gonna get to that level of solar energy adoption in 9 years?


----------



## georgepds (Mar 3, 2017)

georgepds said:


> Some data re it will take a while:
> 
> https://solarpowerrocks.com/massachusetts/boston/
> 
> ...




More up to date...

ssachusetts electrical utilities must provide a portion of the RPS from qualified in-state, interconnected solar facilities like your roof. Each year, the minimum solar compliance standard is determined by dividing the annual solar compliance obligation in megawatt hours (MWh) by the total RPS load obligation from the previous two years. This original standard set the goal of 400 megawatts (MW) of production capacity, which Massachusetts reached!

We had previously egged on Massachusetts legislators to bump this goal up to 800 MW. Well, they did us one better, and in 2014 established a new production goal of 1600 MW! For more information on this awesome one-up, check out Massachusett’s Solar II Carve-Out page.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 3, 2017)

I understand that legislatively  Mass has set admirable goals and the utilities are doing what they are told, including charging this rate back to ratepayers. As the carve out goes up the charge back to the ratepayers increase. The rational approach to ratepayers is to leave the system if possible and that just increases the rates to those who remain. At some point it becomes unsustainable as the ratepayer without access to renewables will protest. The response of industry has been to move or put in their own generation (I happen to have worked on two of those projects last year. As I said before grad those incentives and contracts while you can and get someone else pay down your system, I am encouraging folks to do so myself but just be aware that legislatively it all can change if the political winds decide to blow in the opposite directly.


----------



## georgepds (Mar 3, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> I understand that legislatively  Mass has set admirable goals and the utilities are doing what they are told, including charging this rate back to ratepayers. As the carve out goes up the charge back to the ratepayers increase. The rational approach to ratepayers is to leave the system if possible and that just increases the rates to those who remain. At some point it becomes unsustainable as the ratepayer without access to renewables will protest. The response of industry has been to move or put in their own generation (I happen to have worked on two of those projects last year. As I said before grad those incentives and contracts while you can and get someone else pay down your system, I am encouraging folks to do so myself but just be aware that legislatively it all can change if the political winds decide to blow in the opposite directly.



Well I agree, that the legislature can do what it wants. However, there is something called community shared solar for those who cannot use their own roof. I don't know how well it works. But the idea is to extend access to all. As to those docile utilities charging back what they can, the renewable energy charge on my bill is a small fraction of the 20 cents/ kwh that the utility charges 

http://www.massclimateaction.org/community_shared_solar15

So far as I can tell, it's not the ratepayers without renewables that are protesting, it is the utilities. The utilities invent this imaginary ratepayer that cries foul as part of their argument against solar.The utilities could restructure their business model and make money off DSR (think of the utility as a middle man making money off each transaction be it a KWH bought or sold) ,.. it's just that they are wedded to ancient business models ( for good reason: guaranteed profits) . It'll take work, and investment, to change but we'll be better off for it. 

I'd like to see a network of microgrids, each capable of operating independently, and transferring power to one another as needed. If a sector goes down, it's isolated and power is rerouted from another microgrid, or a call to local users goes uot to reduce demand until the crisis is over.   In the meantime, we can wheel power from wind/solar intensive sites to the major centers (NREL figures we can go 30 %  renewable on the east before we stress the systems, and this is without battery backup). Why should we put up with with a system where a single squirrel can bring down the whole northeast corridor.. just because we've always done it that way. 

Let's not suggest the person who's putting up solar is burden to those without solar ... remember he's the guy providing cleans power at the point of use.. let's point the finger at the utilities who have fought solar all the way in an effort to protect their profitable business model .. it's the utilities transmitting and distributing  power with 60% losses from dirty plants to the user ( why ?  because they can build more infrastructure designed to do things the old way and get a guaranteed ROI off the backs of the utility payers)

Recall the Kant imperative.. what if everybody did it.. well if everybody did it we'd all breath better. 

Will it take work to restructure the utility? yes. Is it worth it? yes.


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 3, 2017)

Met with a salesman today from a local solar company that was suggested by many friends who were happy with their installs. Most people I talked to did a PPA or lease who weren't that pleased with it and the few that bought them outright all recommended this company. I heard the same thing from almost everyone. Too many companies are way too pushy with the PPA's and leases. I did my research and am not going that route. 

A few things I learned with our meeting at our house with the salesman. Our house is just about perfect for solar as we suspected. He said he doesn't run into many homes around here with these kinds of numbers and setup.

6 year old roof that includes all new plywood underneath.
Roof pitch is 20 degrees facing South/Southwest at 220 degrees with very little tree shade.
Brand new 200 amp electrical service line, wiring and panel. (We had to move this for a new deck install)

The biggest one was surprisingly this. 

Can your transformer and wires that serve your house/neighborhood handle the increased load from back feeding solar into them? He said this was a completely new issue starting the beginning of this year. 

I didn't realize how big this was until he explained it to me. According to him the 2 major power providers in CT are now requiring that you pay a $500 fee for them to run some tests/analyze if the transformer and wires connected to your house can handle your power generation from your panels. He said he has seen a few recent potential installs shot down because the utility countered that their transformer/wires couldn't handle the load and would need 12k in upgrades that they would have to pay. 

Besides my neighbor who is on a different transformer on the side road there are no other solar panels on nearby houses that share my transformer so I can't imagine this being an issue but I see this as a  loophole of the utilities to try and fight back against solar. Has anyone else heard of this?


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 3, 2017)

I will bow out of the debate as this is supposed to be solar thread.


----------



## georgepds (Mar 3, 2017)

Brian26 said:


> Met with a salesman today from a local solar company that was suggested by many friends who were happy with their installs. Most people I talked to did a PPA or lease who weren't that pleased with it and the few that bought them outright all recommended this company. I heard the same thing from almost everyone. Too many companies are way too pushy with the PPA's and leases. I did my research and am not going that route.
> 
> A few things I learned with our meeting at our house with the salesman. Our house is just about perfect for solar as we suspected. He said he doesn't run into many homes around here with these kinds of numbers and setup.
> 
> ...





Theoretically possible if everyone on the circuit is solar... but practically impossible in most cases... All the utility would need to do is check records to see that demand exceeded your supply on that sub circuit

It is just the utility throwing up roadblocks... call their bluff


See
http://electricalconnection.com.au/rapid-increase-solar-installations-potentially-overloading-grid/


Under normal operation conditions – and we’ll define this as an aggregate consumer load being larger than the aggregate solar power being generated – there is no excessive voltage issue. In fact the overall system is working to the advantage of both consumers and the power company.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 4, 2017)

I would be quite surprised if the major utilities are charging for an "Interconnect Study" for small solar. Its a real thing for large generators including utility scale solar farms. If you are putting in a solar farm it definitely could be an issue and the utilities are required to do a study and charge the entity that wants to connect to make any improvements the study requires on their dime. I would strongly urge you to contact the utility directly and find out the real requirements if there is need for an interconnection study and expect they will tell you its not required.

The reason for my suspicion is that long ago in the early days of solar, utilities really didn't want small scale solar, it was a major PITA for them and contrary to their business model. In the 1978 the government passed a law called PURPA which set up the ability for large sized independent power producers to sell power directly to the grid. More important it forced the utilities to have to buy the power whether they liked it or not. It completely changed the US electric system. Unfortunately there were multiple instances where new generation was put on the grid and required costly grid upgrades that the ratepayers had to pay even though it was caused by an independent power producer. The "poster child" for this in this region was the connection of a 520 MW power plant in Veazie Maine which required the local utility to spend millions to upgrade their grid all on the ratepayers dime.  

The result was that every independent generator had to pay for a study and then pay for the upgrades to the grid to handle the new generation. It can be quite costly. When the interest to allow small scale solar onto the grid became active in the late 1990s the utilities pushed back by requiring anyone trying to hook a grid tied solar system to be treated like a large scale power user and that meant paying for a study. This effectively was used as a  roadblock. In order to encourage small scale solar most states passed the well known net metering legislation but generally hidden in the legislation was a requirement that the utility had to treat small solar as a special class with no special fees required of the homeowner. These are usually capped at some wattage limit. NH was 10 KW connected and I think it may have been bumped up. This wasn't done arbitrarily, lots of engineers came to the same conclusion that the grid was resilient enough to handle small solar. This legislation was the rallying cry that allowed grid connected solar to thrive.There are small rural electric coops and utilities that slip outside of federal and state supervision that still have various restrictive requirements that prevent solar installations but they are the minority.

There have been numerous attempts of late to weaken small scale solar and generally anytime there is an attempt the small solar lobby is quite vocal about it, I did some quick searching specific to CT and I don't find any recent chatter on this new fee. This leads me to think that the salesman may be confused or having an ulterior motive to get you to sign up with his firm. Independent of an interconnect study, some local jurisdictions do require a engineer to sign off if the roof is capable of holding the load.


----------



## Lake Girl (Mar 4, 2017)

Interesting discussion so far ... thanks for the links earlier in the thread.  Unfortunately, have to find comparable for Canada.  The Google site doesn't even cover International Falls, MN.  

Ontario Hydro One was following the same playbook that peakbagger mentioned for initial high feed-in rates.  That ship has sailed...


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 4, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> I would be quite surprised if the major utilities are charging for an "Interconnect Study" for small solar. Its a real thing for large generators including utility scale solar farms. If you are putting in a solar farm it definitely could be an issue and the utilities are required to do a study and charge the entity that wants to connect to make any improvements the study requires on their dime. I would strongly urge you to contact the utility directly and find out the real requirements if there is need for an interconnection study and expect they will tell you its not required.
> 
> The reason for my suspicion is that long ago in the early days of solar, utilities really didn't want small scale solar, it was a major PITA for them and contrary to their business model. In the 1978 the government passed a law called PURPA which set up the ability for large sized independent power producers to sell power directly to the grid. More important it forced the utilities to have to buy the power whether they liked it or not. It completely changed the US electric system. Unfortunately there were multiple instances where new generation was put on the grid and required costly grid upgrades that the ratepayers had to pay even though it was caused by an independent power producer. The "poster child" for this in this region was the connection of a 520 MW power plant in Veazie Maine which required the local utility to spend millions to upgrade their grid all on the ratepayers dime.
> 
> ...




Did some more research on the issue. It looks like it only pertains to large scale 25kwh


peakbagger said:


> I would be quite surprised if the major utilities are charging for an "Interconnect Study" for small solar. Its a real thing for large generators including utility scale solar farms. If you are putting in a solar farm it definitely could be an issue and the utilities are required to do a study and charge the entity that wants to connect to make any improvements the study requires on their dime. I would strongly urge you to contact the utility directly and find out the real requirements if there is need for an interconnection study and expect they will tell you its not required.
> 
> The reason for my suspicion is that long ago in the early days of solar, utilities really didn't want small scale solar, it was a major PITA for them and contrary to their business model. In the 1978 the government passed a law called PURPA which set up the ability for large sized independent power producers to sell power directly to the grid. More important it forced the utilities to have to buy the power whether they liked it or not. It completely changed the US electric system. Unfortunately there were multiple instances where new generation was put on the grid and required costly grid upgrades that the ratepayers had to pay even though it was caused by an independent power producer. The "poster child" for this in this region was the connection of a 520 MW power plant in Veazie Maine which required the local utility to spend millions to upgrade their grid all on the ratepayers dime.
> 
> ...



Confirmed with my neighbor who is a lineman that it only applies to mostly larger scale generators. He said we should have no issue with this as there is only one other house in vicinity that has solar.  He said this is a new tactic the utilities are using to try and fight back against solar.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 4, 2017)

Cool, I am glad you didn't take the salesman's word for it.  One of the things about doing the research yourself is it takes lot of bargaining power away from the stereotypical solar salesmen who would gladly promise their first born to get you to sign the contract. If you go the extent of sizing the array, figuring out what size microinverters you need, doing a racking design on a vendor website and figuring out what cabling you need for the microinverters you then can sit down with a salesman and see how much labor and profit they are figuring in the cost. To some folks they just pay the cost and be done with it, others decide to DIY although CT may require a licensed contractor to qualify for ZREC or local incentives. The more info you have the stronger you can deal. Odds are someone else is actually doing the pricing so you may know more than the salesman.


----------



## SlyFerret (Mar 4, 2017)

I'm excited for the future of solar, but I don't feel like it's there yet for me to invest in it at my home.  I am however, investing some money in Tesla because I think that they are the most likely player to get solar to where it needs to be for mass adoption.

Right now, I think the payback times are far too long to be worth the initial cost.  At least, in my area, that is the case.  Maybe in California it is different.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be able to be independent of the power grid some day.  I've often thought that designing solar/battery systems (maybe with diesel generator for emergency capacity/charging) for off-the-grid cabins would be a really fun project.

Sent from my Nexus 9 using Tapatalk


----------



## Lake Girl (Mar 4, 2017)

I have one of those properties that are unserviced by power corp ... planning to keep it that way as rates here are ridiculous.  Bordering states in the US get our surplus generation at far cheaper rates while we pay for the infrastructure.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 4, 2017)

Unfortunately Ontario went overboard on renewables and committing to pay for a lot of expensive new generation and its going to cost them long term as no sane business is going to expand there when compared to the alternatives. Of course generally off grid is 4 or 5 times the cost of grid power mostly because of the ongoing periodic battery replacements. I expect the time is coming soon that the battery issue will be less significant and OTG may start to pencil out for some folks.

I don't see it working for me as I use the grid as a battery to store up excess summer production to heat my house in the winter but expect those in more moderate climates with more equal heating versus cooling loads it may make sense especially if they can use a hybrid car as means of supplying charge to the house when the storage gets low.


----------



## RobbieB (Mar 4, 2017)

I had a 3.6 KW top of the line SunPower system (11 panels with micro-inverters) installed last year on my south facing garage roof in September.  Cost was just under 17 grand.  I one bid the job because I wanted the best.  I'm getting a 5 grand tax credit which takes the cost down to 12 grand.  I estimate saving $1500 a year on electricity so I should pay back in 8 years.  Fully warrantied (parts and labor and performance) for 25 years.

A really good investment me thinks.  My "true up" (annual electric bill) comes in August.  From what I've seen so far it's going to be like a couple of months of my previous bills.  The system is performing exactly as described by the company that sold it, no lies.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 4, 2017)

If you are happy with Sunpower, the installer and the installation great for you, they do advertise their product as "premium" and their method of selling only through limited dealers means they have more control over their installations. They should serve you well.

That being said with the exception of folks who have limited roof space or shading issues that need the slight higher efficiency of the Sunpower panels, it is a pricey install, the usual rule of thumb is $3 per installed watt in most markets with many firms getting closer to $2.50 a watt.  Sort of like buying a GMC instead of a Chevy, the Chevy and GMC are the same truck made in the same factories with the same capabilities with just a few bells and whistles to differentiate them, yet some folks buy GMC for more money as they believe the advertising line that the GMCs are premium. For the average homeowner who does his homework, there are plenty of less expensive systems that will last as long and perform as well for less money. Solar panels and inverters are effectively commodities these days and its crap shot if any company will be around the length of the warranty period plus given the speed of change I seriously doubt that any company could replace a failed panel with an identical unit 10 years down the road let alone 25 years. I have a spare panel stashed away in my garage attic to cover one failed panel and given the current cost of panels I recommend that folks do the same especially if they have string inverters as a dead panel could knock them out of the string voltage range.


----------



## RobbieB (Mar 4, 2017)

Oh yeah, I know.  Most of my buddies that got me on this ordered up a system and had a contractor install it and paid half as much as I did.  Yes, I have a small (1400 sq-ft) tract house and I wanted a compact system no bigger than half my garage roof.

This is it, everything is outside, nothing is even in the garage;


----------



## Lake Girl (Mar 4, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> Unfortunately Ontario went overboard on renewables and committing to pay for a lot of expensive new generation and its going to cost them long term as no sane business is going to expand there when compared to the alternatives.


The government wanted to be "green".  The latest they've added is carbon pricing.  Greenhouse owners in Leamington are getting beaten up pretty bad for heat using natural gas or oil.  Wondering how many will convert to pellet heat?  The kicker here is the "delivery" of electricity ... almost half of the bill and that is with a $60 reduction on delivery rate!  Peak price 18 cents; mid 13.2 cent; off is 8.7 cents.  The bulk of our usage is off but when averaged including delivery fee = 18 cents kwh.  Unless they have special deals for manufacturers, they've killed manufacturing in this province


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 4, 2017)

RobbieB said:


> Oh yeah, I know.  Most of my buddies that got me on this ordered up a system and had a contractor install it and paid half as much as I did.  Yes, I have a small (1400 sq-ft) tract house and I wanted a compact system no bigger than half my garage roof.
> 
> This is it, everything is outside, nothing is even in the garage;
> 
> View attachment 195561



I am not beating on you and it looks like a nice install, its just that many folks who are new to this don't realize the variation in pricing and really don't have a good basis to estimate what a system might cost.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 4, 2017)

Lake Girl said:


> The government wanted to be "green".  The latest they've added is carbon pricing.  Greenhouse owners in Leamington are getting beaten up pretty bad for heat using natural gas or oil.  Wondering how many will convert to pellet heat?  The kicker here is the "delivery" of electricity ... almost half of the bill and that is with a $60 reduction on delivery rate!  Peak price 18 cents; mid 13.2 cent; off is 8.7 cents.  The bulk of our usage is off but when averaged including delivery fee = 18 cents kwh.  Unless they have special deals for manufacturers, they've killed manufacturing in this province



Don't worry most of New England is getting the same reputation for driving out manufacturing due to high energy costs. New England adopted the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative voluntarily which raised our power costs substantially compared to other regions who didn't. The EPA Clean Power plan would have socked other regions with "dirty power" but wouldn't have really impacted New England as RGGI would have us covered.


----------



## RobbieB (Mar 4, 2017)

No problem, no offense.  I know it's expensive.  The cheapest way is to buy the stuff yourself and have a contractor get the permits and do the install.

Electricity here is expensive and the more you use the more expensive it gets.  The "tiered use" plan, hehe, starts at 20 cents a KWH and ends at 40 cents.  You can get a really nasty surprise.  I get a really nice surprise each month now -


----------



## georgepds (Mar 6, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> Don't worry most of New England is getting the same reputation for driving out manufacturing due to high energy costs....




Could be.. but there's lots of heavy manufacturing left.. In Aero there's Sikorsky (helicopters) , Pratt and Whitney (jet engines) , General Electric( jet engines) . In defense there's Raytheon (Missiles) , Bae systems (air defense systems), the Electric Boat division of General Dynamics (submarines). That's a portfolio most small countries would be proud of, and it's just what comes to mind

I'm sure energy  a concern, but it's secondary to concentration of talent. That's why GE moved its' HQ to Boston

Granted, we did loose shoes and sweaters and paper pulp. So let's see, we lost shoes,sweaters and paper pulp but kept submarines, missiles, helicopters and jet engines.

Best guess is all these places are staffed by the mechanical, electrical, naval  and aeronautical engineers of the local universities.. from MIT to UCONN, and they somehow figured out a way to keep these shops as a going concern, despite energy costs


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 6, 2017)

So I have 4 companies coming out this week and next for quotes. I have been trying to do as much research online and think I may have run into an issue with my electrical service coming into the house that I just spent 3k last year to move. I thought it was 200 amps but just discovered its actually only 100.

We had a deck put in last year and had to move the service mast to the garage and run conduit through the garage into the basement and had a new panel installed. I called the electrician who did the work and he said that everything is only rated at 100 amps. Said the conduit is only 1 1/2 with 2 awg wiring and the service mast and meter box is only 100 amp. The power company also ran a brand new line to my house so I am guessing that's only rated for 100 amps.  Essentially everything would have to be redone to upgrade it to 200 amp and would be like redoing the entire job. I am not spending another 3k (6k total) to redo the job so I guess I am now limited on how much of a system I can install. I averaged out my yearly usage and most online calculators are showing a 4-5 kwh system would be adequate for 525 kwh a month on average. Anyone electricians here know the max I can go with only a 100 amp panel?

Here is a picture of where they moved the service mast. It used to be connected behind the garage where the phone and cable still come in.


----------



## georgepds (Mar 6, 2017)

Brian26 said:


> So I have 4 companies coming out this week and next for quotes. I have been trying to do as much research online and think I may have run into an issue with my electrical service coming into the house that I just spent 3k last year to move. I thought it was 200 amps but just discovered its actually only 100.
> 
> We had a deck put in last year and had to move the service mast to the garage and run conduit through the garage into the basement and had a new panel installed. I called the electrician who did the work and he said that everything is only rated at 100 amps. Said the conduit is only 1 1/2 with 2 awg wiring and the service mast and meter box is only 100 amp. The power company also ran a brand new line to my house so I am guessing that's only rated for 100 amps.  Essentially everything would have to be redone to upgrade it to 200 amp and would be like redoing the entire job. I am not spending another 3k (6k total) to redo the job so I guess I am now limited on how much of a system I can install. I averaged out my yearly usage and most online calculators are showing a 4-5 kwh system would be adequate for 525 kwh a month on average. Anyone electricians here know the max I can go with only a 100 amp panel?
> 
> ...




Just use a smaller system .I've used 4.6 kW for the past 3 years. It gives~5.5MWh per year.  Half goes to the chevy volt, the other half to the house


Using the 20%rule you should be able to install 4.3 kW on a 100 amp panel


----------



## Circus (Mar 7, 2017)

Brian26 said:


> only rated for 100 amps. Essentially everything would have to be redone to upgrade it to 200 amp and would be like redoing the entire job. I am not spending another 3k (6k total)



The only bottle neck is the buss in the panel. If anything, PV would lower the needed size of the service feeders. I'm not an electrician but I think you could just use a 200 amp panel with a 100 amp main. Heck, if using the same brand of box, you could reuse the old breakers. Then you could install gobs of PVs.  Any electricians, please chime in why I'm wrong!


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 7, 2017)

I wish that photo was more clear. You have a couple of options that the federal government gets to pay 30% for.

Service panel options - If they replaced the service panel when they moved the meter panel in the basement they may have used a higher rated panel with a smaller main breaker. This is done on occasion. In this case the buss bars may be rated for more than the main breaker. That's ideal because the allowable PV is 20% of the buss rating, not the main breaker rating. There should be rating plate somewhere on the panel or you may have to look up it up with the manufacturer. Frequently it may have 125 or 150 amp buses. If you have a 30 or 40 slot panel with extra spaces you might get lucky, if its 20 slots much lower odds. The 20% rule applies so you may get some additional capacity but unless its a 200 AMPs bus you may not get 9 KW of PV. Worth checking.

If its an older panel then you get to pay for an electrician to install a new service panel, with the fed paying 30% . The same trick applies, the electrician keeps the same service entrance cable and just puts in a new breaker panel rated for 200 AMPs but puts in a 100 amp main breaker, that gets you 20% of 200 amps or 40 amps which allows a larger solar system.

 It looks like the meter panel may have breaker under it ?. The answer makes a difference.

If it does not, the electrician can install a line sized tap anywhere between the meter panel and the service panel. All it is a box with a breaker on it for the solar that is tapped into the power line between the meter and the service panel breaker. This allows you to hook up any size solar system up to 100 AMPS (unless your utility has special rules).

If it does have a main breaker, its a similar setup but the line sized tap box ends up with two breakers, one for house entrance and one for the PV. You may or may not have to remove the breaker that is in the meter box.

These two line sized tap options should not cost $3,000. Parts and labor should be less than $1000.  A service panel replacement takes more labor and I think you need to upgrade it to arc fault breakers (not a bad thing) Unless its really messy, it should take a couple of days and about $500 of equipment. One of thesehttp://www.homedepot.com/p/200-Amp-32-Space-Main-Breaker-Indoor-Load-Center-Combination-Arc-Fault-Kit-with-20-Amp-CAFCI-Breakers-Included-TM3220CCUAF7K/202562637  and a smaller main breaker for around $40. If the panel is more than 20 years old, you should get small reduction in your homeowners insurance and uncle sam pays 30%.


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 7, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> I wish that photo was more clear. You have a couple of options that the federal government gets to pay 30% for.
> 
> Service panel options - If they replaced the service panel when they moved the meter panel in the basement they may have used a higher rated panel with a smaller main breaker. This is done on occasion. In this case the buss bars may be rated for more than the main breaker. That's ideal because the allowable PV is 20% of the buss rating, not the main breaker rating. There should be rating plate somewhere on the panel or you may have to look up it up with the manufacturer. Frequently it may have 125 or 150 amp buses. If you have a 30 or 40 slot panel with extra spaces you might get lucky, if its 20 slots much lower odds. The 20% rule applies so you may get some additional capacity but unless its a 200 AMPs bus you may not get 9 KW of PV. Worth checking.
> 
> ...



There is a 100 amp breaker under the electric meter on the outside box. I opened it up and checked the wiring from the outside meter box to the panel in the basement. Its Southwire 2 awg wire inside a 1 1/2 inch conduit to the panel. The panel is a brand new GE tm3210CCU 100 amp 32 slot with only a 100 amp bus.  It would have been substantially  more when I moved it to go 200 amp which I dont need at all. 100 amp is more than enough for my house.  I have an extremely low electric load and average 500 kwh a month.

Whats throwing me off is that most research online says that in most residential applications the power is fed into the panel and that line taps are not used very often and some areas they are not allowed. Does anyone in CT know if Eversource allows line taps?

But as you pointed out there are few options to make it work. I think if they can't do a line tap then putting in a bigger panel and derating the main breaker to get the 20 % will be the route I take.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 7, 2017)

Sorry I don't know CT regs but expect if you call Eversource they should have a solar interconnect person to talk to, they usually have booklet on what they will and wont allow, its definitely not against NEC code. In NH (Eversource territory)  solar firms were doing line taps inside the utility meter panels which Eversource doesn't allow. Eversource pissed off some of the installers when they red tagged the installs and the installers reportedly started saying that Eversource didn't allow line sized taps. That's BS, the problem is the installers bid the jobs the cheap way and didn't want to shell out the bucks to make it right by putting in a separate line sized tap box. Some utilities allow a line sized tap via a meter adaptor where the meter is unplugged and the adaptor goes in underneath, then the meter plugs into it. https://www.sdge.com/environment/renewable-meter-adapter The PV wires into the adaptor. I have been told the Eversource NH does not allow them but I would check. If possible I would put the line size tap somewhere else than directly below the meter as its too close to the ground and could get wet from snow melt or splash. I would probably put the line size tap just above the panel. I have also heard of folks making the tap in the service panel above the breaker but that's definitely something for a code person to comment on. I would be more comfortable with separate box. 

Heck given that you have main disconnect remote from the panel and a new install. I would be tempted to buy a new bare panel with 200 amp bus, that will fit the new breakers in the current panel, buy a 100 amp main, shut the main off,  start up a generator and DIY putting in a new panel. Its not rocket science to wire up a service panel especially when there is a new nicely wired one to take pictures and notes on. There are no serial numbers on service panels and I expect the original electrical permit application doesn't go into that much detail so if a new service panel magically appears with a 200 AMP bus and 100 amp breaker before you hire an electrician to hook up the PV, no one will be the wiser. Note if you are at all uncomfortable about it pay the experts but I expect some apprentice is going to be doing the swap over. I expect it would be less than 8 hours start to finish. The only special tools may be slug buster to cut new holes in the panel if the available knock outs aren't in the right place.


----------



## Circus (Mar 7, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> a new service panel magically appears with a 200 AMP bus and 100 amp breaker



Probably $100 to $200 for a GE box. PS I wouldn't use the mains that come with the box. Be warned, the mains look different.

http://www.menards.com/main/electri...4431232440-c-6437.htm?tid=1092721128651209619


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 9, 2017)

I have met with a few installers who did site some site surveys. All have said I have an excellent setup with almost zero shading issues and awesome sun exposure. Some quotes are rolling in. Before incentives I am getting quotes around $3.15-$3.80 a watt pre-incentive. When I factor in the state incentive and federal I am looking at around $1.85-$2.45 a watt. Just about everyone said I need around a 5 kwh system and payback would be around 7 years possibly less. Total price for a 5kwh system is looking like around  $10k after federal rebate and incentives. 

I am leaning towards a local company in my town that is CT oldest and first solar installer in the state. They have been in business since 1989. My neighbor used them 9 years ago and has not had a single issue with his panels. I think they said they use Canadian solar panels and they go with a single inverter box that would be in my basement. Something about it being less expensive as I dont have any shading issues and would not benefit much from microinverters on the panels. Going to some more research on that part.

I got 2 quotes from the big companies like Vivint. They are the most expensive and they are definitely trying to sell me more panels than I need. CT's srecs are pretty much fazed out and is a lottery system to get in now. If you take the state incentive towards a purchase. I think its like .58 watt instantly on the purchase price, you are not elegible for srecs. They have net metering but any excess production is bought at the ISO New England wholesale price at the end of the year. Its currently like .3 kwh.  So its doesn't make sense to aim for excess generation.

 Line taps are allowed here and commonly done so I have no issues with my electric panel.

Going to keep doing my research.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 9, 2017)

Great news, I think the "bird in hand" option of an upfront payment beats rolling the dice on SRECS. I think Canadian Solar panels are covered by third party warranty insurance which is big plus. If they go belly up they have a insurance policy with a third party to cover any long term warranty issues.

I like a central string inverter instead of micros as long as you have no shading issues. It a lot nicer atmosphere in basement than up on roof under the panels. You may want to talk to them about SMA inverters as they have nice feature called Secure Power Supply which is 15 amp receptacle that works even if the power is out. Its pretty much free although they will probably charge you to install an outlet. One bias I have is to slightly oversize the inverter. A lot of installers put in an inverter that is smaller than the total connected panel wattage, I like a little head room on the inverter so its not running at or near full load during high generation periods. Some inverters have dual MPPT input circuits so there are two strings of panels on the roof. That nice if you could have snow as you can set it up so that the upper half of the panels can generate with snow on the bottom set.  I also suggest that you ask for Midnight Solar Surge suppressor on the main panel as well as one on the incoming PV leads from the roof. One of my inverters got cooked by a utility fault and I attribute it to cheap arrestor on my panel. The MIdnight SPDs are few more bucks but far beefier with a far lower clamp voltage. I have one up on the roof where the panel leads run through the house on my roof mount array and another one on my pole mount array before it heads underground.

Consider getting a minisplit to burn up your surplus power in the winter. If its over 20 degrees I heat my house with a minisplit instead of wood (its running today ). If you monitor your power usage you can pretty well guess when you run out of surplus and then stop running it so you don't get hit with a big power bill. I don't have the mandatory sell with my net metering to I am carrying about 1000 KWH into summer.


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 9, 2017)

Thanks Peakbagger. I will look into all those things.

 On the financing side. It looks like I will need around 15k up front before the 30% federal rebate which I will get back next year. I have 5k for sure to put down and we might be able to put 10k down but that's kind of stretching it. We are getting married next year and saving for that. I am going to contact my credit union and look into Home Equity loans. They are showing rates around 3.5-4% on their website.  The solar power rocks website shows that taking a loan out is actually a better option? Is it because you get to write off the interest on taxes? Doing some number crunching the savings on not paying the power company would almost cover the loan. We might also be able to pay another few thousand of it off next year. We could definitely pay it down way faster than the 10 year terms. Also this chart is for 15 years.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 9, 2017)

I don't do the finance side so your are on your own on that one  I haven't studied the details but the common advice is take a equity loan and pay it down as quickly as possible.

One trick you can do to pay down the equity loan quicker which I believe is legal (but check with your tax advisor) is if you are sure you are doing the project is to under withhold on your W-2 form by increasing the number of dependents on the W-2 so the government takes less money out of your paycheck each week to account for the big solar credit when you do your taxes. Its not that hard to figure it out if you a have a normal paycheck but definitely a lot harder if you have a variable income. As long as you don't end up owing the government a substantial amount (usually $1000 but there are lots of loopholes) next April you are okay. If in later December/early January you think you are off on your estimates, you just file an estimated tax payment to get you under owing $1,000 and make sure its in the mail by January 15th. Now take that extra money in the paycheck each week and dedicate it to paying down the extra principal on the equity loan for whatever months in this year you have left  Just remember you need to file another W-2 in January of next year to put your withholding back to normal. This means you are taking money that uncle sam would normally be keeping for you until next year at zero interest and using it to pay down a 3 or 4 percent loan plus you still get to write the interest off the equity loan on your taxes. Just make sure with the credit union that you can pay down extra principal every month as some banks make it difficult. I did this to pay down my mortgage at one point and had to write two checks every month and modify each monthly loan statement with a handwritten note that the extra portion was to pay down the principal of the loan otherwise they just treated the extra payment as a credit towards future payments.

By the way for others reading the post, if you are getting big refund checks, this under with holding trick works for anyone. Sure you don't get a big check to blow next april but you get a bigger paycheck every week. Probably not so good for folks who blow their paychecks but beats a zero interest loan to the government and having to beg to get it back next year.  

Of course if you are getting married you may want a big refund.


----------



## nal51511 (Mar 9, 2017)

Brian26 said:


> I have met with a few installers who did site some site surveys. All have said I have an excellent setup with almost zero shading issues and awesome sun exposure. Some quotes are rolling in. Before incentives I am getting quotes around $3.15-$3.80 a watt pre-incentive. When I factor in the state incentive and federal I am looking at around $1.85-$2.45 a watt. Just about everyone said I need around a 5 kwh system and payback would be around 7 years possibly less. Total price for a 5kwh system is looking like around  $10k after federal rebate and incentives.
> 
> I am leaning towards a local company in my town that is CT oldest and first solar installer in the state. They have been in business since 1989. My neighbor used them 9 years ago and has not had a single issue with his panels. I think they said they use Canadian solar panels and they go with a single inverter box that would be in my basement. Something about it being less expensive as I dont have any shading issues and would not benefit much from microinverters on the panels. Going to some more research on that part.
> 
> ...


Can i ask which local company you are leaning towards?  i am in guilford and will be looking into solar in the next year.


----------



## Circus (Mar 9, 2017)

Brian26 said:


> they go with a single inverter box that would be in my basement. Something about it being less expensive as I dont have any shading issues and would not benefit much from microinverters on the panels


Worst case senario.
A factor seldom figured when using a single inverter system is the high DC amperage. If the panel or wire ever shorts to a ground, it would be a hot arc, just like a welder, known to start fires. A 220 volt AC arc is cold by comparison.


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 9, 2017)

nal51511 said:


> Can i ask which local company you are leaning towards?  i am in guilford and will be looking into solar in the next year.



Still working on getting more quotes but Aegis solar in Branford was the one I referenced in the previous post. They have been in business since 1989 and were the first solar company established in CT. So they are not short on experience.  I think the guy said they started due to the demand to put solar panels on all the 100's of houses out on the thimble islands in long island that have no mainland electricity. 

I had another local CT company out this afternoon. I would much rather give my money to a local CT business then some corporate giant solar company and that's what I am aiming for. One thing that is nice is the flexibility and speed at which these companies can meet you to do a site survey.  Their is a lot of competition out their for a sale.


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 9, 2017)

To those in CT looking into panels. I just found out in order to get the state incentive you have to get an energy audit done through energize CT. The cost is $124 dollars and includes up to $800 in work for free towards energy efficiency upgrades. The guy I spoke with to set one up said they will replace all your bulbs to leds, install insulation, wrap pipes, install weather stripping etc.  It includes a blower door test and they will also test your duct work for leaks. He even said they will pay for a company to blow sealant in all your duct works in the walls to seal them internally. He also said you can use the money towards hiring someone to spray foam or blow in insulation.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 9, 2017)

_Worst case senario. 
A factor seldom figured when using a single inverter system is the high DC amperage. If the panel wire ever does short to a ground, it would be a hot arc, just like my welder, known to start fires. A 220 volt AC arc is cold by comparison._

The inverters have DC GFDIs on the incoming leads, if the wiring goes to ground the GFDI trips (if water gets in a junction box they can also trip, better safe than sorry). It is quite impressive the length of a DC arc that is created just form 2 KW string.

The other new requirement in the new code is a rapid shutdown device to kill all power in the cables from the roof whenever the utility power goes out or a manual switch is engaged. The only thing that can be hot is within a short distance of the panels.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 9, 2017)

Its nice program, better to reduce you power demand before you oversize and array.


----------



## Circus (Mar 9, 2017)

Brian26 said:


> they go with a single inverter box that would be in my basement. Something about it being less expensive


How much less? Micro inverter systems are safer and easier to add too later if you want.


----------



## jebatty (Mar 10, 2017)

Hoping not to repeat, as I didn't scan all the posts. I suggest oversizing the wiring between the panels and the string inverter(s) and between the string inverters and the main or between the micro-inverter panels and the main at the house so that, if your system does not max out your main backfeed capacity, your wiring will allow you to add panels in the future to use that excess capacity, if you can.

My original system was 6.9kW micro-inverter ground mount (Oct 2013), and I had the electrician over-size the underground wiring to the main in case I wanted to add panels. I did add another array (April 2015) of 5.4kW, and my system now is the max I can backfeed to my main. 

I also had the electrician install underground an ethernet cable to allow full communication between the arrays and the house computer network. My ground mount is too far away for wi-fi to work reliably.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 10, 2017)

_How much less? Micro inverter systems are safer and easier to add too later if you want.
_
Lets do the math, using a 5000 watt system a 5 KW Sunny Boy string inverter is $1,695. Assuming that the system is going up in an area that has adopted recent NEC code there is an additional $450 for a rapid shutdown roof box and controller that goes in an accessible location so the total for string inverter is $2145.

Lets assume 300 watt panel so lets say 17 300 watts panels by rounding it up to 5100 watts input to the inverter. Now lets price up microinverters. Enphase 280 watts micros are rated for 300 watt but do clip the output a bit, but that's what installers do.  So 17 @$169 or $2,873. (I had $_280 each in my first version_)  As the TV pitch men say "wait there's more". Enphase inverters need custom cables to run between each panel.  We lucked out with the example as you can only put 17 panels on one Enphase string. They are usually cut to order but there standard is 40"" spacing between panels so lets guess two rows of portrait panels with cable in between so that's a 26' cable plus 5' to go to a junction box. I see this cable listed at around $23 a foot so add $713 plus a special terminator at the end of the cable @$20. That gets you to  spot on the roof where the special enphase cables get converted to standard AC cables. There are other small sundries like special cable clips so lets round it off to $750 for the special Enphase cabling. Now one last device called a communications gate way for $485 that allows you to look at the performance of the system and remote monitoring. I think the system will run without it but you are clueless on performance.  That adds up to _$4,108_ for microinverters compared to $2145 for a string inverter. That's about _47.8% less or  6 - 300 watt panels at a buck a watt_ (_or as the Circus pointed out panels can be had for $0.55 cents a watt so wea re back to close to 12 free panels_).  String inverter systems don't need extra wiring between panels as the existing panel leads are just daisy chained.

To be fair microinverters do have an advantage on the home run wiring from the junction box on the roof to the main breaker panel. Enphase doesn't require rapid shutdown so it only requires 2 wires plus ground. The SMA string inverter has dual MPTT inputs so it will require 2 pairs of two home run wires plus 2 control wires plus a ground. The SMA RSD box acts as roof junction box while a Enphase needs a junction box so that offsets some of the cost. String inverters operate at a high voltage so cable size can be slightly smaller for an equivalent voltage drop. If its a long run back to house it may mean one gauge smaller.

I just looked things up real quick off a website and prices may vary but from my point of view micro inverters add a lot of initial cost to system. If there are shading issues it may be worth it but for someone concerned with upfront cost the string inverters win hands down.

The "easy to add onto at a later date" is valid benefit within limits. With the above install, the Enphase cable is maxed out, additional panels need additional cables. I think the gateway can handle multiple strings so that's a savings. Generally the limiting factor for expanding solar systems is aesthetics. Panels at best area available for around 18 months before they get replaced with new model. If someone doesn't mind the visual impact of using different panels they can add on but only within the limits of the cabling.

The reason why microinverter setups are real popular with big firms and installers is they are plug and play, the company buys a container of panels, a container of racking components and a container of microinverters and when the crew heads out they just load the truck and go. If there is shading, not a problem, they go up quick and it can be done with low skilled labor except the final hookup which in theory is an electrician. No need to do string calculations or worry about shading. That keeps install costs low and if they do screw up its easier to diagnose and in theory they can stock spares. Its not the cheapest install but most systems they install are sold via creative financing so the home owner is less concerned with cost.

The big benefit to me of a string inverter is that its in my basement in nice cool dry space, unlike a microinverter that is bolted to the back of the panel in one of the hottest places on a house. I have been using Enphase as its popular but if you look at their financials they don't make a profit and are just one big recall away from chapter 11. If they go belly up I have a dead panel for good as these micros don't interchange. My string inverter is made by Fronius, its part of large firm that makes other products, they have been around quite awhile and when my inverter got hit by a utility spike I had a replacement at my house in 4 days. Sure they could go out of business but far less likely than a firm like Enphase.

_I had to edit this as in a hurry I put the swapped the inverter cost with the wattage so the number where high. There still is significant cost savings just less than the first version_


----------



## Circus (Mar 10, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> adds up to $6,000 for microinverters compared to $2145 for a string inverter.



Took about a second to find prices about 1/2 what you quoted.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 10, 2017)

_Took about a second to find prices about 1/2 what you quoted._

I used Alt E store for pricing. They sell first run brands at generally competitive prices, are authorized distributors and actually will pick up the phone if things don't work. Sure there are fleabay sellers who will sell stuff for less and if its not counterfeit or grey market there are deals to be had same as there are with string inverters.  

Feel free to post an itemized estimate showing the sources for all your prices. Legitimate authorized dealers would probably be good to make sure pricing is  apples to apples.


----------



## Circus (Mar 10, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> Feel free to post an itemized estimate showing the sources for all your prices


Took several seconds to find. Reputation? No idea.
https://www.wholesalesolar.com/power-inverters#enphase
Panels.  
http://www.ecobusinesslinks.com/surveys/free-solar-panel-price-survey/
Several micro inverter brands daisy chain. Cheaper? No idea.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 10, 2017)

You were correct, I has inadvertently put in the wattage instead of the cost per inverter in the calculation so I had $280 each instead of $169 (your link lists them as $160). So that does drop the difference to only 47.8% reduction between micros and a string inverter. At a buck a watt for panels it went down to only 6 free panels but if I plug in $0.55 a watt from your link it jumps up to pretty close to 12 free panels. (Do note that shipping for panels are going to raise the cost for panels substantially for some folks. A pallet of 25 from FL to NH cost me $500 shipping several years ago. Unlike the cost of panels shipping costs haven't gone down a lot)   

I edited the calculations in the OP.

Still I don't see a good reason for the extra $1,961 price for microinverters on a system that doesn't have shading issues considering the potentially higher failure ratio for microinverters due to their harsh location.

As for daisy chaining microinverters, I admit I don't follow the latest and greatest on microinverters, Enphase at one point did daisy chain but stopped on their newer units as far as I can see in limited review of the 280 Watt units. I found one other brand that claims to daisychain but they don't have any tech details on the interconnecting wiring. http://www.renvu.com/Solar-Products...-BDM-300-Microinverter-Max-Input-Power-250W_2.


----------



## Circus (Mar 10, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> don't see a good reason for the extra $1,961 price for microinverters on a system



That same site, wholesalesolar, also sells kits. Identical 5.7kW sys. except one's sunny boy and one's enphase. $1300 difference. You're right about the overpriced sundries. I assume the marketing's similar to the $50 printer with $120 ink jets. Probably would be worth while looking for a closer warehouse before buying.


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 10, 2017)

Thoughts on this qoute that I am leaning on from a local installer?

5.4 kwh system. Estimated annual production 6478 kWh. (Average electric usage from the last year was around 500kwh.)

$3.30 a watt before incentives.
Total cost after state incentive and federal rebate. $9,798.00 About a $1.80 a watt. Estimated payback is 7 years.

20 270 Watt Canadian solar black panels. ]CS6K-270
1 Solaredge inverter with optizmers with online monitoring system. SE6000A-US

25 Year Linear production warranty on standard panels 80% of nameplate at year 25
25 Years - Solar Edge Optimizer's 12 /20 Years- Solar Edge Inverters

From the company.

20 Year Power Production Warranty
20 Year Limited Warranty
Leak Free roof guarantee for the remainder of shingle warranty


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 10, 2017)

If you don't have shading issues I would ask what a regular string inverter with standard panels would cost versus adding the solaredge optimizers on each panel. The reason is similar to microinverters, why have specialized electronics mounted in the hottest spot of the house?


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 10, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> If you don't have shading issues I would ask what a regular string inverter with standard panels would cost versus adding the solaredge optimizers on each panel. The reason is similar to microinverters, why have specialized electronics mounted in the hottest spot of the house?



I will ask them about it. They look to be around $70 each online so I would imagine the savings would be around $1500 if they were eliminated. If they could be I would maybe ask about adding more panels. Our budget is 10k and I think that extra $1500 could add a bunch more panels.

Are they installed specifically for shading issues? Is there some other benefit in using them?  I do have some shading issues but the installer said my setup was close to perfect. Said I was an A with an A+ being perfect. He used some solar device on a pole and took a bunch of measurements. It happened to be a really sunny day when he was here.

Another question I can't seem to find is if I eliminate the optimizers. Would the connections be proprietary to the solaredge inverter assuming they just run wires to basement from the panels where it will be? Solaredge seems pretty stable from what I have read but would another inverter from a different company be able to be connected in the rare case they go under. The issues I have read online about enphase has me avoiding them. Also, my neighbor who has his panels installed ago 9 years has had no issues with his solaredge inverter that the same company installed.

I really appreciate all your knowledgeable input.


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 10, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> If you don't have shading issues I would ask what a regular string inverter with standard panels would cost versus adding the solaredge optimizers on each panel. The reason is similar to microinverters, why have specialized electronics mounted in the hottest spot of the house?



I have some minor shading issues according to the company when they were here. They did a detailed site survey as other companies have that included using some device on a pole to measure the sun and any shading issues. It was really sunny day when he was here. He said that I was pretty close to having a near perfect setup but not quite perfect. Are shading issues the only benefit to using optimizers? They look to go for around $70 each online. Eliminating them could buy me maybe $1500 more in panels and keep the budget under 10k. I will definitely ask them for more information about them.

Another thing I can't seem to find is in the rare event solaredge goes under would the wiring from the panels to the inverter in the basement be universal. Would I be able to use another companies inverter? I assume it would just be some wiring coming down and the panels seem to be universal.  From my research solardege seems much more stable than enphase who uses their own proprietary connection system as you pointed out in an earlier thread.  Also, my neighbors as well as 2 other people I know in town have had the same company install their solar and have had zero issues with their solaredge inverters. My neighbors was installed 9 years ago.  I have talked to a few people that had issues with their enphase microinverters having to be replaced under warranty in the first year or two.

I appreciate all your input peakbagger. Thanks again.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 10, 2017)

I haven't messed with them directly.  I think that unless they install panels with the optimizers integrated into the panel that they are standard panels that plug into the optimizer and then the optimizer leads are daisy chained in series back to the inverter. The inverter is definitely custom as it lacks a MPPT circuit as the each optimizer is acting as a MPPT plus its communicating with the optimizers to do rapid shutdown. They claim its more plug and play for the installer. I don't know if the optimizer would get in the way of trying to run the strings with a regular inverter. They claim that since they regulate the voltage to a set amount that they can run longer strings. I expect if they go out of production and you had to put in a different brand inverter you would might need to remove the optimizers and possible reconfigure the strings.

The major benefit is shaded panels, one shaded panel in a string can pull down the production of the entire string. The worst shading is a  horizontal strip across the base of the panel  but even a vent stack will do it. The horizontal strip only needs to be a couple of inches wide. The optimizer can effectively jump out a panel if its shaded or is not working. The communication also raises a alarm on the monitoring software to let you know ne is not working.  There is also a new requirement which may or may not be adopted in CT for a Rapid Shutdown Device. Solaredges can send a signal to the optimizers to shut off the voltage to meet the requirements but a standard inverter wouldn't have this capability so you would need to run two new control wires up to a junction box on the roof and by a RSD kit to get this functionality back.

The quick story on string calculations is standard solar panels have a rated voltage at a certain temp and that voltage varies with temperature, there is coefficient for each panel that can be used to calculate the highest voltage which is always higher the colder it gets so one to the needed items for the calculations is the lowest expected temperature. http://www.canadiansolar.com/downlo...an_Solar-Datasheet-CS6KM_Quartech-v5.3_na.pdf The highest temp is also needed to calculate the lowest voltage. That gives you a range of voltages for each panel. You then need to multiply the high and low voltage times the number of panels until you end up within the input voltage range of the inverter. If you don't have enough panels in the string, the voltage could get too low in summer and the inverter will not work. If on a cold winters day the voltages are too high the inverter could cook and the warranty is void. Inverter manufactures used to have free sizing programs that would ask what type of panel you have, your high and low temps and would figure out the best array configuration. I think the opitmizers force the panels to put out a steady voltage no matter what the temperature so I think they can put panels on the string without worrying about cooking the inverter on cold day.

MPPT Maximum Power Point Tracking is pretty tricky, there is software in the MPPT which is constantly changing the voltage across the string to see if the wattage increases, This squeezes the maximum power for any given sun condition, the optimizers do this at the module level but the reality is unless one is shaded they all act alike. The second tricky part is once they have the panel putting out maximum wattage the circuit adjusts the voltage being sent to the string so the voltage in the string doesn't move around.  Some standard inverters have dual MPPT input so they split the array in half. Looking quickly at your panels voltage they are doing two separate strings of ten panels each which would work with a  standard dual MPPT inverter.

So it looks like Solaredge is partially proprietary but worst case is you could probably salvage the panels and possibly the wiring but could need to do some reconfiguration. A SMA 6000 or Fronius Primo are standard inverters.

By the way I found this video on MPPT, Solar Edge and microinverters at Alt E store. https://www.altestore.com/store/inverters/grid-tie-inverters-c560/


----------



## Circus (Mar 11, 2017)

Has anyone crunched the numbers on falling prices vs electricity produced? Say $1000 drop per year would pay a large portion of my electric bill. Besides, if the utilities keep horsing around with their fixed fees and reimbursements, 5 years from now, off grid systems may be the norm. 
There's no hurry, so don't let them pressure you until your ready.


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 18, 2017)

Got my financing in place and am going to put my deposit down on Monday. The total cost after state incentive/federal rebate for my 5.4 Kwh system will be $9798 or about $1.80 watt. Had many site surveys done and the local installers where the cheapest and best to deal with. I choose the one right in my town that has been in business since 1989 and was CT's first established solar company.

The big national Solar companies just plain out suck. Their pricing is thousands more and the sales pressure is terrible. Many of them would just show back up at my house without an appointment saying weren't we scheduled for today. I had you scheduled in my phone calendar. Many also would not provide anything for you to review. They would just show you some numbers on a ipad. I just read an article on how the sales of ppa's/leases is plummeting like a rock and these big solar companies are taking a beating. People now realize its a way better option to take a loan out and purchase them yourself and the local installers are crushing them in prices.

My numbers are essentially going to be a wash were my annual electric savings are estimated pretty close to my annual loan payment. I took out a 7 year loan but plan on paying it off much quicker. I have big wedding expense coming up this year otherwise we would have just paid cash.

For those thinking of financing use a credit union. I have been with mine all my life and their rates are awesome.

I did a home equity loan for 7 years (the estimated payoff time on the panels) for 3.74%

10k at 3.74. Monthly payment $135.49. Total interest would be $1,381 if you paid over the 10 year span.

Now onto the waiting game of the months they told me it's probably going to take to get them up and running. Utility approval, CT incentive approval, town approval etc.


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 31, 2017)

I am underway with the permitting and should have the panels up soon. 

One thing I noticed in my contract is they guarantee production where if my panels don't produce a certain amount in a year they will pay the difference. I am estimated to produce 6478 kwh a year. They are showing if my panels don't produce 5,830 kwh in the first year they will pay me .16 kwh for the difference. The scale goes up over the years. At year ten they guarantee 5,373 at .20 kwh.  

I don't think the other companies I got quotes from offered this. Is this normally offered by most companies? Seems like its an awesome benefit to have where my long term numbers and savings are guaranteed. Or are they just really conservative with the numbers where they know I will produce much more?


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 31, 2017)

That is nice kicker. Yes they could be conservative with their numbers which is a good thing. At $1.80 a watt that's a great price. Too bad you couldn't put solar panels on the wedding registry, a heck of lot nicer gift than silverware (your fiancé may not agree )

Of course we could have a big volcano blow up somewhere like Pinatubo in 1991 fill up the atmosphere for a year or two and cut down on the amount of sunlight coming in.

I look forward to seeing the final results


----------



## woodgeek (Mar 31, 2017)

Brian26 said:


> I am underway with the permitting and should have the panels up soon.
> 
> One thing I noticed in my contract is they guarantee production where if my panels don't produce a certain amount in a year they will pay the difference. I am estimated to produce 6478 kwh a year. They are showing if my panels don't produce 5,830 kwh in the first year they will pay me .16 kwh for the difference. The scale goes up over the years. At year ten they guarantee 5,373 at .20 kwh.
> 
> I don't think the other companies I got quotes from offered this. Is this normally offered by most companies? Seems like its an awesome benefit to have where my long term numbers and savings are guaranteed. Or are they just really conservative with the numbers where they know I will produce much more?



I'd vote for conservative and you'll never need this money.


----------



## Brian26 (May 7, 2017)

Panels are installed. Wiring is going to be completed tomorrow and should be up and running soon. Can't wait to start producing power.


----------



## peakbagger (May 8, 2017)

Looking good. Plenty of room for more panels


----------



## sportbikerider78 (May 8, 2017)

We were contacted about converting our 20 acre fields in upstate to a small farm.  Said they would pay $25k/yr lease.  

I don't think so.


----------



## Brian26 (May 10, 2017)

Wiring is done. Town is inspecting it on Friday and then I just have to wait for my net meter to get installed by my poco.

The meter to the right of the inverter is a cellular meter that the CT Green Bank requires to be installed to monitor my production. They are the ones that gave me the generous state incentive.

I lucked out were I had to move all my electrical for a deck install last year. Thankfully the electrician installed a disconnect on the new meter box so they were able to do a line side tap. They didn't have to touch my panel and all the wiring is outside. The only wiring they had to do inside was to run a Cat 5 wire to my router for the internet.

I did read about installing the inverter outside vs inside and the pros and cons. I'm not to worried as they included the extended 20 year warranty from Solaredge on the inverter with the install.

During testing after the install in the late afternoon it was producing around 4600 watts. The system is a 5.4 kwh system.

Can't wait to finally hit the switch and turn it on.


----------



## peakbagger (May 10, 2017)

Wow a preinstalled line side tap. Really makes it easy. If the inverter is exposed and in direct sun, the standard recommendation is to put a small overhang over it to keep the it drier and keep it out of direct sun. I expect if you know someone with a sheetmetal shop they can bend you up an overhang and just slot under the siding and slide it up in.

Out of curiosity, did they install surge protection devices in the system? They are not code required but highly recommended. I have one on the main panel to hopefully protect me from a utility spike and the two Fronious systems have SPDs at the combiner boxes mounted near the panels. I had Delta on my older Fronius and it still got cooked by utility surge so I switched to Midnight Solar SPDs http://www.midnitesolar.com/products.php?menuItem=products&productCat_ID=23&productCatName=SPD 

I am fan of electrical wireway (AKA gutters) http://andrewsfabrication.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/wireway.jpg to neaten things up but expect solar installers go for what is quick. Looks like they didn't have a PVC blanket and used standard off the shelf preformed PVC fittings.  A pull elbow http://ace.imageg.net/graphics/product_images/pACE3-17458941enh-z7.jpg in place of the long radius 90 and two pull elbows to replace the LBs would have cleaned things up a bit while still using off the shelf fittings and repunching the main panel to get rid of the offset also would have helped make it look nicer. What they did works just as well as a neat installation,  it strictly aesthetics.

As an example I have three inverters of differing vintages. I don't have a line size tap and due to limitations with the main panel I have to run all the inverters outputs to a subpanel and then output it to one breaker in the main panel I also have an exterior utility disconnect switch that shuts down all three inverter outputs on the outlet of the subpanel. If I used conduit it would have been a maze of conduit. With wireway I just do a vertical drop down from the components and run the wires to where they need to go in the wireway. I wanted to run the copper ground wire inside the wireway but my electrical friends strongly suggested that it run on the outside in case of an indirect hit from lighting. The analog meter and the black wattmeter in the corner is the "high tech" monitoring available when the white inverter went in about 14 years ago. There is also a built in flashing red light that will flash codes on the inverter. One note is that recent code requires that the wireway be segregated between AC and DC wiring, I believe there is an available internal barrier that covers this but mine doesn't have it as it was installed during a prior code cycle.


----------



## Brian26 (May 12, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> Wow a preinstalled line side tap. Really makes it easy. If the inverter is exposed and in direct sun, the standard recommendation is to put a small overhang over it to keep the it drier and keep it out of direct sun. I expect if you know someone with a sheetmetal shop they can bend you up an overhang and just slot under the siding and slide it up in.
> 
> Out of curiosity, did they install surge protection devices in the system? They are not code required but highly recommended. I have one on the main panel to hopefully protect me from a utility spike and the two Fronious systems have SPDs at the combiner boxes mounted near the panels. I had Delta on my older Fronius and it still got cooked by utility surge so I switched to Midnight Solar SPDs http://www.midnitesolar.com/products.php?menuItem=products&productCat_ID=23&productCatName=SPD
> 
> ...



They didn't install a surge protector but I will look into installing one. Since I have a disconnect on my meter I can turn off the power easily going into the house. Makes any panel work a breeze.

Found a new use for the drone. This was taken just before sunset and it looks like only one panel gets minor shading issues from the chimney and satellite dish. Pretty cool to see it from above.


----------



## jebatty (May 12, 2017)

Very cool indeed. Congratulations. Your estimate of 6478 kWh/year is about "right on" for my area as well for a 5.4 kW system. My site is largely shade free but I estimate a 4% annual energy loss resulting from shading, almost all at the low sun in Nov-Feb. For a mostly shade-free site at 47* north latitude where I live I use a multiplier of 1.2 - 1.3 of the DC rating of the panels to estimate total annual energy production: 5.4 system x 1.2 = 6480 kWh/yr. 

BTW, yesterday was almost cloud-free and production for the day was 85kWh on my 12.3 kW system.


----------



## peakbagger (May 12, 2017)

Nice Drone shot, Another toy I want to buy. Looks to me like the dish is more of an issue than the chimney. I expect moving it wouldn't be a big issue if you really wanted to maximize production.  The typical approach is to shoot for no shading plus or minus 4 hours of solar noon and given sunset is closer to 6 hours off of noon I don't think its a major impact to production. BTW, the biggest impact to a panel is a strip of shade running horizontally across the panel versus a vertical strip of shade but both make difference. Note there are a lot of "studies" on the internet published on shading to ultimately justify the extra cost and complexity for microinverters. Academic studies are out there,  they just are far more boring

Once you let the dust settle, it sure looks like you have plenty of room to expand. Depending on your net metering contract there is lot to be said to get a mini split to cover shoulder season heating and AC in the summer. This usually only makes sense if you carry forward your surplus, a lot of contracts make you cash your excess production at a wholesale rate on a yearly basis and depending on that cash out date you may not be able to make it work. 

I must admit my original array which is hung from a wall does have an issue with shading from a roof overhang in early and late morning as the sun makes its way to the summer solstice. One of joys of living near 45 degrees latitude is that the sun angle varies significantly from winter to summer (which is what gives us seasonal variation). If you look at the tables or a sun plot you will see that as the solstice approaches the sun actually rises north of east which means fixed south facing panels lose out. My wall array and my ground mount miss out on that early morning sun but my roof mount which is at something less than 30 degrees off horizontal actually kicks in production a bit earlier in the AM during the summer as it can take advantage of that early morning dose of sun. That is quickly offset by lower panel efficiency later in the day due to far hotter roof than my pole mount.




The trade off on lost summer production is that snow sliding off my roof panels clears the wall mounted panels when it slides off the roof when I am set at the winter angle. If you look carefully you can see the holes in the unistrut that corresponds to winter, summer/fall and summer. The bottom hole is "hurricane mode" which stows the panels right up across the bay window. One unplanned benefit of this install is in the summer the sun shades the front wall and really cuts down on AC usage.  

On my various drives I occasionally see All Earth double tracking pole mount arrays, it always initially strikes me odd to see them in the early morning and late evening pointing in what initially looks to be the wrong direction. If I drive by later in the day they look right. The standard rule of thumb is dual axis trackers will put out 30% more power per installed watt but given the cheap price of solar panels there is no way to justify the cost of the tracker even when the renewable incentives were effectively written by the owner of the company that manufactures the trackers (I.E. Vermont).


----------



## Brian26 (May 13, 2017)

Passed the town inspection. Now just waiting on the net meter to be installed.

The electrician said I could flip it on but be careful.  He said that they used to turn them on after passing the town inspection but they ran into a few people getting charged for sending power back as their meters couldn't distinguish the power flow.

I turned it on and have been monitoring my whole house energy monitor and meter. It looks like if I balance my production with demand I am fine.

This is what my poco sent me. Looks like the only concern is sending back power and getting billed for it.

I know I should wait but the urge to flip the switch was just too much.

      You are approved as a Net Metering customer therefore, your
      delivered and received kWh’s will be measured separately.  You
      should not operate your Generating Facility prior to the
      installation of the net meter. Unapproved operation may cause
      inaccurate metering data and result in additional charges on your
      electric bill.  Eversource cannot prevent or rectify billing errors
      due to inaccurate meter data that results from operation of your
      Generating Facility prior to installation of the requisite net
      meter.


----------



## peakbagger (May 13, 2017)

Get ready to scratch you head a bit when you get your first bill from Eversource. One side is the total power you received from the gird  including any net metered power, the other side if the total production sent to the grid which would be your panel output minus and power being used internal to the house before it heads out to the grid. The calculation subtracts the two. It will not line up with net production reported by your inverter as the inverter does care where the power is going its just telling you how much you produced. 

If you are anxious to run it, its not hard to check the meter to see if its programed with a ratchet so that they bill you for PV export.

Looking at the meter photo you have an Itron, they reportedly can be programmed to be pretty dumb and may run backwards. They normally have one channel so there should just be one value displayed. If you see it alternate between two different values, it most likelyis  a bi-direction meter and you have to wait for Eversource unless you were real lucky.   There is a LCD display to the right of the number that should have an arrow pointing left or right. When you are buying power, the arrow points in one direction and when you are selling power the arrow  should go in the other direction. Turn off all the breakers in the house including the PV system and look at the value on the meter. Turn on a high draw breaker like an electric oven and turn on the oven. Wait until the digit changes, it should go up which means you bought a KWhr from the utility. Note which direction the arrow is pointing. Now turn off the oven,  and turn on the PV on a sunny day until the digit changes, if the number increases your meter has a "ratchet" that regards power going either way as purchased power. (the arrow may or may not change direction) In that case you get to wait for the utility to come swap the meter. If on the other hand if there is single reading and it goes down with the PV on you should be fine.


----------



## Brian26 (May 13, 2017)

peakbagger said:


> Get ready to scratch you head a bit when you get your first bill from Eversource. One side is the total power you received from the gird  including any net metered power, the other side if the total production sent to the grid which would be your panel output minus and power being used internal to the house before it heads out to the grid. The calculation subtracts the two. It will not line up with net production reported by your inverter as the inverter does care where the power is going its just telling you how much you produced.
> 
> If you are anxious to run it, its not hard to check the meter to see if its programed with a ratchet so that they bill you for PV export.
> 
> Looking at the meter photo you have an Itron, they reportedly can be programmed to be pretty dumb and may run backwards. They normally have one channel so there should just be one value displayed. If you see it alternate between two different values, it most likelyis  a bi-direction meter and you have to wait for Eversource unless you were real lucky.   There is a LCD display to the right of the number that should have an arrow pointing left or right. When you are buying power, the arrow points in one direction and when you are selling power the arrow  should go in the other direction. Turn off all the breakers in the house including the PV system and look at the value on the meter. Turn on a high draw breaker like an electric oven and turn on the oven. Wait until the digit changes, it should go up which means you bought a KWhr from the utility. Note which direction the arrow is pointing. Now turn off the oven,  and turn on the PV on a sunny day until the digit changes, if the number increases your meter has a "ratchet" that regards power going either way as purchased power. (the arrow may or may not change direction) In that case you get to wait for the utility to come swap the meter. If on the other hand if there is single reading and it goes down with the PV on you should be fine.



Thanks peakbagger for the info. It looks like as long as I use what power my panels are sending into my house I am fine based on my observations with my meter and Effergy energy monitor.

Peakbagger- To respond to your earlier post. I have a forced air Carrier Infinity heat pump system with oil backup. Running at full output it pulls about 2.5kwhs with most of that being the blower at almost 1kwh. But it has multiple stages on the compressor and fan so the output varies. With the panels I think the savings are going to be huge.

I am kind of taken back on how much power I am cranking out right now with the current cloudy/rainy conditions.  Almost 1 kwh!  Can't wait for the forecasted sun and heat next week to see how it performs. I think you are in New England as well peakbagger?



as well and this weather has been terrible.


----------



## peakbagger (May 13, 2017)

Yes I am in northern NH. Its been pretty dreary up in Northern NH of late but this is usually the sweet spot time of year, cool temps and long days means lots of production. I will be adjusting my panels to summer  angle next week.


----------



## Brian26 (Jun 4, 2017)

A little over 2 weeks in and I am impressed by the production so far. I have yet to experience a completely cloudless day and I am sure others in New England can relate where the weather has been pretty terrible lately. There has been little to no sun the last 2 weeks besides the last 3 days.

June is off to a great start. Keep in mind this is only a 5.4 kwh system. I am thinking on a cloudless day 35-40 kwh is possible.


----------



## jebatty (Jun 7, 2017)

I never paid so much attention to sunny days as I do now with the PV. The last 7 days (May 31-Jun 6) have been nearly clear every day, for a total of 552kWh and a daily average of 79kWh on our 12.3kW system. So far this year 2017 production is running above average. The graph below show Jun 2017 only for the first 6 days.

April - May 2017 have alternated between strings of very sunny days and then the same with very cloudy/rainy days. June has started out very sunny.


----------



## Brian26 (Jun 10, 2017)

We just got our first electric bill.  2 weeks in and 98 kwhs in surplus and $12.83 just for the connection charge.  Here in CT with the highest electricity prices in the lower 48 this a welcome relief.


----------



## Brian26 (Dec 2, 2017)

6 months with panels and here is my electric bill history. All I have been charged is the $19.25 connection charge with a negative kwh usage. It is working out well


----------



## peakbagger (Dec 2, 2017)

Now get ready for snow season and see how well the panels clean off after a snow storm. Keep an eye out for anything that can get crushed by snow sliding off the panels. Sometimes it just melts in place but occasionally it sits there and then goes whump.


----------



## Brian26 (Mar 9, 2018)

I had to purchase 180 kwh last month as I had used up all my surplus KWH. I had massive usage around the holidays as I had a ton of family staying over. The record cold snap in late Dec and Jan was another reason. I also had the panels installed in May so missed some surplus production last spring.

The good news is my net meter is now showing a surplus as production has started to skyrocket on sunny days this time of the year.

I can't really complain about a $46.49 bill as these panels have been saving me a fortune. Eversource is charging .26 kwh here in CT.  We have the highest rates in the US. $46.49/180kwh = .26 cents a kwh.  On a good production day I can produce about $10 a day in power at those rates with my small 5.4kwh system.


----------



## peakbagger (Mar 9, 2018)

Always good to see someone happy with the results. Glad we gave you a push.


----------



## CaptSpiff (Mar 17, 2018)

Hi Brian26, can i ask about about the last bill amount, which seems off from the $0.27 kwh stated?

You banked (via net metering) 98+275+89+160+107=729 Kwh in months Jun thru Oct.
Then in Nov thru Feb your usage exceed solar production and you withdrew from your bank to cover that.
In month Nov thru Jan you withdrew 55+119+530=704, and had 25 Kwh remaining in your bank.
Then in Feb your grid usage was 180, and with the 25 applied, you were billed on 155 kwh.

So subtracting the $19.25 meter charge from the $46.49 billed leaves $27.24 for the 155 Kwh.

That's about $0.17 per kilowatt-hours.

My point is that no Utility I've seen ever makes it easy to understand what we are actually paying for the product, for the service to deliver that product, and for the taxes added to each of those by local and state governments.

So considering that there is probably 10-12% taxes in that $0.17 per kwh figure, your rate is probably closer to $0.15 per kwh.

Which if you look on your bill, somewhere, is probably made up of a Transmission & Delivery Charge of about 6 cents, and a Generation Product of about 9 cents.

Anyway, you'll do better this year as you get two more months to bank. Going solar looks like a great decision!


----------

