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

[peakbagger]

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]

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]

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?

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]

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]

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]

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]

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

 

[georgepds]

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?

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]

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]

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]

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.

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

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.

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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. View attachment 195660

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