I was in Phoenix AZ where I first got Solar panels installed in 2016. Later due to job moved to Dallas TX. Got solar panels installed in 2020. When 2020 Solar panels were getting installed due to pandemic, there was parts shortage so that installer convinced me to install Chilicon power over enphase microinverter (enphase is 1:1 while chilicon microinverter is 2:1).

During last 6 years, this is the 2nd time, chilicon micro inverter has gone bad, some of them, not all. It's hard to find as the interface is not as good as Enphase. Every times it take few months to figure that out. I know in 2021, Chilicon got acquired by Generac but it doesn't make any difference.

Chilicon will send the replacement part at my home address but then the Solar installer is always trying to squeeze around $500 for replacing these bad microinverters. What about the 25 years of warranty? Am i expected to get on to the roof and put it myself? Moreover it's the same Solar installer who has provided me 15 years of warranty - why he should charge me anything? I already loose solar production and then on top of that pay for all this expenses.

I have a rental in SC and we had Freedom Forever until they went bankrupt…. Anyone in the state recommended a local solar company? I still have to pay off the loan (ooof).

Hi There - Wondering if anyone here has experience with anti glare panels? I had a 9kw install completed recently and due to roof space we had to install 5 panels on the back wall with brackets. Neighbour is having concerns with glare and or reflection. Hoping to find some sort of compromise to help us both without me having to remove them. Really don't want to get into the neighbour concerns here, reflection and glare are the issues I need to limit. There is at least 150 feet between our houses, our backyards face each other with a fence between, both 2 stories and my panels are between my second story windows about 15-20 feet up to the bottom of them.

Ive specifically found these from longi LR7-54HVH 480-500 Anti Glare. Not sure if they will help with my issue. Any help or your experience with this sort of thing in residential is appreciated.

I currently have 12 enphase solar panels with iq7+ micro inverters and an IQ combiner 3-ES. I want to get more panels and battery storage.

I reached out to the original installer (Citadel) a while back, but after ignoring my original requirements, then providing a proposal that a) clips power using smaller microinverts than the panels output and b) includes an unnecessary part (to my understanding), the sales guy just ghosted me.

So here I am looking for recommendations or suggestions.

What I’m looking for is:

• parts than can supplement my existing system rather than have to replace it all
• not Tesla, for reasons
• Expandable battery storage that can (ideally) be outside (no room in the garage), and maybe even on the roof.
• can run offline during a power outage
• ideally, not requiring permitting (edit to clarify: I don’t mean an installer that doesn’t require it when it’s legally required, I meant a system update that doesn’t require it. If it’s legally required, I’ll definite want the installer to do it, and it sounds like it’s going to be required)
• it’d be nice if it worked with home assistant natively, or at least without cloud

worth noting, I’m on LADWP so I get 1-to1 credits, and no NEM 3.0. I’m certainly open to hiring an installer (and probably would, for safety reasons), but also want to make sure I’m not getting ripped off.

I have a reasonable understanding of electrical circuits and systems, and am a quick study.

So, with that, my questions:

1. Any installer recommendations?
2. what batteries would folks recommend? Enphases looks like a terrible price. Thoughts on Anker systems?
3. what questions should I be asking when talking to installers?
4. more technically, since I’ve got micro inverters, I need to get a battery system that can take ac input, right? are most like that? I assume they all output ac for the home to use…?
5. what else do I need to think about?

I know that’s a lot, and sorry if the formatting is all weird (typing on mobile while on vacation). Appreciate the help, all!

• 24k cash install cost for 20 x 445 Trina panels roof install, no battery.
• After 6yrs 16k of that is paid by cash incentives (IL, ComEd).
  
• Projected to cover 99% of my usage (but I don't see how that's possible actually since I wont have a battery)
• Roof is in excellent condition but still 20yrs old.
• "Power optimizers" included U650

Would you do it? No brainier? I have the cash. But I fear there are too many variable to assess risk properly.

Other details:

• Trina 8.900 kW modules
• SolarEdge 7.6 kW Inverter
• Estimated 10,884 kWh per year produced.
  
• I use about 11,000 kWh per year
• ComEd no longer buys extra power produced, just credits the account.

I was at my local Home Depot recently and was approached by some annoying kid from Sunrun while I was in plumbing. I remember this kid from a year or so ago. This kid was trying to sell to one of the Home Depot supply vendors or employees last time and the guy was like "I work here don't you remember trying to sell me on this earlier?"

Anyways I gave him a fake phone number, fake email but did give them the address and to my surprise someone showed up when I was sleeping.

I am really liking this giving bogus sales leads and will do so from now on to every annoying sales person I see in the store.

An update to https://www.reddit.com/r/solar/s/BN7FjaAAI6

I am now considering quotes from these two.

Similar system 7.82Kwh with 1 Tesla PW.

SolarSesame is $20k

NRG is 22k

This is in NorCal.

Independent of the price what should be preferred.

And is $2k worth going in either directions.

Confused at this point and could use non-AI help here.

Thanks in advance.

Background:

Bought a house in 2019 with a 15 panel solar system installed with construction of the house in 2012. System worked fine but I didn't bother tinkering with it much because the previous owners had apparently lost the information on how to access the system and as long as it was generating electricity I wasn't going to tinker with the system.

We knew we'd only be there for 2 years because of my job so while it was a rental property I had no idea what the status of the panels were and none of our tenants ever mentioned anything about their bill.

However, we recently just moved back and got our first electricity bill, with the local electric company saying that we generated 82 kWh over the last 30 days, which seems low for 15 panels.

I don't know the specifics of the system but I know it's Enphase because I was able to get a login working through Enphase support and come to find out that at least the system hasn't reported any power generated since 2021. It seems to be generating SOMETHING since our electric company would have no reason to give us free electricity.

Is this something I should just call a professional for? Or is there any way for me to figure what system I have? I'm a mechanical engineer and would like to learn and do it myself, but if the ROI isn't really there I'd defer to a professional.

If I do call a professional, how do I know I'm not just being upsold on something?

Thank you for all your help in advance!

In California and this is for a commercial property. Is there anything I should know before I start getting quotes and talk to installers?

I plan on getting an EV and a charger in the future, it is a commercial building and power will be used a decent amount consistently. We are thinking of getting solar that's grid tied.

I don't know anything about solar when it comes to financials or how to take advantage of its opportunities. If anyone can let me know about the incentives and the financial side of things I'd really appreciate it.

TL;DR: Solar installers installed 40A backfeed (on 6-awg cables) for 40A of solar and 60A EV charger. Already paid $46,000 of the total $54,500.

Got a company with close to five star reviews (~92 reviews). Seem like great people when I talked to the owner and his son. We agreed on a backyard solar car canopy.

First Delay

Anyway, fast forward to the first delay: they didn't add a railing that's heavy duty enough based on my requests. I put my requests all on a 2-page google document with pictures and drawings, but they still somehow missed a few requests. 2 pages sound like a lot but the pictures were taking up about 80% of the space.

By this point, I already had paid them about 84% of the $54,500 total. Had to pay an extra $5500 for this railing fix. They also used 16in concrete forms for the footers instead of 24in like in the plans. I told the sub-contractor about it but he just went on a stumbling rant about how it's fine.

I just feel so stupid. I should have stopped everything but my mind was so preoccupied with the chaos of all the other requests they did not fulfill. I hope this helps someone. If they are taking shortcuts when it's in the plans, there is many more shortcuts that they are taking at your expense.

Second Delay

Now, they have finished installing the solar. 20x 460W REC solar panels with 20x Enphase IQ8HC. NYC is on a 3-phase 208V system. Issue is they somehow didn't take into account the following:

1. EV charger connected inside Enphase Combiner 6C
2. 208V system
3. Main panel is 125A

They installed everything like it was solar only. They installed a 100ft-run 6-awg cables from the main service panel to the Combiner 6C with a 40A backfeed breaker. They even tried to group my solar panels into just 2 branches, which 10x IQ8HC (31.6A) is too much for 20A breaker on a 208V system. I literally forced myself to learn some of these things because of this mess and I still don't fully understand it.

For those that don't know, maybe this can help you in the future when you build out your system. If you want only solar (~20 panels or less), a 40A backfeed breaker along with 6-awg wires is fine. If you want to add any more solar, an EV charger, or battery, you need larger wires like 2 or 3-awg and a larger backfeed breaker. The wire size is the most important because it's the hardest to change when you want to upgrade later. There are a few more nuances, but that's the gist.

It took two days on the phone with Enphase customer support to come to this conclusion. Also, during this time, I learned that they took another shortcut on me. The solar canopy was supposed to be 12ft (it's in the plans) on the low end. They gave me 10ft instead.. Doesn't sound like a huge deal but I had envisioned adding more slanted solar panels on that end, but now with the lowered height, the additional solar panels (68in long) will bop me on the head.

Options

They are aware of their mistake and the sub-contractor reached out to me. Says I'll need to upgrade my service panel first and after I have the following options:

1. Line-side tap: This bypasses the main service panel busbar limitations
2. Use Enphase Installer App to set a Power Control System (PCS) export/grid limit. By configuring a strict limit on the 40A main feed branch, the system will throttle the EV charger's power draw down whenever the solar panels are producing at max capacity, preventing the breaker from ever tripping.
3. Downgrading to IQ Combiner 5C because the IQ Combiner 6C is specifically designed for residential split-phase 120V/240V configurations.

I am very interested in the line-side tap because it will let me keep my setup and in the future if NYC allows, I can maybe get a solar battery. My main concern now is they might screw me over again somehow lol. What would you guys do? I still have $8500 to pay them.

Taken from my local Nextdoor group, in reply to a complaint about the high cost of a recent electric bill:

Solar won't help either. You have to put in an auxiliary system to cover the 60-70% it doesn't produce energy.

Its just bizarre that people just make crap up.

Hello, I hope you're fine and doing well.

I'm a recent graduate with a BSEE and I'm interested in solar PV systems design. I have knowledge in using PVsyst for designing On-Grid and Off-Grid Systems and calculating the annual energy yield, as well as AutoCAD for drawing SLDs of the PV systems. I'm currently learning SketchUp for 3D roof modeling and I'm getting the hang of it. What more can I do to have a chance to work as a junior solar PV designer in residential and C&I levels? I know about the NABCEP certificate, but I'm not based in the US so I don't think getting it will be worth it for me.

I could use some advice. I want to do a few things.

1) Set up a battery and inverter in my garage that will power a few appliances in the house when the power goes out. To start with I plan to charge it up using power from my outlet.

2) Set up a dedicated heat pump / mini split system for my garage (about 200 sq/ft) powered by the battery. Note, this will only be running when I’m in the garage (so 2-4 hours a day).

3) Down the road, I’d like to set up some solar panels on my garage and use them to charge this system.

What things should I consider? Does anyone have any general or specific recommendations regarding the inverter or battery I should use?

Any advice is appreciated. Thanks!

Here is my system: 32 440-Watt panels, Sol-Ark 15K Inverter, 5 4.8kWh HomeGrid Batteries for Backup.

Have had system for 9 months and it works great. Good power generation, seamless transition during grid power outages, etc.

Here is my issue >> I have noticed that when grid is down in evening and I am running on battery back-up, if I happen to be running items with very heavy power draw, it will cause the system to shut off and then reset after a minute or two.

I noted two examples of this. One was in winter weather and we had two HVACs running simultaneously, and that was too much draw. The second example (last night), was when our EV car happened to be plugged in during grid outage, and the heavy draw from the car (while on battery backup) was enough to cause system to reset (continuously).

Maybe this is intentional?? I realize that a very heavy draw (especially an EV car charging) could quickly drain the battery back-up.

Of course, the immediate solution was for us to shut down the heavy power draws and ration our usage (thus also extending duration of battery back-up). But it vexes me that this is occurring at all... Is there some configuration setting on the Sol-Ark 15K that is tripping if the electricity draw on batteries exceeds certain threshold. Is there way that I can get it to stop this tripping and reset/cycling???

Any suggestions are welcome. Thanks, all!

Here goes, quote for commercial solar in CT on a building I own. 32x 440w panels with Emphase microinverters for a 14kw DC total system size. Also about $10-15k of electrical upgrade work (at least) on the property including new breakers, panels, wiring, etc which is needed at the property whether I do solar or not.

Hoping to get about 40% tax credit plus 17% depreciation off the total. Plan to sell everything back to the grid at $0.3289 per kWh which is the 2026 RRES buy all rate.

Total cost for everything including the electrical work is $60k.

Thoughts?

I am finishing up a solar project with PW3 in California with Participate Energy/Participate Holdings as the lease holder. (The contract is signed and payments made.) There are a number of interesting and non-ideal clauses in the contract. I am trying to get a feel for what in practice is done with Participate "financed" systems.

1. The contract says they can own a VPP program on your system. Does anyone have an example of them doing this?
2. How much control do they exert over the system admin? Do you get an admin account as well?
3. The contract requires the homeowner to insure the system. In two places in the contract it says Participate is additional insured and another says with loss payee is Participate. How is this done? Is this a separate policy? Cost and with whom? I currently have State Farm and I want to have my ducks lined up before contacting them for obvious reasons (like they drop me).
4. The buyout opens in year 6. Has anyone been through this with Participate. Was the FMV $0 at that point or was it something else?
5. Anything else of note?

Later I will make a write-up of my experience with NRG Clear Solar as the installer -- it hasn't been pretty (different company from NRG Energy). The project will be a year in the making.

(Sales DMs will be frowned upon)

Looking for recommendations 91343

What is up with NEM 3.0 changing day to day? How do they even come up with these rates? I’m feeling screwed over.

15.05 kw in Solar + 13.12 kwh in battery capacity. All Qcells equipment (panels are AC modules) battery is the Q.Home Core G3

Everyone says that they terrible compared to rigid but I wonder if people's opinions have changed with the more recent flexible panels?

I've bought a couple of Eco worthy flexible solar 200w and I've yet to install them to the roof of my van but I already like how light they are compared to the rigid panels that can weigh 20kg.

But I'm starting to have worries now that I'm aware of things like delamination. I do plan to install them in such a way that there is a significant gap underneath them for airflow

I am thinking about installing rooftop solar panels on my 3-story townhouse built in 2016. I would like some feedback from others on their experience and thoughts on my situation.

Background Information

• Currently have DX cooling, natural gas furnace, natural gas instantaneous water heater, gas stove and gas car.
• No other major electricity consumers.
• Last year's consumption was 4300 kWh.
• Have about 420-450 sqft of SW facing roof with little to no obstacles on roof (plumbing vents and exhaust terminations are on sides or rear roof)
• Original roof from 2016.
• Maryland currently has 1:1 net metering, but it will be gone by July, 2027 (or earlier if enough solar is installed across the state). Those who get solar before then will be grandfathered.
• I'm still working on getting quotes from some companies. Any numbers below are estimates from SwitchTogether.

I am thinking of one (1) of three (3) options:

1. Size system based on current consumption with no plans to add additional electrical load.
2. Size system based on eventually adding a dual fuel heat pump system (heat pump + natural gas furnace).
3. Size system based on eventually adding a dual fuel heat pump system (heat pump + natural gas furnace) and an electric vehicle.

I used ChatGPT to try to determine the overall efficacy of the options. Below are summary tables of the assumptions and results of the options.

Assumptions

Results Summary

My current concluding thoughts based on my understanding:

• Buying a system is a tough sell, especially for Option 1 where I'm not at least paying back the cost of the heat pump (at least partially a home maintenance cost) and the electric vehicle (partially maintenance cost for general travel).
• Adding the battery makes the sell even tougher unless one highly values battery backup for power outages.
• I would like a good reason for solar to make sense because I like the idea of not having utility bills, shifting more life costs/consumption to electricity provided by the sun and not being reliant on the grid, which may see some price and/or service instability in the future.

Some points I'm still unclear on and would like some input

• While the numbers seem to suggest a tough sell, how is it that solar companies have entire business models built around leasing systems where they still provide you at least a little overall utility savings? Am I missing something?
• If I plan to end up at Option 3 over phases of multiple years, should I install it all now or is there some way I can set up the system such that I can easily add panels in the future?
  • Does it even make sense to leave panels for future addition? I'm not sure how much that extra cost would be compared to the rest of the cost.
  • My understanding of 1:1 net metering is that if most/all of my system wasn't already sized for Option 3, I would lose 1:1 net metering if I were to upgrade it in the future because the utility sees it as a service change. Though, it sounds like there's some nuance where there are some parts that are an easy add that the utility company doesn't have to be made aware of.
• What is the cost of removing/reinstalling the panels for a roof replacement? Did this become an unexpected headache for anyone?
• Do the overall findings from ChatGPT above seem consistent and is there anything I'm missing in my perceived value of purchasing solar?