Cilyjr
Supporting Member
I've been meaning to post this for a while and since I started talking about solar a little bit in another thread and since I am literally sitting here waiting for paint to dry, I guess I'll get into this a little bit.
First off I should state that if you aren't an electrician, then maybe this is not the project for you or at the very least extremely competent when it comes to wiring and electrical. You can absolutely kill yourself, and/or burn down your home being careless.
I would also like to state that if you are trying to accomplish this on your own, you are obviously assuming any of your own responsibility when it comes to any safety issues that might arise.
That said, here is what I did.
I started to get really bothered by the consistent raising of rates by the electric company here, PG&E. It seemed like every couple of months there was a new proposal to up rates. My tank is large and we have 2000 gallon pond. In the winter time my bill could be around $600. Initially I started looking into using a water heater to heat the aquarium. As I started digging into that, I decided the challenges were more than it was worth. And ultimately my wife and I decided to apply the money to be used for that towards a solar system on the house.
I had a guy come out and give me a quote for $46,000 for a 7K system with a 12kwh battery. They say things like you will make your money back in 15 years and other salesman-ie things to say. It did not sit well with me.
At this point I knew absolutely nothing about solar. I found the videos by Will Prowse and started digging in. I learned the basics, and figured out how much power I was using and then what was realistic to put on the house. Finding a program on the internet that and the solar salesmen use to "design" your system when they come by was helpful as a jumping off point. If anyone is interested, it is called Open Solar and you can make an account plug in your address and then start dragging panels onto your roof. If it's available commercially it's probably in their system. Before you start doing that, I would find out what's available locally for solar panels as there are literally thousands.
You can also plug your electric bill in and your metering program and it will start spitting out the numbers you need.
I started looking at the various systems that were available. Obviously Tesla was one of them. This is by far the easiest to install. It's literally setting up the powerwall 3 and landing a breaker at the bottom of your panel, but in my area,, it is difficult to get one. People are waiting 6 to 8 months. My sales rep at GreenTech called The Tesla powerwall 3 The pink unicorn because you are just as likely to find one of those. I looked at a few other systems including Sol-ark. Ultimately, I ended up finding EG4. The equipment is very similar to what you would get through Sol-Ark in how it functions, but as they are a newer company, The price point was better. Also, I found some videos with people installing eg4 equipment. One video in particular said it's the first inverter he ever put up and commissioned that did not throw any error codes right from the beginning. I had the same experience.
After deciding on the equipment, the next step is getting some official plans drawn up from an engineering company. This is likely going to cost you around two grand. In this I was lucky because my company has a relationship with a place to do this and it cost me 300 bucks.
You will need both an electrical and structural plan to submit to the permitting office of your local jurisdiction. I would at least get the electrical plan stamped, they may not require structural stamp but I would ask your city permitting department anyways.
This is not a project you will want to do. Unpermitted. You will need to turn in those documents to your local power company at some point and that is how they will base your system for being ready for use.
Once your stamped plans are ready to go. Go to your city planning department, Give them to them, in my case it was all online, give them around $200 for the planning and another hundred and something dollars for the future inspection. And they should give you a permit. Then, the fun begins!
I purchased all of my equipment at my local GreenTech renewables. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that not only did I have a local company to purchase from, they were also significantly cheaper than any of the online vendors. Especially when you consider the shipping. A 280 Ah battery weighs about 350 lb and it is lifepo4 so it has extra shipping considerations.
My equipment list was as follows
1x eg4-12kpv hybrid inverter
2x all weather eg4 14.3 kwh batteries
22x 425w jinko panels (allowing for 9.35kwh optimal output)
11x tigo ts4-a-2f rapid shutdown. Where I to do this again? I would buy the singles and just put one at each panel. Makes cord management easier.
2x eg4 gutterbox, these are cheaper than a generic and the holes line up without any special cutting.
16x iron ridge X10 rails and mounting hardware.
30ish ( cannot remember exactly) x RT mini feet because if you miss a stud you can just add a couple of screws and it will pass muster.
1x 500 foot roll 10g pv wire, Don't buy the tin stuff. Spend the extra money to get copper cable here. Also do not use standard stranded thin. The PV wire has an extra thick jacket.
1x pv crimping tool you do not need to buy the $600 professional one. You can get away with a $50 online from Amazon one. The ends all crimp the same.
1x Eaton Sub panel to act as a critical load panel.
1x 125 foot roll of 8/3 romex as the inverter is about 25 feet from my service entrance.
Various EMT, liquid tight, straps, conduit boxes.
That's the list.
The first step was laying out exactly where everything went on the roof. Since I am stupid and I had my wife do all of that so things lined up neatly around plumbing, vents and flues etc.
Attaching the X10 rails is fairly simple. You want about 3 to 4 feet in between each footing. Again I had my wife line up all the geometry I mostly attached.
First off I should state that if you aren't an electrician, then maybe this is not the project for you or at the very least extremely competent when it comes to wiring and electrical. You can absolutely kill yourself, and/or burn down your home being careless.
I would also like to state that if you are trying to accomplish this on your own, you are obviously assuming any of your own responsibility when it comes to any safety issues that might arise.
That said, here is what I did.
I started to get really bothered by the consistent raising of rates by the electric company here, PG&E. It seemed like every couple of months there was a new proposal to up rates. My tank is large and we have 2000 gallon pond. In the winter time my bill could be around $600. Initially I started looking into using a water heater to heat the aquarium. As I started digging into that, I decided the challenges were more than it was worth. And ultimately my wife and I decided to apply the money to be used for that towards a solar system on the house.
I had a guy come out and give me a quote for $46,000 for a 7K system with a 12kwh battery. They say things like you will make your money back in 15 years and other salesman-ie things to say. It did not sit well with me.
At this point I knew absolutely nothing about solar. I found the videos by Will Prowse and started digging in. I learned the basics, and figured out how much power I was using and then what was realistic to put on the house. Finding a program on the internet that and the solar salesmen use to "design" your system when they come by was helpful as a jumping off point. If anyone is interested, it is called Open Solar and you can make an account plug in your address and then start dragging panels onto your roof. If it's available commercially it's probably in their system. Before you start doing that, I would find out what's available locally for solar panels as there are literally thousands.
You can also plug your electric bill in and your metering program and it will start spitting out the numbers you need.
I started looking at the various systems that were available. Obviously Tesla was one of them. This is by far the easiest to install. It's literally setting up the powerwall 3 and landing a breaker at the bottom of your panel, but in my area,, it is difficult to get one. People are waiting 6 to 8 months. My sales rep at GreenTech called The Tesla powerwall 3 The pink unicorn because you are just as likely to find one of those. I looked at a few other systems including Sol-ark. Ultimately, I ended up finding EG4. The equipment is very similar to what you would get through Sol-Ark in how it functions, but as they are a newer company, The price point was better. Also, I found some videos with people installing eg4 equipment. One video in particular said it's the first inverter he ever put up and commissioned that did not throw any error codes right from the beginning. I had the same experience.
After deciding on the equipment, the next step is getting some official plans drawn up from an engineering company. This is likely going to cost you around two grand. In this I was lucky because my company has a relationship with a place to do this and it cost me 300 bucks.
You will need both an electrical and structural plan to submit to the permitting office of your local jurisdiction. I would at least get the electrical plan stamped, they may not require structural stamp but I would ask your city permitting department anyways.
This is not a project you will want to do. Unpermitted. You will need to turn in those documents to your local power company at some point and that is how they will base your system for being ready for use.
Once your stamped plans are ready to go. Go to your city planning department, Give them to them, in my case it was all online, give them around $200 for the planning and another hundred and something dollars for the future inspection. And they should give you a permit. Then, the fun begins!
I purchased all of my equipment at my local GreenTech renewables. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that not only did I have a local company to purchase from, they were also significantly cheaper than any of the online vendors. Especially when you consider the shipping. A 280 Ah battery weighs about 350 lb and it is lifepo4 so it has extra shipping considerations.
My equipment list was as follows
1x eg4-12kpv hybrid inverter
2x all weather eg4 14.3 kwh batteries
22x 425w jinko panels (allowing for 9.35kwh optimal output)
11x tigo ts4-a-2f rapid shutdown. Where I to do this again? I would buy the singles and just put one at each panel. Makes cord management easier.
2x eg4 gutterbox, these are cheaper than a generic and the holes line up without any special cutting.
16x iron ridge X10 rails and mounting hardware.
30ish ( cannot remember exactly) x RT mini feet because if you miss a stud you can just add a couple of screws and it will pass muster.
1x 500 foot roll 10g pv wire, Don't buy the tin stuff. Spend the extra money to get copper cable here. Also do not use standard stranded thin. The PV wire has an extra thick jacket.
1x pv crimping tool you do not need to buy the $600 professional one. You can get away with a $50 online from Amazon one. The ends all crimp the same.
1x Eaton Sub panel to act as a critical load panel.
1x 125 foot roll of 8/3 romex as the inverter is about 25 feet from my service entrance.
Various EMT, liquid tight, straps, conduit boxes.
That's the list.
The first step was laying out exactly where everything went on the roof. Since I am stupid and I had my wife do all of that so things lined up neatly around plumbing, vents and flues etc.
Attaching the X10 rails is fairly simple. You want about 3 to 4 feet in between each footing. Again I had my wife line up all the geometry I mostly attached.
