Category Archives: Solar

We’re going Green!

These days, prices on Solar power panels have been dropping like stones while the technology to use them as well as the connection/mounting standards to install them have been advancing at “Warp Factor Nine”.   Of course, these rapid advancements … Continue reading

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Solar project progress: Surveys and Rebates

There are a number of tools out there to help plan a PV installation. One of the most useful is the PVWATTS solar energy calculator. PVWATTS uses nationally compiled solar survey data to estimate location specific energy production based on array efficiency, panel … Continue reading

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How to do a Solar Survey

PVWatts is a good tool that uses average sunshine data to predict solar collector efficiency, but there’s another important factor to the equation: shading.  Once you determine the shading factor, the PVWatts data can be multiplied by the sun percentage … Continue reading

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Contractor discussions, DIY tasks and Derate Factors

Well, we met our Solar contractor today and yeah…. he’s a geek right down to the Nikola Tesla is his hero part.  More importantly, we’re both on the same page concerning the installation.  He has no problems letting me save … Continue reading

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The Bottom Line on the initial install.

The estimate is in and its $2350 for the initial hookup minus the price of the four solar panels themselves.  For this price, my contractor will provide the following: Renusol Racking and components for (4) modules (material only). (4) Enphase … Continue reading

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SunEye report and more prep work.

Our contractor arrived last week with his SunEye and did a full shading workup of the roof.  Essentially he measured 6 points on the roof as shown here: The important measurements for this year are locations 1 and 2 since this … Continue reading

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Solar project update

We got plan approval and the go-ahead to build from WE energies last week!  I also filed my grant paperwork from this site after calling the listed number and being told that grant funds were still available. The weather was pretty … Continue reading

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The wait is over! Construction progress…

A lot happened this week!  The Pieper residental group electrician stopped by with a dual meter base on Thursday but it was the wrong size.  Our meter comes in right next to a window so a single hub dual meter … Continue reading

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Things keep rolling along… dual meter base installation!

The project reached several important milestones last week! First was the double meter base installation that was completed on the 22nd.  Everything got underway at about 8:30AM when I started up the genset to power the house electronics/server systems for … Continue reading

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Installing the second Renusol rail.

The weather was nice and cool last Sunday; perfect for working above the garage, so I installed the second Renusol rail.  This one would be a bit trickier than the first because the rail itself landed between two rafters.  To … Continue reading

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