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

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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)
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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!
 
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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%.
 
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.

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%.
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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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.

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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.
 
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.

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.
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Can i ask which local company you are leaning towards? i am in guilford and will be looking into solar in the next year.
 
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
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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.
 
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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.
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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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Its nice program, better to reduce you power demand before you oversize and array.
 
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.
 
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
 
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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.
 
You were correct, I has inadvertently put in the wattage instead of the cost per inverter in the calculation ;emso 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.
 
peakbagger said:
don't see a good reason for the extra $1,961 price for microinverters on a system
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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.
 
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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
 
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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?
 
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