Ground-mount 9Kw solar install beginning today
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Yes! Here's some pics of the big beautiful arrays still going in! The just mounted the last panel today.
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I'm super stoked at how they look from the road. They are pretty massive up close but from the road they don't dwarf the house or anything. I'm quite proud of the new look.
mol1jb
Feeling the Heat
Ya in the road shot they look great. How much land do you have? Looks like a nice plot
jebatty
Minister of Fire
We're on 7 acres. The front 2 acres is cleared. The part in the picture is about 1 acre's worth.
Nice racks ! (solar porn 
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It does look like a nice install, I agree its going to blend in, after a year or so you wont even notice them except maybe bumping your head when you are mowing the lawn.
Looks like they are going to get "lit up" pretty quick.
)It does look like a nice install, I agree its going to blend in, after a year or so you wont even notice them except maybe bumping your head when you are mowing the lawn.
Looks like they are going to get "lit up" pretty quick.
Nice racks ! (solar porn
It does look like a nice install, I agree its going to blend in, after a year or so you wont even notice them except maybe bumping your head when you are mowing the lawn.
Looks like they are going to get "lit up" pretty quick.
Haha! Yeah, they told me yesterday to watch out for the undersides especially as the undersides of the panels are more susceptible to damage than even the top side. I will have to really watch out when mowing. Not only of the mower discharge but the roll bar on the zero turn is always out-of-sight out-of-mind. But it will hit low tree branches and stuff if I don't remember it's there. Maybe I'll just put down weed fabric and mulch behind each rack. I'll have to think about that one.
I'm looking forward to enjoying them as a feature on the property.
Those panel corners are quite painful and sharper then one would think, after getting impaled a few times when I was installing my system. I wrapped them in foam until I was done. It worked but was ugly. With kids around I would consider putting in some protection on the lower corners if the array isn't fenced in. I see someone on Ebay sells them http://www.ebay.com/itm/Solar-Panel-Corner-Protector-Set-Universal-fit-/321699356740 not sure how long them would last but might save a doctor visit.
I did have issues when I first installed the array that rain running off the lower panel edge was eroding the freshly planted grass. I put in row of stones and that took care of it. Once the grass was established for a year it wasn't an issue.
I did have issues when I first installed the array that rain running off the lower panel edge was eroding the freshly planted grass. I put in row of stones and that took care of it. Once the grass was established for a year it wasn't an issue.
That's a good tip, Peakbagger about the corner protectors.
The install is basically done now. The County building inspectors are now scheduled to come out on Tuesday and conduct their inspection. After that the Utility will be inspecting.
So how about that? Just a few months ago I was on this forum dipping my toe in the water about whether to pursue this. And now the solar is in!
The install is basically done now. The County building inspectors are now scheduled to come out on Tuesday and conduct their inspection. After that the Utility will be inspecting.
So how about that? Just a few months ago I was on this forum dipping my toe in the water about whether to pursue this. And now the solar is in!
We were energized yesterday! It was very cool to see the meter running backwards. I'll have a full day's worth of production to report today. I can't wait to see the next electricity bill! 
Congratulations, and now the obsession phase begins. I remember those days, checking the daily output and charting it, trying to guess why the output was low one day compared to another. There are some folks on this site that seem to stay in that mode but I think most folks tend to forget about it after awhile. About I do is keep an eye on the LEDs when I walk by to see if they are green and enter my monthly production on my SREC brokers website so I get a check for SREC sales (not not all states have a SREC market but given the incentives you got I wouldn't complain)
One thing you do need to keep an eye out for if you are on an old rural electrical system is that the utilities sometimes have some pretty crappy power quality. The inverters will only synch with the grid within a preset range of voltage and on occasion other loads in the systems may "sag" the voltage so your inverters trip out. If you see times where the system stops generating for 5 minutes and then comes back on line, odds are its time to call the power company and insist they put a power quality meter on your incoming power line. Usually they will figure out what is going on and the problem will go away. There is also a chance that the fraud department of you utility may start sniffing around as your major shift in power usage is a symptom of fraud as well as solar. They usually figure it out pretty quick.
One thing you do need to keep an eye out for if you are on an old rural electrical system is that the utilities sometimes have some pretty crappy power quality. The inverters will only synch with the grid within a preset range of voltage and on occasion other loads in the systems may "sag" the voltage so your inverters trip out. If you see times where the system stops generating for 5 minutes and then comes back on line, odds are its time to call the power company and insist they put a power quality meter on your incoming power line. Usually they will figure out what is going on and the problem will go away. There is also a chance that the fraud department of you utility may start sniffing around as your major shift in power usage is a symptom of fraud as well as solar. They usually figure it out pretty quick.
Ooh, wow. Good to be aware of. I don't remember having brownout conditions on any frequent basis. But I'll definitely keep my eye out. Yes, the obsession phase is in full swing! I even drive past my driveway now to behold the panels from just down the road where they are visible. Then I do a U-turn and behold them again as I drive back to my driveway 
jebatty
Minister of Fire
A real accomplishment for you. I've had the micros trip out on grid voltage being too high, and also shut down on excessively cloudy, dark days; only to wake up again when the sky lightened up. I still check my micros (website view) regularly to make sure that all are OK and output of each micros, as adjusted my shading, is about the same as the other micros.
jebatty
Minister of Fire
That's some amazing output for Winter time, jebatty! Yesterday was patchy clouds all day we got ~25kWh for the day. Previous day was cloudy & rainy and we got about 17.5kWh. The graph on the app looks like a row of shark's teeth with the cloud bands going over. 
CHeath
Feeling the Heat
yes, keep us posted on what shes making on a full sun day. sweet setup. Here in NC, the state was offering 35% on tax and feds 30% but I didnt jump on it. 3 kids and college starting up. Maybe they will do it again before I die lol.
lml999
Minister of Fire
Check your output meter on a clear night with a full moon.
I'm getting as much as 100 watts!
CHeath
Feeling the Heat
When my "ship" comes in I would love to have 14 sunpro 375 watt panels on a wood shed and 10 of those same on my south facing roof. That would leave just a hair of a power bill. Nice setup!
So yesterday was a pretty cloudless day. We got 36.261kWh for the day. A nice solid monolithic graph. It looks like during the day we were generating 5.75kW. Is that normal for Winter production? That's about 65% for a 9kW system.
CHeath
Feeling the Heat
sounds about right, I have a client with a 5.2kw roof mount and she did only 435kw/h last month but she did say that it starts getting really revved up at the end of march and pumps out nicely until the end of july then the heat hurts it a little bit.
Easiest way to check output is just punch your location and system info into PV Watts and see what the predicted monthly output is, convert it to days and then compare it to your actual output.
You need to know the tilt angle (altitude) of your array. If the sun's maximum altitude is different by an angle theta from your array altitude, your max power will be rescaled by cos(theta).
the sun right now is 14°S of the equator, so if you had a latitude tilt (so you are pointed at the celestial equator), theta would be 14° and cos(14°) = 0.97. If you were pointed 10° above your latitude (to collect more summer resource), then cos(24°) = 0.91, which is still way above 65%.
I'm guessing branch shading, which is easily 50%.
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Ok, it seems you are reporting something else....how did you get 5.75kW? Is that peak? if your peak was 5.75, and your day was 12 hours long, you would have gotten 1/2 * 12 * 5.75 = 34.5 kWh (if the power was a sinusoidal peak). ?
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jebatty
Minister of Fire
7 acres, haven't heard from you in over a month. How's the PV doing? I hope you've had some sunny weather. March in northern MN has been really good so far. Four days over 80kWh with two weeks to go, about 1.75kWh per panel for 265W and 270W panels. The Aurora micro-inverters are conservatively rated at 250W DC maximum output and 265W DC maximum usable input power. The data consistently shows output power in the 255-265W range in the 11:30-1:30 time range.
Hi jebatty,
We have had a few sunny days. Lately we broke a record. We had seen good days topping out at 40kWh. But we got a couple 44+kWh days recently.
Is this what we should expect for a 9k system? The per hour stats show 5kWh on a sunny day.
