Solar System Install and Performance

ABMax24

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With the topic of renewable/alternative energy being front and center the last few years I've decided to post a thread on our Grid-Tied Solar System Install.

My motives for this install are mostly based on intrigue and the eventual return on investment through net metering.

Here we go...


Energy Efficiency:

I'd like to point out that if others are looking at doing this to save money on their power bill a far better return on investment is provided by reducing consumption in the first place. To that end we have done many things to reduce our electricity consumption first. Our house was built in 2014 so our walls are built with ~R-20 insulation, our furnace is a 95% efficient natural gas condensing type, we have a 95% efficient natural gas on demand hot water heater. When we moved in the house was new and came with no appliances, I installed gas lines to everything I could to avoid using electricity for heating appliances, our stove, BBQ, clothes dryer, and garage heater are all natural gas fired. Using electricity for heating is extremely costly, electric heat costs about 5 times more per unit of energy compared with natural gas. We also replaced every light bulb in the house with an LED equivalent.

After all these upgrades we end up using almost exactly 2600kwh of electricity per year. I would estimate we use about 30%-40% less electricity with the gas appliances and LED bulbs compared to if we had used an electric stove, dryer and kept the incandescent bulbs. I unfortunately don't have an actual base line to base this on so this is an educated guess. All in it cost us about another $1000 to go with these appliances compared to the standard electric ones, this includes the extra cost of the appliance and the cost of materials for the gas line and the gas permit. I didn't include the cost of gas line install as I did this myself.

The average Alberta household uses 7200kwh of electricity per year, and 120GJ of natural gas. We use 2600kwh of electricity and 84 GJ of natural gas. Therefore we use 36% of the electricity and 70% of the natural gas compared to the provincial average.


Solar System Specs:

In the Province of Alberta Grid Tied Solar Systems are covered under the Micro-Generation Legislation, this gives every home owner the right to generate up to 100% of their annual consumption in renewable energy. Grid tied meaning that we still have an electrical connection to the main grid, so any power we can't produce we will buy from the grid, and any extra that we can't use gets sold to the grid. I'll cover the financial compensation scheme for this in a later post.

Considering our small electricity consumption our system will be correspondingly small, but given the above information we are sizing to produce 100% of the energy we use on an annual basis. Our system will be 3kw, it will consist of 10 300 watt Trina Solar panels and 5 APSystems YC600 MicroInverters. We don't have a large enough south facing roof to install all 10 panels in a south facing direction, so instead I have opted to have 3 smaller arrays installed.

I will have 2 panels facing east to catch the morning sun, 4 panels south facing to catch the mid-day sun, and 4 panels facing west to catch the evening sun. I put more on the west side because we use more power in the evenings and want to have more self-consumption at that time (again I will cover more on this in the financial section).

These micro-inverters will each run 2 panels, each panels is on its separate MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) circuit which makes the system more efficient. This maximizes the output of every single panel, so a shaded panel does not reduce the production of the others. MPPT effectively keeps the panel in its volt-amp curve sweet spot to maximize power output. Compare this to a string inverter where the panels are wired in 8-16 panels series strings to multiply the voltage to the string inverter. When one panel is shaded it then acts like a resistor lessening the output of the other panels, and also creating hot spots in the shaded panel due to the heat produced by a current flowing through the resistance.

After the inverters the electrical system becomes quite simple, the output of all 3 arrays will be combined to a single cable where it is fed from the roof and down a return air chase to the breaker panel in the basement.

As a part of this we need a bi-directional meter installed on the house so ATCO can meter both the energy we consume and the energy we sell back to the grid.


Progress:

As it stands right now we already selected the contractor to perform the install and paid our deposit. The structural engineering for the roof has been completed to ensure the roof can support the panels. The City has granted us building and electrical permits for the install. The contractor has ordered and received the solar panels, inverters, and other components to complete the install. The electrical boxes and mounts for the panels have also been installed.


Yet to do:

The electrical cable from the roof to the panel has yet to be run
The rails need to be installed on the mounts
The panels need to be installed on the rails
Tie in the above components to each other to make it work

The above is all supposed to happen this Friday and Saturday

We also need to receive the net metering contract from ATCO so we can have the bi-directional meter installed.
As well as a final inspection from electrical and building inspectors once the install is complete.

Upcoming Posts:

I don't have enough time at once to post all my information on this, but here is what I intend to add:

Financial information: cost of install, rebates, how net-metering works, payback and rates of return
Calculated performance data
Energy monitoring: the system I use and how it works
Actual performance data of the system over time
Installation Pictures
Links to detailed spec sheets on solar components


I will try to post updates as time allows.

Please feel free to ask any questions you have, I will try answer the best I can.
 
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doorfx

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Nice write up , thank you. Was there a cost from Arco to install the meter? Are they responsible for it ?
 

ABMax24

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Nice write up , thank you. Was there a cost from Arco to install the meter? Are they responsible for it ?

No cost for the meter install, and they are responsible for it just like a normal power meter.

I also had a larger gas meter installed when I went to all gas appliances, again no charge for that. They will install whatever size meter you need if you can justify the extra capacity required.
 

broke'n'nuts

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Good write up, thanks for taking the time. I get where solar isnt efficient but I am looking at other options to reduce electrical bill. Unfortunately the house we bought has geothermal. Never ever again would I do that. Electric Bill's are crazy. Cost of solar may be cheaper if it works to offset the cost rather than a complete retrofit to gas. Hope it works well for you
 

doorfx

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No cost for the meter install, and they are responsible for it just like a normal power meter.

I also had a larger gas meter installed when I went to all gas appliances, again no charge for that. They will install whatever size meter you need if you can justify the extra capacity required.
......
 

ABMax24

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Energy Monitoring:


Based on my intrigue with this system I want to know how much energy I use at a given time and how much I am producing. This can be done through the meter that will be installed on the house and through energy bills, but these do not show any energy that we produce and consume on site, only energy that leaves and exits. I ended up with a Neurio system, it is a small unit that fits inside of the breaker panel with leads connecting to a couple breakers to measure voltage and 2 current transformers clamped over the input leads to the breaker panel to measure amps in and out. It will also have a another set of current transformers on the wires from the solar panels to measure energy production from those. The unit has a wifi antenna that sticks out of the breaker box and links to our wireless router, I can now view our real time energy consumption and production from anywhere in the world. Installation is quit simple if you have basic wiring skills, with the exception that you need to pull the cover off the always-live side of the breaker panel and install the current transformers over the live (yet insulated) wires. Of course Neurio recommends an electrician perform this, if you choose to install yourself it is at your own risk.

I should also add that most solar inverter manufacturers offer real-time data from their inverters. I opted to not go with this route as the APSystems standard unit does not measure household consumption, they do offer a unit that can do this but don't show any data on their website as to how that information is displayed. Even the solar distributor had to contact head office in China to find more information. Not something I wanted to try at this time. The only downfall being the APSystems monitor would give me the output of every individual solar panel on the roof. So I'll have to settle for the total output that the Neurio will provide, but I can add the inverter specific monitor at a later date if I choose.

Here is my usage for yesterday in watts, this is the kind of information it puts out, you can see the increase in energy from 3:30 to 6:30 when the block heater timer for the truck kicked in. Also a spike just before noon when the microwave was turned on to heat up lunch, and of course the higher energy use in the evening with lights and the tv on. All the little spikes in the graph are from the furnace turning on for a few minutes to keep the house warm.

Power.jpg

This is the same graph but showing energy consumption in kwh per hour.

Energy.jpg

Here is a real time chart showing the past 2 minutes usage and the instantaneous usage in the top right.

Real time.jpg
 
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Rotax_Kid

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That's pretty cool. Thanks for sharing. I'm interested - a coworker who is building a monster personal shop installed a grid solar system. I was intrigued until he told me the cost. He's into it for over $80K right now, but I believe he coul dhave done this for a substantially less amount and accomplished the same thing.
 

ABMax24

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Installation continued again today, the cable has now been run from the roof to the panel, the mounting rails are installed on the roof along with 2 of the 10 panels. Installation should be complete tomorrow, I didn't get a chance to take any pictures as it was dark out by time I got home.

Still waiting on ATCO for our microgen contract however.
 

ABMax24

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Calculated Performance Data:

There are numerous free of charge calculators available to the public for sizing and predicting output from small scale PV solar systems. Probably the simplest and most useful is the PVWatts by the US NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory), based on fairly simple assumptions such as location, roof pitch, array orientation, and solar system size a reasonable output prediction can be made. The only downfall is it can only calculate for one array, if you have multiple arrays like mine the calculator has to be run multiple times and the results added together to get a final result.

https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php

It provides output such as this:

Screenshot (7).png

I have also to used SAM (System Advisor Model) also provided by the NREL. It is far more complex but can output more useful data as well. It can use historical weather data and the return hour by hour outputs for those given conditions. It also can do financial payback calculations and can incorporate batteries into the system and model that as well. Many of these features I have not really tried to use. The cool thing is it has a huge data base of solar panels and inverters so specific output for a given component can be calculated.

https://sam.nrel.gov/

It provides data like this:

Screenshot (9).jpg

Screenshot (11).jpg

Based on this data I have predicted I will produce 2899kwh per year, and have a peak output of 2200watts on a clear sunny day in June.
 

JayT

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Have you looked into how much extra it would cost to get your roof reshingled? Just wondering, if you're building new would it be better to go with a tin roof right away, so you eliminate that cost down the road. I've been considering this for when I build a new house, just not sure if it's worth while yet.
 

ABMax24

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Have you looked into how much extra it would cost to get your roof reshingled? Just wondering, if you're building new would it be better to go with a tin roof right away, so you eliminate that cost down the road. I've been considering this for when I build a new house, just not sure if it's worth while yet.

I haven't looked at that. The shingles are only a couple years old at this point, so should be good for another 20 years.

From what I can tell though it wouldn't be much more, the panels are held to the rails by simple clamps, and the rails are bolted to a set of posts with flashings. But I can see it scaring off roofers that haven't dealt with it before. But 20 years is a long time away, hard to say if we will still be living in the house at that point.
 

mclean

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I'm going to follow your progress here. I've been interested in this for a while and living in Calgary, we get a lot of sun. Only issue I see is, my delivery fees, admin fees, blah blah blah fees end up being 150% more than my usage itself. Does this setup stop that or does enmax or ATCO get rid of some of those fees?
 

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Chump

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Curious what it ended up costing you all in? How long do you think it will take to recover your costs?

My understanding is you'll always be stuck paying the delivery and admin fees..
 

tex78

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So one question, how do the panels keep with a hail storm???

Not good I assume
 

mclean

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Curious what it ended up costing you all in? How long do you think it will take to recover your costs?

My understanding is you'll always be stuck paying the delivery and admin fees..


That is my understanding as well and for me, my $30 usage a month costs me $50 in delivery fees
 

ABMax24

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I'm going to follow your progress here. I've been interested in this for a while and living in Calgary, we get a lot of sun. Only issue I see is, my delivery fees, admin fees, blah blah blah fees end up being 150% more than my usage itself. Does this setup stop that or does enmax or ATCO get rid of some of those fees?

Curious what it ended up costing you all in? How long do you think it will take to recover your costs?

My understanding is you'll always be stuck paying the delivery and admin fees..

That is my understanding as well and for me, my $30 usage a month costs me $50 in delivery fees

I'll write up a more formal post, but long story short yeah you do save some of the distribution and transmission fees. Some fees are fixed per month, and a bunch more are based on consumption, for me I pay about 6 cents per kwh for the electricity and 9 cents per kwh for transmission and distribution. So by buying less from the grid you pay less of these fees. The only crappy thing is when you sell power you don't get these fees back.

My total system cost $6500 after rebates, tax, and install.
 
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