Grid Tie Solar Installation

Interesting thread, thanks for posting.

deaner said:

Do the materials vary alot? Doesn't seem to pencil out when getting a local contractor to put a setup in. If a guy could get a good deal on materials and do most of the work himself, it might pencil out better?

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FWIW I priced out my parents system this spring, buying everything as a homeowner without contractor discounts. 4.5kw ground mount, 200ft from house (copper tek cable is expensive), on screw piles and including skidsteer rental for piles and trenching, permits, inspections, etc I was $10.5k or $2.33/watt. Ended up not having the time to do it, they hired a contractor, I don't know what it was to the dollar, but basically just shy of $4/watt. After rebate it was real close to $3/watt.

ctd said:

That is sweet! How easy is it to adjust the angle? This time of year keeping the panels clean is a PIA. The winter angle would be around 30* in Seymour Arm, that still collects snow & ice. I've wonder the power trade off @ 10 or 20* & not having to constantly clean.

What batteries are you using? I've turned into Lithium fan. Having Bluetooth BMS makes it very easy to monitor, it does cause questions that you never see in a AGM of LA configuration.

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I have them almost vertical right now as I’m not there all the time and we get a ton of snow there. In the spring I just pull a pin and can rotate them. Haven’t checked the angles but I can lay them completely flat if I want. Just have to drill a hole in my pivot where I want them. The way I built my pivot it’s just slightly heavier on the bottom bank but almost balanced so I can rotate them pretty easy. I might weld on a ratchet boomer when I know for sure the angles I need for adjusting. As for batteries I’m just running AGM. I could t afford lithium and In the spring when I bought everything batteries were hit and miss on what would actually show up. Our battery supplier had 16 of these in stock so I just grabbed them. Got them for 450 a piece as I had waited a month for the original ones I ordered so they gave me a break on these batteries. I don’t have internet up there so I have no remote monitoring so I kept everything pretty simple.

Has anyone looked into doing ceramic coating on panels. Would they still work properly?

mclean said:

Has anyone looked into doing ceramic coating on panels. Would they still work properly?

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What would be the end goal?

Panels can be pretty sensitive to what wavelengths you filter out and can reduce power output significantly.

A person would have to try it to find out.

Just so that snow doesnt stick to them as much in the winter.

Just curious

Great reading team dirts comments, who has to make something work. I will give my input into batteries, not that i am on a grid and need the power to work. I load up a utv to smash my way into a lake and down a 30% grade to go fishing. Of coarse the only thing that works good to blow up a large 150lb raft in a bug infested country is a 120v pump, and packing an electric kicker because you can only pack so much weight in sketchy terrain. Electric trolling motors do not last long on our standard batteries. 2 years back i brought in a 150ah lithuim battery, i can now run the most unefficent motor for 6hrs on full throttle. So i thought i would try running a 1500watt electric tea kettle from "one" of these batteries, well it boiled the water and showed 3% loss on the battery doing so. So i ordered another 300ah battery as well, but the slow boat from china takes months to get here. I also use this set up to do work in the bush, battery chains saw and battery tools some folding solar panels and a waste of money expensive wagan solar plant combo from costco.ca. My voltage on the battery i ordered is 12v but they do have 24 and 36v batteries. I think i am going to hook these up and start using the power at home as well and save on the electric bill.