My wife and I had been thinking about installing solar panels on the house for
a while, and decided to go for it in 2014. Read on for information on what we
installed, why we did it, and how it all went together.
Why Install Solar?
Feeling a little warm?Solar Panels are Cool!
Why install solar panels? First, I love technology, and I think solar
panels are really cool. I've wanted them for a long time just for the nerd
factor. Second, I enjoy doing home improvement projects, and increasing the
value of my home. Finally, I believe that the pursuit of clean renewable
energy is the right thing to do, particularly when it doesn't require
me to change my lifestyle in any inconvenient way. Having a solar array on my
house covers all of those bases nicely.
What are the options?
Edmond Becquerel, discoverer of Photovoltaic Effect
Solar panels work on the principal of the the
Photovoltaic Effect,
where an electric current is created in a material when it is exposed to light.
The photovoltaic effect was discovered by Edmond Becquerel in 1839, and
Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in 1921 for his work describing the effect
in terms of the quantum nature of light.
Photovoltaic panels are one of only two completely maintenance free
long-term energy generation systems that are in use today, the other being an
invention brought about by Edmond Becquerel's son Henri's discovery of radioactivity- the
Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator.
PV and RTG systems are used on earth and in spacecraft, with the RTG being used in
places where solar energy isn't always readily available, such as in orbit
around Saturn, or north of the Arctic circle. Since I live on the ground in
sunny California, solar panels seemed like the more reasonable power generation
option for our home.
There are other technologically interesting ways of lowering
power consumption that are a lot less expensive than going solar. Many simple
home improvements can add up to big energy savings over time. For example,
having replaced incandescent light bulbs with CFL or LED bulbs made a noticeable
difference in our power bill. So did replacing the washer, dryer, and
refrigeration with
Energy Star
models. Installing a
Nest Thermostat
made it possible to monitor our heating system and lower our winter energy
usage while still keeping the house nice and toasty when we're at home. I'm a
computer network engineer by trade, so I have a lot of computers running
different tasks in the house. As awesome as it was to have a vintage Sun SPARC
10 running the file server, replacing it with a more energy efficient Raspberry
Pi made a huge difference in power consumption.
How can I say no?
How can I tell? I keep the servers plugged into a
Kill A Watt
power meter for direct measurement, and having a
PG&E SmartMeter
lets me monitor the historical consumption of the whole house by the hour when
I want to. The SmartMeter also shows the instantaneous power right on the
meter's display. Want to know how many Watts your dish washer pulls? Go outside and
read the rate on the meter, go inside and start the dishwasher, go outside and
check the rate again, and subtract the rates. It's that simple.
Good Insulation Helps
There are also some bigger ticket things that can be done to a house to
improve energy efficiency. Having
good insulation
helps, but its a tough thing to upgrade. I had insulation installed on the
exterior wall of the bathroom when the drywall was down for a remodel, but
doing that to the rest of the house would be costly. Windows and doors are an
excellent thing to upgrade, but getting them replaced means having to re-paint
the house, so its sort of an all-or-nothing proposition.
Although we would have been better off having the insulation and windows
upgraded before going solar, our order of operations was determined by our
rapidly failing roof. It had been out in the hot California sun for more than
30 years, and was leaking. We had to replace it last year. A new roof with
ridge line venting helps to improve energy consumption too, and there is
additional benefit to installing solar on a new roof. Solar panels are rated
for at least 25 years of useful life, about the same as a composite shingle
roof. Since solar panels have to be taken down and re-installed whenever the
roof is replaced, it makes sense to try and get the roof and panel lifespans to
line up.
There are also financial reasons to install a solar system. A study by
Berkeley Labs
says that installing PV solar on a house increases its value by $5.50 per DC
Watt. Given the Federal
Solar Investment Tax Credit
of %30 to promote the continued growth of solar energy in the United States in
2014, it seemed like a great time for us to upgrade to Solar.
How do you do get started?
My Solar Installer of Choice
Finding a great solar install company on your own isn't easy. The big guys in
Alameda county that I'd heard ads for were Solar City, Sungevity,
Petersen-Dean. The other big ones are REC solar and Sun Light and Power. I
checked them out. Some really wanted to sell leased systems. One was
commercial only. One company had installed my neighbor's system and came with
a good recommendation from him, but when I called they 'weren't willing to take
on small jobs anymore'. Bummer.
I had back-burnered the quest for solar until a friend of mine told me that
he had a good word-of-mouth reference for
Cobalt Power Systems,
out of Mountain View, and was having them give an estimate for his house. I
tagged along for that meeting, and liked what they had to say. It turns out
Cobalt was the fifth largest installer in Santa Clara county, and also does
work in Alameda county. I asked Cobalt for an estimate too.
Cobalt system designer scoping out the roof
Kurt, a System Designer for Cobalt Power Systems, arrived at my house
on time and excited about solar. He climbed up onto the roof and spent about
an hour measuring, mapping, and performing a shade analysis. He also checked
out the structure of the roof, and how the electrical panel was installed.
After climbing down, he really took the time to listen to my concerns, answer
my questions, and to discuss the different options that are available with
solar systems. I gave him some power consumption statistics from my most
recent PG&E bill, and he went back to his office. A few days later he
presented me with pricing on two different designs that would meet my goals.
Get your high power statistics here!
Judging the technical merit of a system is fairly easy if you can
read the data sheets. Judging the cost isn't as straightforward. Luckily for
me, the state of California provides a wealth of information on the
California Solar Initiative
web site. While the initiative program had already expired in my part of
California and I wasn't able to get any rebate from the state, the data from
everyone else who installed a solar system and took advantage of it
was still
available for download.
The raw database has 123 different fields, including these useful gems:
Total Cost
Host Customer Physical Address City, County, State, Zip
First Completed Date
Solar Contractor Company Name, License Number
3rd Party Owner
PV Module Manufacturer, Model, Quantity
Inverter Manufacturer, Model, Quantity
Installed Status
Soon to be made in Michigan!
With that data in hand, you can see exactly what systems the contractors are
installing, where they are installing them, and how much they charge for each type.
Based on cost, technical merit, and the recommendation from five of Cobalt
Power's reference customers that I called, I chose a system made up of 24
Suniva
model
OPT270-60-4-1B0
solar panels feeding into 24
Enphase
model
M215-60-2LL-S22-IG
microinverters. The system covers 420 sq ft of roof, has a peak output of 5.4
kW AC, 6.5 kW DC, and should produce about 790 kWh a month.
How Long Does it Take?
A pile of power panels has arrived!
Like any home improvement project that involves working under a permit, it
takes a lot longer than it should, and there is a lot that goes on behind the
scenes before any construction can begin. I committed to the basic design of
the system on July 30th. It took a full month to get the detailed plans drawn up and
approved by the city. The equipment arrived at my house on September 2nd, and
the team from Cobalt got to work that same day.
The team of four installers from Cobalt took three days to install the two
arrays of panels. The team was polite, professional, on time, and efficient.
They took great care of my roof, and the job site was always clean. Their
overall attention to detail was superb, and I think you'd be hard pressed to find
a better solar installation team anywhere.
The path up the roofPlacing the panelsLead installer Kyle running conduitThe Cobalt install crew
Getting the system installed is only half the battle, it turns out. Once
the system was in place, it still required final inspection from the Cobalt
project manager, the Fire Department, the Building Department, and a
notification of Permission To Operate from PG&E. Vince the project manager
had the team come out to make some small adjustments to the panels, and then
was quick to give it his seal of approval. Verionica from Cobalt was in charge
of scheduling and managing the other inspections. She had to wait on site for
two half days for each city inspector to show up, but once they did, everything
was signed off without a hitch.
Veronica, pleased after the final city inspection
The toughest part for me was waiting another five days for PG&E to grant
Permission To Operate before I could turn the system on! That came on Sep
24th, nearly two months after I had signed the contract for the project. While
that may seem like a long time, it was less than what Cobalt quoted, and less
than what other people had told me to expect. It seems that three months is
more the norm.
How Did it Turn Out?
The Southern ArrayThe Western Array
I'm really very happy with how the installation turned out. Because
microinverters convert power to standard alternating current right there at the
panel, there is no need for big ugly high current DC shut-off switches to be
mounted along on the roof and walls, or for a having a large inverter mounted
on the side of the house. The only things visible other than the panels
themselves are a single conduit run down to a new electrical subpanel mounted
below the electric meter. The panels themselves are black, and look really
sharp on my gray roof.
I can't say enough good things about my experience working with
Cobalt Power Systems.
Their attention to detail, the cleanliness of the installation, the design of
the system, and the overall enthusiasm from every Cobalt employee that I met
was wonderful. They made sure that I was 100% happy and informed at every step
of the process. If you are looking for a solar installer in the San Franciso
Bay area, be sure to talk to Cobalt.
HQ'd here in California
The Enlighten monitoring system from Enphase is pretty spectacular too. It
has a public kiosk feature so that I can
share my system data
with the world. As an added bonus, it integrates with my
personal weather station
through
Weather Underground
so that I can monitor the temperature along with the the solar production.
Enphase also gives me a more detailed web page for monitoring
the output of each panel individually if want to. It sends me a monthly energy
report, and is configured to email me immediately in case of a production
problem. Yep, if a large bird soils one of my panels, the monitoring system
will 'tweet' me about it. How is that for technology?
I like to think that Edmond Becquerel would be proud!
In November of 2016, we said a tearful goodbye to sunny California, our
wonderful friends and neighbors, our home of nearly 20 years, and its solar
arrays. Be sure to read
The Epilogue
to find out how the story ends!