In Part 4 I explained why we selected Solar Energy World as our vendor. This post is about the fantastic job they did end to end to get this system installed and operational. I tried to document each step and I am including the dates (where I can document them) to give you some perspective on how long a project like this can take.
Solar Energy World handled all steps of the process (except where a government person, e.g. an inspector or a utility person are required as noted below). This is not true of all solar power companies. Some of them consist of mostly a sales team with all other services, including installation, are contracted out.
The major steps occurred as follows:
We Signed the Contract – 02/08/2019
- agreed on a system and a price (with understanding that it might be modified when reviewed by the experts). In our case that was 34 300 watt panels.
- payed the deposit (I used a credit card for the points)
Solar Expert comes to house, measures dimensions, takes photos, prepares report -02/19/2019
In any solar installation project the salesperson does the upfront work to qualify the customer, answer questions, create a preliminary proposal which is encapsulated into the sales contract and close the deal. From that point on a team takes over to shepherd the process to completion. It is possible for example that the specific installation details may need to change based on a number of factors and the contract indicates that a review will take place, a report will be prepared and a final sign-off will be requested from us.
The first person on the scene is someone who begins the process of validating that the number of panels agreed to in the preliminary design is valid and realistic. For this to occur, this person has to take some measurements. A sample from the report that was prepared based on these measurements is shown a few paragraphs below.
In our case, the guy who came had a great sense of humor. He measured the obvious south-facing roof section over our bedrooms and used a special camera that gets a roof based perspective of the sun – it is used to identify possible shade issues and to project how much sun falls on the roof at different times each year. He climbed onto the roof and took the pictures from several places at several angles.
When he was done, I asked if he was going to measure an additional section over my garage. He said that would be $100 extra. He waited a second, then grinned big. Almost had me.
Installation experts review report, possibly recommends changes – 02/21/2019
The data collected by the guy on the roof is fed into a software program that prepares a report which is used to validate or modify the proposal mentioned in the contract.
The report that came back for us suggest that 34 panels was just about the right amount to cover our electric bill. My salesman reminded me that the software they used could not tell dark shade from light shade, so the results were probably a bit pessimistic. (A few more paragraphs below you will see one of the photos from this report.)
Dark shade? Light shade? To help explain this, let me propose this thought experiment: suppose I drape a towel over a solar panel – how much electricity can it generate? If you said zero, you are still with me. That would be dark shade. No light gets through.
Now if I take that towel and move it 100 feet up and towards the sun from my house, how much electricity will the panel generate? I don’t know, and neither does the software. Clearly the sun will move through the sky and light will filter around the towel, such that some light is always hitting the panel. That is what I am calling light shade.
While it may not produce the most it could if the towel were not there, it will always produce something. So the installed system is likely to outproduce the amount predicted by the report.
There are trees at the edge of my yard (about 50-100 feet and further from the house) that are perhaps as much as 80 feet or more tall. Some are thin scraggly pines and some have seasonal leaves. So depending on how high the sun is in the sky and whether it is summer or winter, there will be some filtering of the light, but most of the light should still get through. (I am finding this to be true by the way).
The contract estimated the proposed system would produce 9.7 MWh per year but after review, the estimate was upped to 10.649 MWh. I think they are still under but time will tell. As I showed in Part 2, we used about 10.56 MWh the twelve months prior to installation, so the proposed installation appears to cover us right at 100%.
Following is one example of the perspective from one part of my roof, showing how much sun should fall throughout the year and the effect of the distant trees – the yellow area is the sunshine, the green area the shade:
Contract is finalized, approved – 02/23/2109
I reviewed the report and approved the final design .
Permits, other paperwork filled out
There is a lot of paperwork that must be done prior to and even after installation and the folks at Solar Energy World did a great job. I don’t show dates for these items as they occurred through the life of the project, but the first two below were needed for installation work to begin. Some Items of note:
- Construction Permit
- Interconnection Agreement – for our utility company
- Tax paperwork (for both state payment and county tax property tax credit)
- Final inspection
- SREC agreement – for payment of Solar Renewable Energy Credits post installation
Installation 03/08/2019 – they tell me it was record time. A slot opened up, they had all the equipment ready, they called me Thursday March 7, and the installers were on my premises on Friday, March 8th. Normally it is a month or more from final approval before installation begins.
The installation team consisted of 4 people. Two were up on the roof installing the panels and two worked on the inverter and all the electrical connections.
The guys on the roof were tied into harnesses and ropes they had secured to the roof at the outset. Everything about this installation was done with safety in mind. Nothing was left on the ground. This was an end-to-end professional job.
Testing, validation 03/11/2019 The installation is supposed to take one day but it snowed a small amount that afternoon so they were not able to test. They returned on the 11th to do their testing, which just took a few hours.
Final Payment – 03/12/2019 – I received a notice that my installation was substantially complete and I needed to make my final payment, which I did. Once that was received, Solar Energy World contacted my county to do the inspection.
Inspection – 03/20/2019
The county inspector confirmed both the outside installation and the hookup inside my power panel in the basement.
For those of you who may be curious about how the inverter is connected to our power panel, the inspector explained to me how the 4 wires that came into this panel were connected (1 ground, 1 neutral, and 1 each to the two 100 amp feeds coming in from the utility company).
More importantly, he passed the inspection!
Utility notification – 03/20/19 Solar Energy World sent the completed paperwork to our utility company.
Meter Installation – 03/25/19 – around 7:30 am we heard a knock on the door. Our utility person was on our porch holding the new meter. Amazingly, he was able to swap out the old meter with the new net-meter without us losing power. He set the new meter at 00000.
I asked him if I could turn the solar panels on when he was done – not yet, he explained – they still had to set up the billing properly at the utility company. They had to close out the old reading for a final bill on the old meter and start us on our new billing cycle with the new net-meter. This would happen after he returned to the office. In the meantime, I am chomping at the bit – we are this close (picture me holding my finger and thumb about a quarter inch apart).
Notification to turn on – 03/26/19
The next day I received an email permitting me to activate the panels. I was busy at work and did not notice it for several hours. When I finally read the email, I rushed home, asked my wife to come with me and together we threw the cutoff switch to the on position. By this time the meter had advanced to 00012, meaning we had used 12 KWh on the new billing cycle.
It was a sunny day and even though it was about 1:45 PM, we still got about 20 KWh that first day. By the next day we had rolled the meter back into the 99999s and have never looked back. We have been producing more power than we have been consuming most days since.
In my next post I will talk about some post-installation operational challenges and will show a picture of the completed system.