Waiting Patiently...

The solar system is perched upon the rear roof.  The SolarEdge inverter and disconnect are mounted securely on the South wall exterior of the house near the ComEd smart meter (our electric supplier).  All of the wiring is complete and tested.

Everything is ready and awaiting the local jurisdiction building permit inspection and approval.  And after that I will need to get a go-ahead from ComEd to officially start the system.  But in the interim, I've been investigating a tool that was installed on our electrical panel at the time the solar was installed.  It is called Sense.

You may already be aware of this device, as it has been advertised more frequently lately.  The Sense device uses current sensing probes to identify within your home, individual, unique electrical signatures of the devices in your home. It uses machine learning to model the unique signatures as watt (or power) versus time plots.

Sense has a data base of wattage signatures and compares this against your homes wattage profile.  Over time, it attempts to discover major devices,  the heating, the cooling and the electronics of your home.  It suggests possibilities and it is up to you to validate what it has detected.  Once a device (such as an oven) is detected and validated (named), you can view statistics about the device.  Stats such as daily, weekly usage, cost to run the device per year and how frequently it runs.

The Always On category is interesting.  This is the collection of devices which are constantly drawing power.  Bedside clocks, routers, chargers that are always plugged in, televisions that use a small but constant level of power are all examples of this category.  Getting this down as low as possible is a goal.



In the first week of the device in our home, I have been able to identify and validate our refrigerators, the oven, Master closet lights, laundry room lights, and the main garage door.  An unusual light that was identified was the refrigerator door lights. I've been challenged by a "heater" that I have yet to validate and name.



So until the solar system is operational, I'll continue to seek and validate energy consumers in our home.  All for the benefit of energy reductions.

For those of you interested in Sense, check it out at https://sense.com/.

Day 4

Day 4 - Thursday, 12/19/2019

Yesterday was a terribly cold day.  Below 20 degrees F. all day.  But scheduling conflicts prevented the crew to continue installing the solar project.  But they started promptly at 7 AM on Thursday, which actually was a little warmer and sunny.

Today was christened the parade of the panels day.  The rails had been completed on Day 3.  The "home run" wiring was still to be completed for the photovoltaic wiring, but this should take only one hour.  Panel install should begin simultaneously.

The task was to move 40 PV panels from the hardscape behind the house to the top of the roof.  One-by-one.  The panels measure 66" x 40" and weigh approximately 40 pounds each.

 





 It was just a matter of grasp and carry.

Once on the roof, it's moved into place.

The South facing small roof was the first to be paneled.

The North side of the roof was next.

Followed by the South side of the roof.






































Finishing touches!

Commissioning of the system - link with SolarEdge who pairs the optimizers with the panels and validates all circuits.  The first solar energy derived from the system.  End of the day light 1.17 kW.

Now ready for city inspection and ComEd acceptance!

Day 3

Day 3 - Tuesday, December 17, 2019

7:10 AM this morning and the text on my phone indicates the crew is ready to begin work today.  The temperature is 17 degrees F. and the sky is a beautiful, bright blue.  No new snow today, but there will not be much melting of any of the residual snow.

The crew is still three.

The electrician needed to insure that Palatine Village electrical requirements were met.  The inspection process is quite rigid for electrical work.

Nice to know.

The conduit entering the inverter will be housing the DC generated by the panels on the roof.  This conduit will be mounted on the exterior, up the wall and on top of the roof  leading to the lowest location of  panels on the South edge of the East roof.

The early morning sun is shinning on the frosted rail/racking that was installed on Day 2.

John and Luis are starting work on the Northern section of the East roof.  They are prepping for the Quick mounts and the racking.

The rails/racking has been installed on the North section of the East roof.













Luis and John are now installing the SolarEdge optimizers.  The 40 power optimizers are mounted to the rails and manage the output of the 40 PV panels.  The optimizer is a DC/DC converter and turns each panel into a smart module.  It monitors the performance of each module (panel) and communicates performance data to the SolarEdge monitoring platform for module-level maintenance.

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A shot of the spent milk weed, standing up against the cold Winter weather.










The next effort is wiring the DC from all 40 panels to the roof-level junction box.  Then, "laying the glass" is the final install step.
End of Day 3.

Day 2 Work

Day 2 - Monday, December 16, 2019

The text arrived at 6:55 am.  I'm here to start the work!

We had known that it would be an early start and were already dressed and fed (multiple cups of coffee too).  The crew was only 3 today.  One of their colleagues did not show today and the replacement had challenges at home.  So it was Luis, John and Scott who would be facing the cold weather on Monday.

Overnight, there was a dusting of snow that had fallen, probably less that 0.5".  But enough to make it a little difficult.

The crew's first task was to insure that the roof could be scaled.  That entailed a sweep.  Selective use of salt was another alternative assist.

The small dormer roof facing the South was to be addressed first.  They needed to identify rafter location and insert their flashed Quick mounts which are the secure connections to the roof rafters.  They would eventually install the racking mounted to these Quick mounts.

Careful not to disturb the dish antenna!




Scott the electrician installed the main service disconnect box.  This is the safety disconnect between the solar and the main power supply from ComEd, our energy supplier .


He then also installed the Solar Edge inverter (the larger white box mounted on the exterior wall).  This device takes the DC generated from the photovoltaic panels and converts it to AC.


The DC from the PV panels enters the Solar Edge inverter by way of what they call "strings", or the technical groupings of the solar panels.

John and Luis are on the South section of the East roof, identifying rafters, attaching the Quick mounts

 John is bringing up racking which is mounted to the Quick mounts and is the flat bed upon which the solar panel is secured.










The racking has been secured on the southern section of the East roof.

Daylight is going and the temperature outside is in the mid-twenties F.  The wind is not bad, but it is not a nice environment to be working outside on a roof.






Day 2 is complete.

The Beginnings and Day 1

December 13, 2019

It started passively in 2013 with a visit to my high school classmate's Vermont home.  He and his wife had installed both PV (photovoltaic) and water-based solar energy sources.  Vermont's progressive energy attitude supported the use of solar for energy sourcing. It was intriguing but not really attractive.

Then in February of 2019, while queuing to exit Costco, we approached the kiosk for Sunrun.  We hadn't noticed this vendor, among the various home-improvement companies.  If Costco was working with this solar installation firm, then maybe there was reason to investigate.  A home meeting was arranged.

This was the first of many solar installation company options that I evaluated.  We had to educate ourselves, as well, regarding the state and national issues and opportunities associated with solar installations at your home.  Coincidentally, we had been forced to re-shingle our home the prior year, which is an important prerequisite for PV panel installation on your roof.

It took another 6 months to run the gamut of education, research, and option interviews and evaluations before a decision to move forward would occur.

And now, I am waiting for the electrician and the installation crew to arrive at our home for the install.  The install is expected to take approximately 2-3 days.

Preliminaries
The very first thing that every solar advocate recommends is assessing your current annual energy usage, and reducing it as much as possible.  ComEd, our electric supplier in Illinois indicated that my past year usage was 20,400 kWh. in February, 2019.  This relatively high usage reflects two electric vehicles, as well as many electric appliances.  Before the delivery of our first Tesla car, I had switched to an hourly rate for kWh usage.  The after-midnight charging at the lower dollar rate electricity proved beneficial.

We did participate in ComEd's Energy Assessment program to try to reduce consumption.  ComEd replaced 75 of our incandescent bulbs with LED lamps, at no charge!  Our usage has dropped since the bulb replacements by about 15-18%.

Evaluating Options
Through the six months of reviews, I evaluated the following solar installation companies:
 - Sunrun
- All Bright
- GRNE
- Phoenix Sun
- Sunbadger
- Tesla
- Windfree
- Zenernet

All firms had varying levels of capabilities and offerings.  Pricing varied considerably, as well as financial approach to the project.  As part of our education, we attended a community seminar on residential solar early in the learning process.  A personal visit and tour of a local residential installation helped to put the physical realities in place.

The US government offers a dollar-for-dollar reduction in income taxes for solar installations.  The tax credit is 30% in 2019 and reduces to 26% in 2020.  In addition, the state of Illinois has created a program that may buy the environmental value of the electricity generated from solar panels.  Illinois Shines is the brand name of the adjustable block program.  The program is complicated and confusing, but can provide another 20-30% credit for the solar investment.  It made sense to act in 2019 if solar was a plan.

The Project
The scope of the solar project at our home has evolved since it's first inception.  My early position was that I wanted 100% of my energy consumption provided through solar.  The usage point-of-reference was 20,400 kWh per year.  If an investment was planned, get the highest possible installation that the roof would allow.

The final system size projects about 81% of annual kWh (kilo-Watt hour) consumption.  The reduction was a practical and strategic modification.  The Google Earth picture of the home with theoretical panel placement is shown to the left.

A summary overview of the project is as follows:

- System size - 13,400 kW DC roof-mounted
- Modules - 40 LG-335W
- Inverters - Solar Edge = Optimizers

A projected solar production (Grey) is superimposed on the actual kWh usage by month.

Step 1 - Site Evaluation

Late in August, a local engineering company visited our home to evaluate our roof, truss and rafter condition, attic, and electric panel and meter.  They used a drone to take aerial photos and measurements of the future installation.










Step 2 - Engineering

A full set of electrical and mechanical engineering drawings are generated for owner sign-off and to support local jurisdiction permits.






Step 3 - Permits

Engineer signed drawings and documents are provided for permit approval. This took approximately 4 weeks.

Step 4 - Que for Installation

With the financial benefits reducing at the end of 2019, the demand for installations has increased.
Getting in the queue for installation and waiting for an install date seemed to take a long time. Our first install date was November 25-26.  As we progressed further into November, snow and cold continued to push out this date.  In my mind it was a race between decent weather and the calendar.

Step 5 - Installation

Day 1 - Friday, December 13, 2019.  Due to further conflicts with prior installs, they arrived at 1 PM. (the sun sets at 4:30 pm).  Their first day involved unloading the materials and setting up a safety line system on the roof.

Box truck and electrician's van from ReThink (installer)

Staging of 40 LG panels.















PV panels and racking elements awaiting install.











More to come...