All of the quotes and interactions I had with the local solar installers were reminiscent of the used car lot if not outright fraud. I was able to do what was permissible myself and a regular licensed electrician did the rest. The equipment is UL listed. There was some learning curve but I found the diysolarforum.com to be a pretty good resource to learn what I didn't know. I ran the whole setup standalone for about 6 months before switching the house over to it. The only problem that happened was a loose battery cable connection which the BMS and inverter alerted to and handled correctly.
> All of the quotes and interactions I had with the local solar installers were reminiscent of the used car lot if not outright fraud.
I had exactly the same experience. They absolutely would not tell me the actual system cost, only how much I would save on my current bill per month. It felt exactly like a car salesman only talking about monthly payments, and it was horrible.
Yup. I’ve (US) also talked to a few local ones to just see if they had a couple panels I could buy off them for close to wholesale for a personal project - which if they were actually involved in installation would be trivial - and just got blank stares.
They were clearly just doing lead generation for some other company they had no direct connection with, and didn’t even have any idea who to talk to that could even answer my question.
I had way better luck just looking online and paying shipping, which is absurd given how they were presenting themselves.
So not even as good as a used car salesman on an actual car lot, more like door to door used car salesman.
These companies are the equivalent of people who received a free product to review and then post a referral link for it in the details. Of course, they glow about how amazing the product is and how you should drop everything and buy it.
Yeah. Talked to a couple of solar companies. They were utterly focused on costs vs utility costs and very opaque about how that was being modeled. And it was based on the rules back then--which of course could not hold. Net metering is a huge subsidy that is already being walked back.
The true value of solar or wind is the cost of the fuel it saves. Nothing more. Even if his numbers come true there's a big problem--bad weather could deplete your batteries. You want to turn to the electric company in that case? You are once again in the situation that the value is only the fuel.
The rule is - if it's going inside the wall, only a licenced electrician can do it. Yes it also extends to things like speaker or HDMI cables. It's mad.
I can understand requiring a license for any power wires behind walls.
I could also see the possibility that it's just an old law that doesn't consider data-only cables which don't have the safety issues that wires carrying power do.
While HDMI can provide a tiny bit of power and there are active cables for signal boosting, HDMI was never meant for power delivery. You might be mixing it with HDMI with Ethetnet.
It's definitely an old law that never took data cables into account, but the current interpretation is that any cable that carries electrical current has to be installed and certified by an electrician.
Yeah, it's all fun and games until you're at Macca's and someone says, "Oi, can you pass me a chippy?" and they get real confused when you go find a carpenter.
in Spain we call them
“chispas”, which literally means sparks. An electrician is someone who knows the home electrical wiring stuff, while a chispas is someone who is skilled in repairing home appliances.
I'm currently in a pickle in this regard, as my new house has solar on Net Metering, but no ATS or battery. While its nice to only pay the base connection fee, I still go dark when the line power does.
I'd love to add at the very least an ATS to keep my fridge and freezer going when the power goes out during the day, if not a battery but I have little to no documentation on the existing solar install, so i'm reaching out to the county to see if permits have any info. Fun times!
It will, but I suspect this will get a lot easier everywhere as more of the problem gets packaged as units that you can just buy off the shelf (and the prices of such units come down).
What voltage are you running your solar strings at? I was wondering what would happen if the loose cable was a cable from the solar panels instead of the low voltage battery.
If you want a DIY-friendly option, it's best to look towards DC optimizers. They are installed on each panel and they provide a steady 48V output. They also do MPPT tracking on the panel level, so you get the best possible performance if you have some shading.
Unlike microinverters that are notoriously unreliable, DC optimizers so far have excellent long-term reliability.
Are you suggesting using a DC Optimizer from your solar panels to charge 48V batteries directly? This would be interesting. It's the first I've heard of optimizers being used for anything other than prior to an inverter.
The panel strings are at ~500v so there are safety, fusing and grounding considerations. Pretty common electrical equipment and cable is rated for use at 600v. There are special locking water resistant connectors for solar panels called MC4.
Are the hybrid inverters you are using be able to detect arc faults (in series) from the strings? Running 500V DC is probably by far the most dangerous thing in your setup, fortunately your solar panels are mounted on the groud.
