I have been through 4 different solar companies in our area. They all have this huge meeting where for an hour, sometimes longer, they go over this massive presentation with all these slides and all the bs. Only to at the end try to get me into a lease or offer some ridiculous financing. Then when I look into what they are supplying it seems so over priced its crazy. I believe solar energy is good. Why do all these companies have to make it so hard to just get a legitimate system at a decent price? Is it always like this? If it is, I can now see why the solar industry has such a bad rap. End rant. Sheesh

I have just crossed 5 full years of solar and I could not be happier.

In the past 12 months my 10 kW system in North Texas generated 14,815 kWh and my total home load was 13,503 kWh

I am in a city owned utility so my electric, water, trash, sewer, etc are all on one monthly bill. When I go negative with solar, it just comes off the bill total.

I paid cash for the system and I am right on track for my 10 year ROI I calculated when getting the system. I am sure rates are going to go up in the next year which will further shorten my ROI(Our last energy rate increase was in July of 2022 and in 2023 they increased delivery fee, so higher rates must be coming soon)

I recently expanded my solar setup by adding 8 × 720W bifacial panels to complement my existing 12 × 620W bifacial panels.

The system is now producing up to around 75 kWh per day, connected to a Growatt MIN 10kW grid-tie inverter.

After installing the additional panels, I noticed that the inverter reaches clipping for a few hours around peak solar production. I also noticed that the inverter temperature reached as high as 87°C (189°F) during peak production.

Is this temperature considered normal for this inverter when operating close to its maximum output for several hours?

I'm also considering adding a small solar-powered fan aimed at the inverter/heatsink, so it would automatically run whenever there is enough sunlight. Would this actually help reduce the inverter temperature and potentially extend its lifespan, or would it be unnecessary?

I've attached some photos of the installation and the production data.

The system is located just south of Texas, in northern Mexico, so summer temperatures and solar irradiance can get pretty intense here.

Any comments, suggestions, or observations about the installation are welcome.

Thanks!

2.3 lakh = 230000

Hello, I was inputting above headline into Reddit and each time I did, the result would say, “no internet connection”. When I removed “texas”, all plug in solar related threads came out. What do yall think this is? I tried searches with vpn on then off, with/without wifi connection. Weird huh? Why is this “Texas plug in solar” search impossible? Can anyone help? And if you can give me more info on it. Legality of it? Is anyone doing it, it sounds simple enough.

In addition to the loss of a hydroelectric power station, Nepal lost a huge solar power station to the outburst flood. The loss of electrical capacity is already a problem for recovery.

I am looking for a system that is capable of the following but the installers in the area claim there is no such system. But sights like Anker seem to tout their systems as capable of doing what I want.

I am looking for a system with around 15 x 400W panels, battery system with around 10k to 15kWh of storage, a panel for auto switching for a power outage and a generator port to charge the batteries in case solar and grid are insufficient. The generator does not need to automatically kick in but I want the option to run it and change the batteries in an outage.

The system would be designed to use the solar to get the batteries up to 100% then offset the grid in normal operation. Batteries run down to 20% at night then have grid kick in. Would prefer not to recharge the batteries off the grid since I have no peak or surge pricing, so no advantage to using “off peak” to recharge batteries. No desire to sell back excess solar if it makes the system cost more.

During an outage the solar and batteries would run as much as possible but when batteries drop to like 20% I could get a notification to use the generator to power the batteries and house. If I need a manual switch to use the generator that is fine. Do not want anything with an automatic generator.

Enphase seems to be the main system all the installers around me are using and I’m told their system cannot automatically switch when the grid is off and also allow a generator to power the system. Would either have to choose to manually switch to the batteries in an outage, which seems a complete waste, or not be able to use a generator. I’ve asked if there is a way to manual disconnect the grid to use the generator but they say that’s not possible.

It’s confusing when Anker and Eco and other major battery packs all claim 240V generator pass through. So how is it something with a full controller would also not have that function?

Sorry for length of this but just trying to figure out what’s really possible and if I am just asking for the wrong scope on the system.

Hi everyone,
Over the past few days, I’ve noticed that my Huawei system is sometimes limiting the amount of power that can come from either the PV panels or the battery. I suspect it may actually be a global output limit, i.e. limiting the total power the system can deliver to my house and/or the grid.
The limit is currently around 1.18 kW.
I’ve made a few changes to my system over the past few days, so I’m not sure what caused this:
I installed the latest firmware on both the inverter and the battery system.
I enabled Modbus TCP so that I could monitor the system through Home Assistant. Reading the data through HA works fine.
While investigating the settings, I found the following:
Maximum active power: 6.600 kW
Active power derating in absolute value: 6600 W
Derated by active power %: 17.9%
17.9% of 6600 W is:
6600 × 0.179 = 1181 W
That’s almost an exact match with the ~1.18 kW limit I’m currently seeing.
I also noticed that these settings appear to be related to Remote Power Schedule / remote power control.
The important thing is that I did not manually change the 17.9% value.
So I’m wondering:
1. Could a firmware update have changed this value to 17.9%?
My understanding is that 100% would normally mean that the inverter can use its full rated output (6.6 kW). Is that correct?
2. Could enabling Modbus TCP somehow have enabled Remote Power Schedule, or caused a remote power-control setting to become active?
Before enabling Modbus, Modbus TCP was disabled on my system. Home Assistant is currently only reading data; I’m not intentionally writing any settings to the inverter.
I’m trying to understand whether the 17.9% setting is actually the cause of the ~1.18 kW limit, and, if so, where that value could have come from.
Has anyone with a SUN2000-M1 + LUNA2000 system seen something similar after a firmware update or after enabling Modbus TCP?
Any insight into how Remote Power Schedule, the 17.9% derating value and Modbus TCP interact would be greatly appreciated.

I am sure many new solar enthusiasts have run into the prepaid lease options, where it allows you to still take advantage of the federal tax credit.

I am curious if there are any downsides with the prepaid lease agreement. My understanding is that even if the option to purchase is unfavorable, I can still keep the lease intact and still get the same solar benefits as if I purchased the system outright. The only difference is I do not "own" the system so selling may cause more paperwork to be done as well as the installer has access to the property to service the system and some other nuanced language.

In the event I want to purchase the panels, it should be close to $0, although I know Reddit is weary of the language of the buyout especially if it mentions FMV. I spoke with several installers and they all have this language due to how it needs to be worded in order to utilize the federal tax rebate.

Prepaid lease seems to allow:

• 25 year agreement with lessor/installer responsible for system and homeowner gets the utilize the tax credit and all benefits of "owning" the system without owning on paper
• Option to purchase anytime after year 6 for ~$1. If FMV is too high, can keep the lease agreement intact with no additional cost. If anything can purchase the system at year 25 when the system has mostly likely fully depreciated at market value.

To me it seems like a no brainer, am I missing something that makes a cash purchase more advantageous and overrides the 30% tax credit?

This is a now 9 year old system using NEP BDM-300x2 inverters, the ones with two inverters in a single box. The system has historically worked pretty well; when I'd see a problem, I'd chat up my dealer, he'd make some contact with NEP, and a few days later my problem would be fixed. But... my dealer has been out of the solar business for a while. When I started getting 0x4 (Instant Protection) errors again last April, I decided to try direct contact with NEP through the customer service channel on the monitor website. I didn't think it was fair to keep pestering my old dealer about it. Maybe I would have had these problems anyway, but... I sure rue that decision.

It's now been all summer, nearly 5 months later. My experience? OMG... Anywhere from 2-10 panels have been offline literally all summer while I've waited for their customer service. Over half the original inverters have now failed. I've lost about $300 in production value so far this summer. They still owe me 6 more inverters. Bad customer service is common, but customer service *THIS* bad is... something.

I've got plans to ditch the microinverters under the panels, and switch to a new hybrid inverter which will allow me to add up to 30kW of battery backup to my system. Hope to share that journey with the group here soon. Just wanted to grouse about my experience with NEP for a moment here.

Does anyone here have the same deal? As in your roof is leased to a solar company that prohibits battery installation into their system?

Based on what little I've done so far in terms of understanding how to size a system based on average, peak, and total annual use, I have some numbers of what "might" be the right amount of output for my use. I also have some ideas on what sort of panels to consider, size, and how that might end up being installed. But, I have a number of questions...

- While I probably COULD do the install myself, I probably don't want to... mostly because the potential target roof area sits two full stories up and I'd be working alone. Are there recommendations on how to find decent installers in my local area to work with? I may be willing / able to do certain parts of the work although expect that won't be "allowed" as soon as someone has been hired to do it...

- At what point in the conversations do I ask sellers / installers things like what specific brands of panels and inverters they use or what the wattage per panel is (and why they use those particular ones)?

- If I'm looking at a system that's roughly 11-12kW in size, what MIGHT be a total cost for the hardware only if I'm looking at solar only, grid-tied, net metering, and no battery components using high efficiency / higher output panels (450-500W each)?

- What might be the installation costs to put in a system that's two dozen panels?

- How can I ensure that the wiring and components under the panels are protected with screens or similar to keep animals and such out?

- The roof is a 30 year architectural shingle roof that was installed about four years ago. Any tips or suggestions on better time of year to do a solar install to prevent damage to the roof while ensuring everything gets sealed up well?

I am fully expecting a materials cost in the $10k+ range but am not sure how much beyond that it might go. It would be great to learn that I'm over-estimating, but I doubt it. :)

Any particular tips on this would be of interest for me to start down the path as I probably wouldn't end up having everything I need until probably the spring time (after the snow and ice are gone from the roof!)

This is with 42kw of solar, 2xEG4 Flexboss and 60kwh batteries. I also have the inverters limited to outputting a combined total of 22kw to the grid. I may increase or even unthrottle at some point. My first set of inverters didn’t last two months and it turned out to be the gridboss being the issue. The production was 6.1MW and on a very rainy and cloudy day I was able to produce over 50kw. It is also located in SD

This is my first bill where I have solar for the entire billing cycle. I know they are normally 10 days late or so I was told. It’s been like 15 days and I reached out to national grid and they have not gotten me an answer yet. I fully expect to have no usage as I produced more then I used based on my apps tracking but until I see my bill I don’t know for sure. Anyone else in MA seen a longer delay with the first bill and how long did you wait?

In June I had an 18.8 kW system installed. REC Alpha 460 panels, Enphase Microinverters. It is producing what I expected, but it won't produce enough to provide for all my needs. We've decided to add either a roof or pergola over our deck and then put in 13 more panels.

Our existing system cost us $41k. Coincidence or not, it ended up being $1K a solar panel. While I realize every system is different, is it likely that adding more panels costs per kW will remain about the same, more, or less?

Also, any tips for this type of update?

Hello,

I recently heard that New Jersey could begin installing plug-in solar kits up to 1200W. I have a large group of old horse sheds (no more horses) that has power run to it from my house and I think this would be a great location to mount panels on the roof of the shed and plug into an outlet inside the shed.

I’m a big DIY’r and good with electrical. I don’t know much about solar, but I can follow instructions. Was thinking there might be a kit out there already, and if anyone had recommendations?

Other option would be to piece it all together but I’m not sure what is required, and would have to do some research there.

As a family of 4, we don’t use a ton of electricity, I think our highest bill is about $220/month and our house is fully electric. We have a heat pump for heating/cooling, heat pump hot water heater, and our electric dryer consuming most of that power.

Would be awesome to offset some of that cost!

I’m looking for an inverter with a smart home energy management system that can coordinate solar, home generator, and EV charger to optimize whole-home energy use. Which brands offer this?