Best solar system for a home, recommendations

Status
Not open for further replies.

SSDriver

Senior Member
Location
California
Occupation
Electrician
I have a close friend who wants to put up Solar on his home. He is dead set on it and wants me to do the electrical for it. Last time I checked into solar there were many different styles of systems with micro inverters, large inverters, etc. His house is 4600 sq foot with a large foot print in southern California and we follow 2017 NEC. If this was your house what panels (brand) would you use, what inverter and other associated equipment? Any good reads on the install/technical specifications for that type of system would be great. I look forward to installing something new as well.

All my electrical now is on industrial equipment/mechanical rooms so this is not my wheelhouse but do want to help him out and make sure it is correct and safe for his family. Some of the solar installs I've seen when I was shopping for a house were down right horrible looking and electrical definitely wasn't to code on many. Thanks
 

paulengr

Senior Member
I have a close friend who wants to put up Solar on his home. He is dead set on it and wants me to do the electrical for it. Last time I checked into solar there were many different styles of systems with micro inverters, large inverters, etc. His house is 4600 sq foot with a large foot print in southern California and we follow 2017 NEC. If this was your house what panels (brand) would you use, what inverter and other associated equipment? Any good reads on the install/technical specifications for that type of system would be great. I look forward to installing something new as well.

All my electrical now is on industrial equipment/mechanical rooms so this is not my wheelhouse but do want to help him out and make sure it is correct and safe for his family. Some of the solar installs I've seen when I was shopping for a house were down right horrible looking and electrical definitely wasn't to code on many. Thanks

Call the local utility. You have to anyway. They have a deal where they put it in and maintain it and you just pay a certain portion of your bill as solar. Done. Easy Peasy.

For hot water ONLY in your area these are actually efficient and cost effective. You put in a large (300 gallon) storage tank for cloudy days. But your choice of collectors and a circulating pump and some valves. You can get all that stuff very cheap. In Hawaii solar hot water is the norm, not the exception. Should run around $600-1000. They come as kits. If there is a pool involved you need a heat exchanger (no direct systems, no salty chlorinated drinking water and it has to be stainless) and panels equal to 50% of the pool surface area, or use a cheap separate system.

Otherwise get quotes and buy a complete kit from nearly anybody. Expect the system to last ten years. The utility has very specific requirements from their end especially because they will have to put in a special meter since it will “run backwards” or a second meter on the solar and they just subtract the readings. I would start there. Often if you talk to the right one they will tell you what they prefer you put in.

In SoCal you’d be looking at 7-14 years to pay itself off.
 

BandGap1.1eV

Member
Location
East Coast
These types of questions are near impossible to answer. You might as well have asked whats the best automobile? The answer to that question is the one that best fits your needs.

Start here for the incentives in your area. https://www.dsireusa.org/
After that, figure out what is available for equipment at your local distributor. CED Greentech has a national presence. https://www.cedgreentech.com/

SolarEdge or Enphase will be the likely solution for power electronics.

Do you have retail net metering available at the site?

How much does the building use (kW) on an annual basis? Once you know that, use PVwatts to roughly size the array that would cover that on an annual basis. https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/

You will need to develop some CAD skills to layout the array on the roof, plan the locations of the l-feet and flashings (lag directly into the rafters), and the soladeck pass through box.

You could even use the trial version of Helioscope to play around with system sizes. https://www.helioscope.com/
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top