Russell's Blog

Our contractor, EE Solar, is about halfway finished with the solar installation at our house. Here is what they are installing :

• 14 SunPower 230 watt panels
• One SMA Sunny Boy 3000 inverter
• A second digital utility meter
• AC and DC disconnects with lockout-tagout switches.

The 14 panels will be arranged into two arrays with south-facing exposures producing 3220 watts of DC power. The inverter is about 95% efficient, so the nameplate capacity will be 2854 watts. The USGS indicates that we should get about seven to eight hours of usable sunlight per day on average. The array should produce an average of 17 to 20 kilowatt hours a day. This should easily cancel out our usage, and maybe a little beyond. I'm hoping for slightly better production, since Pasadena is higher and dryer than most of the LA basin.

Here is the equipment after delivery and upacking :

We were supposed to get a Sunny Beam monitoring station, but evidently there are some issues with buggy firmware, so they won't be available until September (more about that later).

So far, roof has been preped, the mounting rails are installed, the conduits are bolted in place, the DC wires are pulled, and the inverter has been bolted down. All that's left is to hang the panels, do the AC wiring, and get the inspection.

The installer crew was supposed to finish that on Friday, but evidently they decided to take the day off. The project manager at EE Solar pitched a fit. Nick, the crew boss, called on Friday to say he was really sorry. I told him that his schedule is his business, but if he can't come when he promised, he ought to let us know. On Moday, I'll ask him to run some extra conduit for ethernet to make amends.