I'm getting solar panels. I'll let you know how it goes in this discussion thread.

Good luck to it! We installed a 10KW ground mount system (nothing like being a farm — you have acreage to play with!) about a year ago, and it's working fine. Much the same deal with the power company that you will have.

For the year we have generated very slightly more energy that we have used.

We figure the payback on investment will be around 10 years, although with recent rate increases it may be shorter.

It does use microinverters, and we've had a couple fail — infant mortality — but they were easy to replace.

Next step is going to be seeing about a big battery bank — but at the moment at least it doesn't pay.

Hi @ethicalpaul , Have you done what can be done to make your place efficient before sizing the solar system? Are you looking at backup batteries so you can coast through power outages? And about Teslas, I've learned some older cars have free charging for life. I understand the average gas bill in the US is about $5000 yearly, so free "fuel" could be nice. Still, if you get full credit for power you put into the grid, you would be better off charging at a Tesla supercharger. 🤠

Yours, Larry

I have 6200w installed with a Sunny Boy single inverter. This inverter will supply 2000w in the event of a power outage, but you have to manually switch it

How often do you have a power outage?

Sounds like a good deal from NJ and on the feedback. I need to use my excess feed back or it expires every March

tempered glass doesn't crack…

The pitch, angle of the modules, has a lot to do with damage from hail, or seagulls dropping shells on the modules.

At least that is what we found with thermal collectors. And yes tempered glass will shatter if hit with a sharp object.

Evac tubes, being annealed glass are more prone to breaking from hail. This steep array after a hail storm.

I wish mine would get wet occasionally, rain cleans them off and in this 100 degree heat cooling them down would increase production.

As long as you have multiple MPPT channels (or optimizers) and they don't do anything silly like wire east facing panels in series with west facing ones, it will work well.

Welcome to the club.

I have a 42 panel 12kw system with enphase micro's installed end of 2021.

I've slowly moved all my appliances except for the boiler over to electric. Still not a dime spent on electric since the spring of 2022... I did suffer one panel failure and one micro failure that was handled under warranty. Did pay for squirrel 🐿️ defenses. Little buggers.

i try not to post or comment on anything being i do not advertise nor post here being all are way smarter then myself but if you where not getting a discount because of the rebate which are usually the result of the rest of our taxes paying for your solar panels would you reach into your own pocket and buy them and pay some one else to install or as usually just do the you tube video and do it yourself . Just wondering when the free give aways disappear will you still be interested in solar ? Knowing most w $ took advantage of the geo and solar hydronic when there where incentives when they clearly had more then enough to purchase out right and not effect there stock portfolio or net worth . Knowing that just about all solar hydronic system that i have been asked to look at had never had anything done to them from day they where installed being it was too costly due to the expensive of fluid testing replacement and what would be considered standard maintenance of the system . Plus absolutely no one really wants to work on them being they have just about all left w there ancient out of date stuff from over seas so array just sit of there mounts looking good doing zip

So just wondering would you even think of doing it if it where coming completely out of your pocket and zero state or federal rebates incentives ?

clammy

look like bio heating oil receives a lot if federal and state tax dollars for incentives. What about those that do not heat with oil? Are they paying?

NJ is #11 for residential solar installed, , Michigan #25

NJ was always one if the top solar dhw states also.

We still have our gas dryer, gas stove and gas boiler because I'm a natural (gas) guy. Hard to give up something that's taken care of me all these years and I'm not ready to jump in on a heat pump for my heating. There aren't enough good equipment choices yet.

We're getting a battery later this month and I look forward to importing-exporting less to the grid.

There is quite a bit of thought that can go into optimizing solar panels when you start taking into consideration more than just pointing the panels directly at the sun but also things like clipping(when the panel can push more power than the inverter can handle), how the panels age, production on cloudy days, and so on. Kind of fun actually.

With a little effort we can turn it………..