Has anyone done one on your own. If so, what brand did you use, did you use a grid-tie inverter or micro-inverters? Im looking into doing this and Id like to get as far up the learning curve as possible.

Thanks in advance.

My buddy just installed a few strings on his house and he is using Enphase miro's. If watched them online and I'm impressed with the output. In Clark county, everything has to be UL listed/rated, including the tracking used to mount the panels. You can do everything your self and save a bunch of money (faster return on investment).



Im saving to do a system on my house and will be using a SMA Sunny Island with a grid-tie battery backup system. Do it your self and save money. Wholesale solar will help you with all the permit paperwork.

Can your buddy speak to his involvement with NVEnergy and being able to sell the accumulated PEC's?

I don't want to miss out on the power bill credit (to cover evening and high power consumption months) and the money to be made selling the PEC's.

Im ready to buys a 100% system that ties into the grid, with intentions of adding a battery bank in the future.

You can add battery back up with micro's, but its easier with string inverters. The Magnum PAE inverters will work with micro inverters but you need a way to regulate the batterys when the grid is down during the day because the PAE can't doing it. PAE will regulate when your selling to the grid though.



This is one reason I want to use the SMA Sunny Island. It can regulate both in and out to the batterys but cost most more the the Magnum.  



See, if your load is 1500w, your panels are making 4000w and the battery's are full, you need to stop the panels from over charging. Thats what I'm talking about. The Sunny Island will shift the Hz up to 61.5 and make the panels shut off (stop sending power), and the magnum doesn't do that with micro inverters.



Biggest problem with solar, there is 80 different ways to do it.

The credit plan kicks ass but would really shine with a Tracker. A tracker would give you maximum power during the time you need to make the most power to offset the higher priced hours (1-7pm).
As far as my friend goes, he pulled his permits and then contacted NV power. NV power came out and put the bi-directional meter on his house. After getting his final from the building inspector, he had to have NV power come out and do a re-inspect before he could though the switch and start selling power. Your not really selling any power, your putting (saving) your extra power and then re-using that power at night after the sun goes down.
Scoot
 

Last question. Im in Henderson, did he pull the permit form Clark County or the city?

Also, I understand how the NV Energy credit goes. But you should tell your friend to look into SREC's. http://www.srectrade.com/srec_markets/introduction It is a type of Green Credit that businesses and states can buy from you as they accumulate each year your system is in function. Essentially, entities that don't meet the renewable resource % required by the .gov can buy yours to help them get to the needed percentage to avoid being fined. NV Energy buys them at about 600.00/yr (cash not credit) for a 10000 kWh system production. Once other states and businesses are allowed to cross state lines with the purchases its been said the same system can make 2000.00/year.

Well, I got my permit today and should have the order in the next couple days. I am moving forward on this and will take as many notes as possible for any future interest.

Well , to ask you your own question....

permit form Clark County or the city ?

I have been considering this as well.

City of Henderson.

Well, I got it all in and operating. It took some time, as I did it myself, but very much worth it. So far I have had no issues and everything is operating as intended. The system so far creates about 35 kWh of power a day (right now).

The most time consuming part of the install is the track mounts. We have curved s-tile on our house so it wasn't as simple as lagging the track mount down. I had to remove the tile, mount the Tile-Track, and then drill a corresponding hole in the tile to receive a threaded bar. So this ended up accounting for the lion's share of time as I had to install about 50 of them at about 10-20 min each.

Once the mount were in the L-brackets were installed to hold the rails then came the panels.

Wiring was a cinch, since the panels and optimizers came with all the plugs from the factory. Plug and play if you will. I lucked out since I have attic space above my garage, so I ran all the wiring about 10' from the panels into the garage attic and then down the wall to the inverter that I hung next to the main breaker box.

Ill get some photos up soon.

Cost would be nice. The requirement of using one of their "special contractors" in order to receive the rebates is pretty annoying.

What rebates or tax credits are you going to end up receiving?

I was able to buy the system whole sale so it was just at 11,500.00 including permit and extras.

You don't have to have a contractor to get the rebates (in NV at least) (you just have to spend the time figuring out how to get to them), BUT typically if you get a rebate, say from NVEnergy, what you are actually doing is giving up your right to the REC's (Renewable Energy Credit's) that you accrue as a energy producer. As you obtain them you can sell them back to NVEnergy at about 600.00/yr. (based on my size of a system). So they offer you 2400.00 or so (In Nevada) to give that right up, which in the long run hurts you...especially once the State of NV starts to allow sales of REC's across state line. There are are many entities that will pay 2400.00/year for the same as what NVE is paying due to their inability to produce renewable energy themselves, yet still have to meet the renewable energy quota the .gov puts on them

The government offers a 30% tax break on the system, assuming you have paid in more than what you are taking out in taxes. This is easy as filling out a tax form, which even Turbo Tax asks about. Most contractors that do in house financing actually give you 18 months interest free financing on this portion because they know once April 15 rolls around that cash will be in the buys pocket.

So by my math we should have our ROI by year 4, and that is not calculating the 5%/year NVE price increase. So actually just under 4. If they open state lines for REC sales sooner than later then the ROI could be as soon as 2-2.5 years.

I have looked on several websites and have found that you can get 100% systems for a decent price, I just can personally speak to their quality. For example: http://www.mrsolar.com/page/MSOS/PROD/ce/OLS-GTS-24#.VAeECVa3I7c offers this kit that is quite a bit cheaper than mine, however it lacks in some comparable functionality. My system has Optimizers at each panel that allows individual monitoring of each panel...this one does not. What that means is if your system is under producing you can't isolate the problem by a quick view in the monitoring portal.

This web-site seems to offer a comparable system as to mine: http://www.gogreensolar.com I was actually going to buy from them prior to stumbling on a friend of a friend that sold me a system at their cost


I do know that I had 2 quotes to have the system put in by a contractor and they were 2-3 times the cost of what I have, which gives you 2-3 times the length on the ROI. I most likely wouldn't have done it if our ROI wasn't so quick.

What system did you go with and from where?

ETA- How are you getting that many kwh?

This is essentially the system I have, with the exception that have 250watt panels instead of 270watt.
http://www.wholesalesolar.com/system/solaredge-24-solarworld-solar-panel-gridtie-system.html

If you are asking how many kWh I'm producing, as of now around 35/day. That will lessen as fall and winter come around, but so will my power consumption.

If you are asking how, well 6kW system getting almost 10 hours of sun in the day. Once I complete a full year cycle Ill determine if I need to add any panels to ensure it is a 100% system.

So if you look closely you can see each roof mount:

Now, I didn't get any shots of the mount under the tile (I will add them later cause Ive decided to add a couple mounts to longer rails I decided not to cut down), but essentially the install goes in the order of this photo:

From bottom to top:
1. The "Tile-Track" base and lag screw is drilled into the truss under the tile.
2. The "Tile-Track" receiver is adjusted along the base to correspond with the up slope of the s-tile, which a hole is drilled though.
3. The "Tile-Track" receiver holds the threaded bar that runs up through the tile hole. As shown in the previous photo the flashing and nut is then attached leaving you with a threaded anchor for the "L" bracket that holds the rail.

The optimizers (if you get a system with them)(micro-inverters will be the same) can be installed various ways, just as long as they are clear of the panel edges. This photo is of one way...I didn't go this route but it is an option. Also, this shows a close up of the connectors the panel connects to the shorter optimizer leads and then the longer leads from the optimizer goes to the neighboring optimizer:


I choose to attach the optimizers directly to the rail like so:


All installed:


I did two runs, as this diagram shows. From the end of each + & - run I ran leads to a J-Box:


J-Box to J-Box. The J-Box on the far end is over my garage attic, so this run droops into the attic. Essentially, I have have two J-Boxes sandwiching the roofline on the far end:


I have no pictures of the run in the attic, I can get some if you guys want them, but the DC runs come down into the garage right next to the main panel / the AC goes right back up and drops into the main panel:


Inside the Inverter:


Inside the Main:


Operational (note this was just a test, as the city inspector will be by next week to, well...inspect):

Inspector came today and I was left with only two corrections. One, the attic needs to have metal conduit and two, the run from the array to the inverter has to be labeled as "live" every 10'.

I would say that is not bad for the first go around.

Good job Sir.
Update us with power savings info.

Will do.

I am currently waiting for NVEnergy to finish my Bi-Directional meter application, which I should have started months ago :/ and the REC's program application.

Once that is done I will have real life savings. Right now I am providing power to NVEnergy, outside of my usage, for free :/