waspie
New Member
New here, not necessarily new to solar. I previously lived in Ohio and permitting in my city/county were far more homeowner friendly than in South Carolina where I live now.
I installed a 8kw roof mounted system as the homeowner, got all the permits myself, and passed all the inspections. Submitted everything to the power company and got onto net metering.
Can't really do that here. Im kind of in an unincorporated area serviced by duke who does net metering but the city my mailing address is in requires you to be a licensed electrician to do any of that. As most of you know, this is a DIY forum and paying 4, 5? times what it costs to do yourself to have someone else do it isn't quite the spirit of this.... right?
So... what if i just forgo net metering (and in a lot of cases its starting to go away anyway...) and go hybrid with no export?
I've been eyeing EG4 12kxp and 18kxp hybrid inverters. From what I understand they look to do what I'm thinking. Initially, due to cost I'm looking to grab the inverter and panels and set all that up. As money permits I'll be adding battery capacity.
Am I understanding it correctly that the 12/18k hybrid inverters will (with CT clamps on the mains) produce only what is needed in the house and send the rest to battery (once I have battery)? And the grid can be fed in via breaker (as is typical in grid-tie setups) and will supplement power produced by solar as needed?
The goal may eventually be to have enough battery to possibly give up having utility power but that's down the road. The grid tie would remain for a while why the entire system is built out. Over time I'd suspect I'd need a second inverter to be fully off grid - it's a big house with 2 heat pumps both with emergency resistive heating (10kw and 7kw + 3 and 3.5 ton condensing units).
I've looked at sol-ark too, looks great but seems to be double the price of the eg4 stuff.
I installed a 8kw roof mounted system as the homeowner, got all the permits myself, and passed all the inspections. Submitted everything to the power company and got onto net metering.
Can't really do that here. Im kind of in an unincorporated area serviced by duke who does net metering but the city my mailing address is in requires you to be a licensed electrician to do any of that. As most of you know, this is a DIY forum and paying 4, 5? times what it costs to do yourself to have someone else do it isn't quite the spirit of this.... right?
So... what if i just forgo net metering (and in a lot of cases its starting to go away anyway...) and go hybrid with no export?
I've been eyeing EG4 12kxp and 18kxp hybrid inverters. From what I understand they look to do what I'm thinking. Initially, due to cost I'm looking to grab the inverter and panels and set all that up. As money permits I'll be adding battery capacity.
Am I understanding it correctly that the 12/18k hybrid inverters will (with CT clamps on the mains) produce only what is needed in the house and send the rest to battery (once I have battery)? And the grid can be fed in via breaker (as is typical in grid-tie setups) and will supplement power produced by solar as needed?
The goal may eventually be to have enough battery to possibly give up having utility power but that's down the road. The grid tie would remain for a while why the entire system is built out. Over time I'd suspect I'd need a second inverter to be fully off grid - it's a big house with 2 heat pumps both with emergency resistive heating (10kw and 7kw + 3 and 3.5 ton condensing units).
I've looked at sol-ark too, looks great but seems to be double the price of the eg4 stuff.