curtis73
New Member
I've been down Will's rabbit hole of youtubez and I say a huge thank you to Will.
I'm a carpenter, fabricator, and I consider myself a hobbyist electrician, but not licensed. I want to do a DIY solar setup to (at first) reduce what I drag from the grid, and possibly scale up to cover the majority of what I use. (caveat: I would of course use a licensed electrician to do the critical stuff - first, because I'm smart like that, and second, I'll have to have it permitted and inspected which requires a licensed sparky) I live alone and work too much, so my electron use is relatively low. Last year I consumed 6006 kWh without any attempt at being green, so I hope to pare that down to 4500 next year. I learned recently that my grid provider is 77% fossil fuels, so in my brain I'm thinking if I can get 80% of my juice from the sun, I'm at least doing something.
Scouting around my roof, and using some calculations from a crackpot PPA offer from a solar installer, I can probably get up to 5600 watts worth of panels on the roof real estate I have, but I know I'll not get nearly that much since I'm in PA. (very small property, so it has to be roof)
Is this something that is easily scalable? Can I invest in 1kW worth of panels now, then easily add another 500W later and continue until I have what I want? Or will I be constantly upgrading my inverter/charger to match?
For an on-grid system, should I consider storage? Is the convenience of having power in a blackout (which is pretty rare here) worth the maintenance/slight flammability, and the additional isolation needed so I'm not backfeeding and electrocuting linemen?
Thanks for any input.
I'm a carpenter, fabricator, and I consider myself a hobbyist electrician, but not licensed. I want to do a DIY solar setup to (at first) reduce what I drag from the grid, and possibly scale up to cover the majority of what I use. (caveat: I would of course use a licensed electrician to do the critical stuff - first, because I'm smart like that, and second, I'll have to have it permitted and inspected which requires a licensed sparky) I live alone and work too much, so my electron use is relatively low. Last year I consumed 6006 kWh without any attempt at being green, so I hope to pare that down to 4500 next year. I learned recently that my grid provider is 77% fossil fuels, so in my brain I'm thinking if I can get 80% of my juice from the sun, I'm at least doing something.
Scouting around my roof, and using some calculations from a crackpot PPA offer from a solar installer, I can probably get up to 5600 watts worth of panels on the roof real estate I have, but I know I'll not get nearly that much since I'm in PA. (very small property, so it has to be roof)
Is this something that is easily scalable? Can I invest in 1kW worth of panels now, then easily add another 500W later and continue until I have what I want? Or will I be constantly upgrading my inverter/charger to match?
For an on-grid system, should I consider storage? Is the convenience of having power in a blackout (which is pretty rare here) worth the maintenance/slight flammability, and the additional isolation needed so I'm not backfeeding and electrocuting linemen?
Thanks for any input.