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diy solar

diy solar

Grid-tie in Pittsburgh, PA

ktbathwd

New Member
Joined
Aug 1, 2024
Messages
7
Location
Pittsburgh, PA
I could use some advice about a small grid-tie system in the Pittsburgh City Limits. I would like to put a small array on a detached garage that has a 30A sub panel in it. Ideally 8-10 400W panels on the roof (easy 1-story, low pitch) with enphase micro-inverters which would be doable as a DIY job. It seems difficult to get a solar installer to do it since it would be too small for most of their jobs and I don't want to install on the main house. I have conditional approval for plans filed with the power company to do a customer generation interconnect already. I also have the paper work filed for a City Electrical Permit, but in Pittsburgh you need a licensed electrician to pull the permit. Any strategies for finding an electrician that would be willing to help? Does it make sense to ask an electrician to install the combiner box and shutoff switch to make it worth their time? Has anyone managed to do DIY in Pittsburgh city limits?
 
Find a mom and pop local solar, and ask them to quote on the project. When they say it is too small, ask them for referral to electricians they use.

This is cheaper than 8 iq8:

Pay the electrician to install the inverter.
 
Last edited:
Just to followup for anyone thinking about DIY grid-tie in Pittsburgh, it is totally doable. I'm happily running a 3.6kw AC enphase system on the roof of my detached garage. I did most of the install myself, with my own equipment, and hired an electrician to connect the combiner box and shutoff switch to a sub panel (you need some pro electrical work for the city permit).

General Process:
First you file for an interconnect agreement with the power company (DLC in my case). In Pittsburgh you can file for the city permits yourself and then attach a city certified electrician to it from the web. This saves the electrician from doing the filing and lets you see that the permit etc is legit. I called around a few smaller electricians and quickly found someone that was willing to help connect my combiner box and AC disconnect to a sub panel. You don't need a separate permit to do the roofing work (in Pittsburgh) if you are up to it. I did the roof installation myself in a weekend after the permit was issued, but before the electrician came so that they had a roof drop ready already. Your electrician then needs to arrange the city to do an inspection (takes a few days). City inspector was pretty thorough, but totally reasonable. They looked at the combiner box, disconnect, sub panel, and house panel for wiring, grounding, and signage. You get the inspector and electrician to sign the interconnect agreement once its all good. Then send that to DLC using the web portal link they send you (or email would work). After that, the power company came to do a witness test (giving me 2 weeks for schedulign options) where they asked me to show that the inverters respond correctly to outages (rain date in case weather is bad since you need to show >20% of max rated generation). The day after the witness test the power company came to install the netmeter (no power interruption) and sent an updated contract a few hours later. I did a bit of testing before I had official PTO and nobody complained (with Itron OpenWay smart meter installed which I think could radio back if they were upset).

I have to say the folks at the city permit office, and DLC were amazingly fast and generally awesome at answering questions etc. If anyone in Pittsburgh is thinking about DIY, please feel free to DM me. I'm going to do a better writeup with permits, design files, photos etc later, but again totally doable and fun.
 
That's awesome, and totally not what I remember the 'Burgh being like 20 years ago! Kudos on a nice project.
 

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