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diy solar

diy solar

My Build Thread - First Steps

chill633

New Member
Joined
Sep 6, 2024
Messages
57
Location
West Virginia
After months of planning, research, and consuming almost everything on this forum, r/Solar, r/SolarDIY, and YouTube, I've begun the process to get my own home solar system installed. As I progress, I'm going to share in hopes it can add to the collective knowledge. I'll focus on what looks to be unique to my install as opposed to "yet another residential solar system".

Background: I live in Jefferson County, West Virginia (AHJ) and have Potomac Edison, a First Energy Company, as my utility. I am not inside city limits, but just outside the line on a 2/3 acre lot. This will be a permitted and inspected system with a formal interconnect agreement and I am DIY.

Step 1: Design
I ended up working with Gemini Solar Design on the plan. Sanjay is a great guy and knows his stuff. He isn't the cheapest, but produced an excellent package that was accepted by the interconnection engineering department at Potomac Edison without any questions or revision requests.

My design is a mix of rooftop and ground mount. I'm pretty much using all the space I have available, as most of my lot is wooded. My house is a 3 story Dutch Colonial with a complex layout -- 17 different roof planes total and pitches ranging from 3/12 to 18/12. The "ground mount" is a Chiko 2-car solar carport, facing ESE, with a 5 degree tilt. The roof complexity starts to lend itself to micro-inverters, because different pitches on the same string will inherently limit production to the "worst" pitch. But, because I'm trying to squeeze every last wH out of the system, I ended up choosing to use an EG4 FlexBOSS 21/GridBOSS system and Tigo optimizers.

Step 2: Interconnection Agreement
Potomac Edison has (had) a 1:1 net metering program for Level 1 (25 kW or less) residential systems. I phrase it that way because it changed on 1/1/2025 to essentially 1:2, meaning you get 1 kWh credit for every 2 kWh exported to PE. The change was approved by the PUC and announced last summer, with a deadline of 12/31 to get an interconnection application submitted to be grandfathered in to the old scheme. That led to a rush of people trying to beat the deadline, and the three or so local solar companies getting swamped, with at least one of them resorting to Fuck You quotes starting around August. Because what I wanted was complex, I wasn't able to get serious attention of any of the companies without committing obscene amounts of money, so I decided on the DIY route.

The attached pictures are what was submitted to Potomac Edison as supporting documents to the Interconnection application, which I've also attached. The only other document they wanted was the Spec Sheet for the inverter. The PE WV interconnection page with instructions that I followed is here and the application fee was $30.

I submitted my application with supporting documentation on 12/14 and got confirmation from PE of being in before the deadline on 12/30. I received conditional approval of my plan on 1/16 and have one year from that date to complete the install. Woo hoo! "Conditional" means I need to get a permit, get it installed, get it inspected, configure the system to the IEEE 1547-2018 settings (1741-SB -- PE provides a CSV file to upload to the inverter, if possible) and "energy storage systems operating in non-export mode". Then they'll grant an ATO and install a bidirectional meter. My target is April/May 2025.

Step 3: Permits
My next step will be the county permit, which is a lot more complicated and expensive compared to the Interconnection Agreement. Complicated because I'm building the carport, which needs proper drawings an a WV Engineering stamp, plus a couple of intermediate inspections PLUS the solar/electrical. At this point I'm waiting for EG4 to get UL 9450 certification documents posted for the FlexBOSS 21 as an ESS before moving forward.

The interesting information I plan to share is the DIY install of the Chiko carport, how everything interacts with my Leviton smart panel, and how my new roof helps the bifacial situation. I just had a new standing seam metal roof, Englert Bone White with an SRI of 87 and Total Solar Reflectance of 0.71 -- pretty much as good as you can get for reflectance.

If anyone has experience with how to receive the carport, which needs to be delivered to a loading dock -- which I don't have -- I'd appreciate the input.

chill633
 

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