Solar Panel Professional Optimization - San Diego

[svelocity]

Hi forum! Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere. If so, please point me in the right direction.

I had a local San Diego solar company install my residential panels last May. Unfortunately, they didn't optimize the angle or direction of the panels during install. They just followed the roofline. It's fine for aesthetic purposes but I need to capture the afternoon hours more effectively.

I'd like to improve my solar output but I really don't know any of the products and could use some professional help.

Does the forum know of someone I could hire here in San Diego to provide professional optimization?

Thanks!

 

[BentleyJ]

I follow this channel on YT but have no affiliation with him. Not sure if he can help, just passing along info.

 

[zanydroid]

Hi forum! Apologies if this has been covered elsewhere. If so, please point me in the right direction.

I had a local San Diego solar company install my residential panels last May. Unfortunately, they didn't optimize the angle or direction of the panels during install. They just followed the roofline. It's fine for aesthetic purposes but I need to capture the afternoon hours more effectively.

I'd like to improve my solar output but I really don't know any of the products and could use some professional help.

Does the forum know of someone I could hire here in San Diego to provide professional optimization?

Thanks!

Maybe ask on the subreddit too. Optimizing is a pretty specialized set of hats even if it’s far from rocket science. EG it will require knowing both local regulations and solar engineering. And retrofit to optimize for small residential projects is a very low volume contracting business in California. Anyone who is really good at doing that, is to be frank wasting their time compared to spending the skill on higher margin solar projects

If you relax your hiring constraints to someone who will only look at the engineering side, and a second person who knows the code optimization side, and you are the middle person that gets smart enough to merge it correctly, it might be easier to hire out. Still a high source of project risk though.

You can only move panels, not add (well you can maybe add 2), and retain your NEM2

 

[hwy17]

What are you imagining would be changed? Tilt mounts is a whole different ballgame and the regular rooftop permitting process normally requires mounting flat to the roof surface. Tilt and they will want structural engineering.

 

[zanydroid]

Tilt and they will want structural engineering.

+1000%. My AHJ told me this too, and it's in their official rules (and advice to not do it if you talk to the office)

There's a reason very few people have seen non-flat solar panels on a residential roof. I think I've only seen 10 modules ever in the SF Bay Area mounted like that.

(And discussions like this are part of why it's not really profitable for someone to offer a turnkey professional optimization service. Most likely way to get optimization for residential/other small scale setup is to learn DIY / spend an inordinate amount of hours on forums)

 

[svelocity]

Thank you everyone for replying and Happy New Year! Apologies for not getting back to my question sooner. I got wrapped up into the holidays.

I was thinking it would be a much simpler modification using the existing residential framing than what has been suggested. My thinking (perhaps incorrectly) would be to attach a hinge to one side and a lift to the other so I/we could angle the panel more southerly during the winter and more westerly during the summer.

Cheers

 

[zanydroid]

Thank you everyone for replying and Happy New Year! Apologies for not getting back to my question sooner. I got wrapped up into the holidays.

I was thinking it would be a much simpler modification using the existing residential framing than what has been suggested. My thinking (perhaps incorrectly) would be to attach a hinge to one side and a lift to the other so I/we could angle the panel more southerly during the winter and more westerly during the summer.

Cheers

There’s a ton of ways to angle things ?

All of them will still require AHJ approval of the structural soundness. It doesn’t sound very sound but I’m not that kind of engineer. You should hop on Greenlancer and ask around, there probably are very few people on this forum that have direct experience with this.

Easiest way, which also retains retain NEM2, is to install new rails yourself and move the panels. You can add 10% / 1kW more (not sure exactly what the calculation is) and still retain NEM2 if I’m not mistaken.