Want to go Solar so many options

[CloudyDaze]

Hello everyone i am new here.

Wanting to go solar but so many options i am lost a bit..

Wondering if anyone would be able to shed some light to help me come up with a plan.

I live in Washington State, Northwest corner of the state.
I want to DIY it all.
Want to do Grid tie in with batteries later.
i believe my power company (PSE) does net meter 1for1 and any remaining credits are erased at the end of March yearly.
200amp panel currently.
Roof has a 30 degree pitch
Also would like to take advantage of the 30% tax credit if possible.
Was thinking 12Kwh panels.

just lost on inverter vs micro inverter etc
Roof Shingle brackets
Basically everything

Any help would be appreciated

 

[zanydroid]

Can you show a zoomed out aerial picture? That will give more info on micros vs string. To see how much shading is there. Also need rough dimensions of those roof planes. The big one should be fine for strings. The small one, hard to say without dimensions.

You need to run PVwatts twice, once per roof plane.

What is the cost per kWh from your power company? To provide a guesstimate for whether there is an ROI. I thought PNW has quite cheap electricity compared to California.

 

[CloudyDaze]

Thanks for the heads up on PV Watts. Here is the west 270 degrees (back of the house) the one above was the side of the house South 180 degrees, if i got the Azimuth setting correct.


The side of the home (south) is roughly 50x4 ft below the roof vents
and 46 x 4 ft above the roof vents

the back (west side) has roughly a 17x17 area below the roof vents


power is decent 12c per Kwh but prices keep rising and i heard they were going to add some tariffs for peak hours and 30-40c per kwh


My thought was to get them in while net metering is still an option to help them pay for themselves.
PNW sucks for sunshine, but also like the fact that i could have power if anything ever devastating happen to the grid.
Would use the power company as my battery for now and then later add some batteries for backup, i hardly ever lose power.

 

[zanydroid]

Did you put the same number of panels on both sides for the PVwatts? That is OK as an initial pass, eventually you want to size it for the number of panels.

The side of the home (south) is roughly 50x4 ft below the roof vents
and 46 x 4 ft above the roof vents

the back (west side) has roughly a 17x17 area below the roof vents

Can you draw it out on the diagram?

I would recommend doing test layout with 400W solar panels (54 or 108 cell), or whatever else is easy to find in your area right now. IIRC from memory those are 68" x 44" (but you should Google a spec sheet). Test layout should take into account the roof access path requirements in your area, in California it's 3' from the ridge and one 3' path on each plane (roughly). With drop to 18" from ridge in some situations and 18" in valleys in all situations.

For maximum cost savings you can buy a whole pallet at a time, if you are slightly under you can keep them as spares in case of damage (you won't be able to find a matching panel in 5 let alone 15 years), and sell the rest.

Looks like no shade?

peak hours and 30-40c per kwh

What hours is peak going to be? Here in California they're not aligned with peak solar production hours (because those are probably the cheapest times of the day for the power company to buy electricity).

Your options are to either buy a hybrid (with somewhat high markups as of today, on either battery or inverter, or both, which I expect to drop a lot in the next 12 months). Or if you believe the costs will drop, buy grid tie inverters and add batteries when you need the backup or the TOU kicks in. With a reliable grid the main savings would be against TOU. With $0.12/kWh and no TOU rates yet, you might just finish an initial design now and wait & see. With $.30 vs $.10 there's not much room to mint money with an ESS at present prices. Here it is $0.22 vs $0.65 and it's maybe marginal with a DIY install. Turnkey, would not break even for like 15-20 years (so possibly longer than the equipment can last).

I used Hoymiles microinverters for my shaded situation, if I was not shaded string inverters would have been cheaper. Was talking to some folks that liked Growatt MIN TL on the forum, you can look for threads and ask about that, maybe. Only RSD needed in your situation.

 

[Philip53]

"My thought was to get them in while net metering is still an option to help them pay for themselves.
PNW sucks for sunshine, but also like the fact that i could have power if anything ever devastating happen to the grid.
Would use the power company as my battery for now and then later add some batteries for backup, i hardly ever lose power."

Having power during emergency grid outages is the main reason I went with solar 12 years ago. But realize, you will not have any available power for your house during an outage unless you have batteries. If you only have a grid connected inverter, and not an inverter connected to a battery bank (hybrid inverter), you will only be selling back to the grid, with no emergency back up of your own. A hybrid inverter, with a connected battery bank, during a grid outage, picks up your connected house loads, and your solar panels then charges that battery bank. Proper battery capacity, solar aray size, and inverter kw sizing is needed to give you a back up system that will meet your expected needs.

For example, you can have the largest solar panel array(s) that can fit in your yard or on your roof, but if you have a small battery bank, you will only have power to your house loads for a very short period during an outage. If you have a huge battery bank, but few solar panels, you may not be able to charge those batteries adequately during a grid outage, and again, your loads would not be powered for very long. If you have a large panel array and a large battery bank, but an under capacity inverter, you would not be able to efficently sell back to grid your available solar panel capacity, or give you the power necessary for the house loads. All of this information is out there, but it takes a lot of research and planning to do the job yourself. But many others have done it, and the ones that took the most time to research and plan their system are the most happy with the results. Please also note, that the better quality components you purchase, the happier you will be. All you have to do is read through the posts on this forum to discover that tier one components will give you much less grief, with a longer life of your system - priceless.