Over the past ten years, I’ve lived in two separate homes and have paid to install solar on both. It has been a great experience, but there are a few things I would do differently if I were starting over today.
Install the entire solar array at one time
This achieves a cleaner look
I have never installed a large solar array that can meet 100% of my family’s electricity needs all at once. The first time around, we were still learning, and we were sticking to a budget. The second time around, we hadn’t yet lived in our new home, so we could only guess at what size we would need.
The end result, this second time around, is that we have two separate arrays on our roof—one installed immediately after construction and a second installed after we had lived in the home for a year. I had assumed the installer would merely extend our first array straight across, but there are a few reasons why that wasn’t the case.
One issue is simply the logistics of installing new mounting racks and wiring. The second is the reality that the available solar panels have changed, so even if the panels were perfectly aligned, we’d possibly still be able to distinguish between the older panels and the new. If you want the best looking array, live in your home for at least a year to figure out what your needs are. Then, install a large array all at one time.
Install fewer, more powerful panels
Rooftop space is limited
Though I’ve learned much in my decade of solar power, I knew relatively little when we had panels installed on the roof of our first home. We took part in a solar co-op to negotiate the price and ended up with 20 300W panels. Added together, that’s a 6kW system, which means it can produce 6,000 watts per hour of direct sunlight. These panels covered the entire front of our roof, leaving little room for expansion even though the system covered less than half of our energy usage.
When we expanded the array on our current house, the installer went with 16 440W panels. This adds up to an additional 7,040 watts of power able to be produced in an hour. There are four fewer panels than the 20 panels on our first house, but by opting for more powerful panels, this array is able to still produce more power in less space.
It’s worth pruning or cutting down trees that shade the roof
There’s a noticeable difference in energy production
I’ll admit to being a bit of a tree hugger. I’ve planted dozens of trees around my current home in hopes of someday having a wooded and private residence year-round. This wasn’t an option in our previous house, which was in a neighborhood and had far fewer trees. Neither my wife nor I wanted to cut down the tree towering in our front yard, which cast shade on up to a third of our panels.
That tree eventually fell down on its own, and when it did, I noticed a large jump in our energy production. In financial terms, the cost of cutting down the tree eventually pays for itself in reduced energy bills. In ecological terms, while it’s sad to destroy the local ecosystem that a tree provides, the emission-free energy produced by rooftop solar means far more carbon dioxide is prevented from going into the atmosphere than the tree would absorb each year. Over the course of their decades of energy production, those panels will offset hundreds of trees.
Go with an off-grid hybrid inverter
No reliance on the cloud
The systems installed on my two homes have both been Enphase Enlighten setups. This name refers to the company that makes the inverter that turns the power from the solar panels into energy my home can use. Enphase also provides the software I use to monitor my energy production.
Enphase systems utilize microinverters, meaning there is a tiny inverter under each panel rather than having one big inverter that the panels all connect to. These systems are more resilient because there isn’t a single point of failure. One or two microinverters can fail with minimal impact on my energy production.
So what’s the problem? These microinveters communicate with Enphase’s cloud-based service. When the internet goes down, I can’t see what my panels are doing. The Enphase system is also designed to work with Enphase batteries, which cost more than competing batteries.
If I wanted to remove my cloud dependency and install the largest batteries possible, I could connect my system to a massive hybrid inverter like the Sol-Ark 18K. That unit can integrate with my existing microinverters, but since it doesn’t need them, it would save thousands of dollars to skip them and go with Sol-Ark or a similar brand from the beginning.
Where things stand now, I’m hoping Enphase batteries become substantially cheaper by the time I’m ready to add battery backup, and I’m prepared to accept our cloud dependence in this area. In the meantime, we rely on a ton of solar generators for emergency power instead.
On the whole, there isn’t a day that I regret paying for solar. My wife and I both drive electric cars and live in a decently large brick home, yet we’re accustomed to electric bills that are lower than a single tank of gas. After experiencing life with free electricity and travel, my first consideration when looking at a home is now how viable it is for solar, because I’m not going back.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
