Thinking of self installing a 5kW solution onto a South facing garage. DIY solution appears to be 60% cheaper than hiring a local installer (Ohio)

  • endlessbeard@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    28
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’m an electrical engineer who designs commercial and Utility Scale PV systems (i.e. Multi acre solar power plants), though I’ve done a couple dozen residential systems as well.

    @evranch@lemmy.ca chimed in with some really good advice, but I wanted to add a few things.

    If I were to do my own system I’d go with micro inverters, enphase IQ8 most likely, as they can be setup to operate during a grid outage, either with a battery backup, or with a load balancing panel.

    Careful of the downfalls of going the DIY route, not sure how it is in your state, but in some states I’ve worked in you will forfeit incentives if you don’t use a qualified installer.

    Get familiar with your utilities net metering policies, if they don’t net meter power at or near retail rates then you’ll end up giving them your power for free/cheap whenever you overgenerate. Some utilities will also make it difficult if you’re not going through a qualified installer.

    Lastly, and this is coming from someone who understands the industry intimately, really take a look at the numbers and decide if this makes sense for you. Most residential solar will take 5-10 years to pay for itself (after incentives) and start to generate a profit. Compare that with the same sum invested in a general s&p500 index fund which would likely have doubled in value during that time.

    Ultimately I decided not to install solar on my home, despite the ability to 100% DIY the whole thing and get parts at steep discounts, and instead installed a backup generator and signed up with a local community solar array (which is not something that all states/utilities allow).

    Happy to answer any questions you may have!

    • MigratingApe@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      One guy from Poland posted a video in polish on YT where he calculated that his roof solar in last 10 years of operation provided significantly less RoI than if he simply bought gold at market price 10 years ago and sold it now.

      This is a freaking scam over here. We need power mostly in winter, especially with the push to install more heat pumps. Solar is not working in the winter here, people literally got scammed by government that subsidized solar and heat pumps installations for lower income families on the condition that they remove coal or wood powered heating. Now they can’t afford to run those heat pumps!

      • skillissuer@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        in poland specifically:

        • if you want to sell energy to grid, terms absolutely suck
        • grid is often overloaded in the summer in areas with large # of pv installations, meaning too high voltage, meaning inverters shut down;
        • there was a years long robocall campaign that sold these installations. pv installations are subsidized so more people could set it up and middlemen like this appeared

        if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, or you want to use it all without selling energy, or such, you’ll be fine. if you believed robocalls that say that it will get you net passive income from that, tough luck

        if you want to get a better deal, get solar water heater. it works always if there are no clouds, even in winter you can get 40C on a clear day

    • MrNorm@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      1 year ago

      Thanks for this reply! I put off the professional install of panels as the ROI was just too far out. Self install did come up as I’m fairly competent but your points still highlight the problems. Sometimes the numbers just don’t work, even if you can do it cheap