A Solar Learning Experience

My solar journey over the last year and half has been pretty enlightening. I’m usually a very thorough researcher – probably to a fault – and typically highly skeptical of verndors. In retrospect, I put far too much faith in trust in others instead of doing all of the due diligence myself. I’ve definitely learned my lesson, and I hope to help others not repeat my same mistakes.

A few high level tips:

• Terminology - there are a lot of terms that will likely be unfamiliar to you. It’s good to know some key terms and look up ones that are foreign. The SolarEdge site has a good glossary of terms
  • Azimuth - The direction that your roof faces
  • Battery Capacity - The total amount of electrical energy a battery can deliver
  • Clipping - When the DC solar system output exceeds the maximum capacity of the inverter and power is lost
  • DC/AC Ratio - the ratio of installed solar DC capacity to the Alternating Current (AC) power rating of the inverter
  • kWh - Unit of energy or power measured over a period of time
  • kW - kW is a unit of power. 1kW is equivalent to 1000W of power. Solar systems are measured in kW
  • Oversizing - A way to increase the output of a solar energy system. Oversizing a solar energy system means that solar production has a higher peak capacity than the inverter rating
  • PV Array - A Photovoltaic solar system. A linked collection of solar panels on a roof is called an ‘array’.
  • PV Inverter - PV inverters were originally developed to convert direct current (DC) generated by PV panels to alternating current (AC) for use in the home or to feed into the grid
    • String Inverters - An inverter that connects to a string of solar panels. String inverters are among the more common types of inverters used in residential solar energy systems today
      • String - A number of photovoltaic modules or panels interconnected electrically in series to produce the operating voltage required by the load
    • Micro-inverters - A micro-inverter is device that connects to a single solar panel, converting DC (direct current) from the panel into AC (alternating current). Unlike string inverters, micro-inverters control the output of a single panel.
• Get multiple quotes - it never hurts to get multiple bids, and it can be enlightening to see how different proposals compare (both in price and in components)
• Research, research, research - there’s no shortage of information on the internet and it can be pretty overwhelming. There are a few pretty good sites that I ended up coming back to:
  • Project Sunroof - a Google project that uses Google Earth to give a quick analysis of your solar capabilities
  • PVWatts Calculator - this one can get a little complicated/technical and is probably best to use after getting solar proposals
  • Various Forums - there are lots of helpful users out there, and various forums have a plethora of information. The specific forums may have a lot to do with the actual components (i.e. Tesla), but reddit is always a good source to look through
• Do the math - there will be a lot of components to your system which include a bunch of different numbers. The two that are really important is your system size (the sum total of wattage from all the panels) and the inverter size. If your system will use micro-inverters, then this isn’t quite as important. However, with string inverters (like Tesla uses), you want to ensure that the inverter is sized appropriately
• Ask questions - a lot of times questions will get ignored. Be diligent, keep asking, and know that if the questions don’t get answered then that’s probably a red flag

Here is the timeline for my personal solar experience with IconPower (last update 05/20/2024):