SMA 7.7 KW grid tie in the Cornpatch.

[TomW]

Well, folks, got it done finally;

Had a bit of trouble being the first one to do a residential grid tie with this tiny towns municipal utility.

Nobody knew what to do and the paperwork went through about a dozen revisions with some unworkable requirements and conditions before we found something we can all live with. They removed the million dollar liability insurance requirement and just require homeowner liability now. Also removed the licensed solar installer bull and modified it to "qualified person".

I had to reach out to the local Mayor and City Council to jump start the inept electric utility superintendent. He was not against it,  just in over his head and his motivation to cooperate was non existent. After the city officials got involved it was fast tracked and we finished paperwork all up Friday AM and Doug, my electrician and I pulled the cable and wired it all up. Commissioned the meter Saturday AM once it got light out.

We had a whopping 4 KWH surplus overnight from Saturdays production on a rather non sunny day. We also took a couple demand electric water heater showers overnight. 


Pretty happy with the system so far.

Anyway, it is no longer a plan, it is a done deal.

Not much to take photos of but here they are..

[TomW]

The photos kind of suck, forum wouldn't let me upload the ones with good detail.

Top one is the 24 Trina 310 watt modules.

#2 is just the DC wiring installed in the connection area of the SMA SB 7.7. They have it really easy to do with stab connectors on plugs for a neat look and no exposed connections.

#3 is the inverter hung on the ugly baby crap yellow paint flaking off concrete wall in the basement.  It shows correctly on my computer but its rotated on the forum??

Tom

[BobWhite]

Nice job Tom, what did you use for racking on those panels? Throw a pic of the back side if you can?

Walt

[BobWhite]

Nice job Tom, what did you use for racking on those panels? Throw a pic of the back side if you can?

Walt

Sorry Tom didn't realize this was spread out over more than one tread! i'm good

[ClassicCrazy]

Tom,
Glad you got your panels cooking into the system now - happy days of solar ahead !

Larry

[russ_drinkwater]

Congrats you will never look back!
The pain of the panel cost will dull with time and gets less every time you get a power bill!

[TomW]

Congrats you will never look back!
The pain of the panel cost will dull with time and gets less every time you get a power bill!

Indeed, the modules and rack with installation were the pricey bits. The inverter was surprisingly reasonable compared to a similarly rated Outback off grid set up. Plus no pesky batteries to be concerned with killing and replacing.

Its been active for 10 days mostly overcast, clouds and rain and it has produced about 100 KWH and that is about half of our consumption in that period. Pretty happy with it all so far. Expecting it to really shine (pun intended) when we get our normal weather of 200+ sunny days per year and after the winter solstice and days start to stretch rather than shrink.

Tom