Thursday, August 19, 2010

I'm not just talking renewable energy. I'M DOING IT!!!

Every since I started doing renewable energy people have asked me, "Jeff what do you have at your house?" For a long time I said nothing. But just this year I decided it was time to do something. Because if you are going to try and sell this stuff to others without doing it yourself, seemed kind of hypocritical. Why should I get you to buy a system from me if I don't do myself. If it such a great idea why not use it yourself. So I decided I was got to pull the trigger on a system for here.

I really wanted a wind turbine at my home but because where I live that does not allow me to have one. So I decided to go with solar. By now I was not sure about this decision to go with solar, because I was like everyone else. Oh that won't work here because it is so cloudy all the time. But my first system in Glen Lake changed my mind. It was working so well that I decided to go for it. Since that project I have done several others.

Well two weeks ago I started with installing the roof mounted racking. This racking is on the West side of the garage, not the South side like typical installations are done. My ridge line runs North and South so I can only place them on the West or East side of the roof.


Once the racking was done I installed all the Enphase micro-inverters.


With the micro-inverters it allow each panel to work independent of the other panels. Which in case of a panel failing, that allows the system to continue to work. I also can monitor each panel individually. Also since I have some shades throughout the day this does not effect the whole system just that one panel. Here is a link to my system that you can see throughout the day.

The next day I installed the solar panels and connected all the panels to the inverters.



Street view




Next Spring I am planning on installing 6 more panels on the East side of the garage roof. This will almost allow us to have a net zero everyday for electricity.

I have been very pleased with the out come of my system so far. We have not recieved an electric bill yet. But since I monitor our house pretty closely with the TED I know how well the system is working. We have actually had some very low days of kilowatt usage since the installation. I hope to have something up on my website soon to show how well the system interacts with my house and solar. So keep checking back from time to time.

If this something you are interested in doing at your home or business feel free to give me a call with your questions or if you would like an estimate to install a system for yourself. We live solar everyday and we love it.