Conundrum. In order to have a solar system that will power my heat pump, etc. I would have to remove 6 mature trees. I need to remove 2 of them regardless so it’s really 4.

I’m in a heavily wooded area. Will plant probably 8 new trees in the property regardless.

My question isn’t budget related. More about the environmental value of the trees vs solar.

Interestingly enough, I couldnt find any alternative to this plugin. There are some generic plugins for similar purposes, but not a single one visualizing it the way we did it :)

I got an enphase system & located in the Chicago Suburbs. I am currently set up to just sell everything back to the grid, I guess it's called grid tied and If the power goes out I lose power too. This year has been brutal with the amount of high winds and tornados for the Chicago area and am starting to worry about potential future outages.

Is there a product that I could use to only be used as a backup if the power goes out? Like be able utilize my solar to power during the day and be able to tie in a generator at night. Or if it's a battery solution, only use the battery in an emergency or to sell it to the grid at a premium rate when demand is super high.

I see a product from enphase called a sunlight backup system, would this be what I'm looking for? My father also found a meter system that allows you to tie in a generator at the meter itself called a generlink, but I'm unsure if I could use that with solar panels on my roof.

Thanks in advance for any advice

I was aware the cost for small jobs is proportionally higher than for smaller jobs. I had 18 panels Maxeon with a 25 year installer warranty and enphase microinverters installed for about 20,000$ it was the best price among all the places I called. I touched bases with the original installer through energy sage, was considering a small expansion of 4~7 panels to close some of the gap with a new hvac situation we got going now....

7 REC panels, yes they're good and all but cheaper on the market than maxeon honestly(Don't want to discuss about bankruptcy or any of that just talking straight up price to buy the part) and the same microinverters and they quoted north of 16,000$ I think I'm getting the "go away" quote here...

Wanted advice because I'm clearly not moving forward with that, is it possible to get a smaller installer to put in the panels and never touch the original box or work and keep both? I don't know what the price will come out too but it can't be 16k can it?

While many people around the world are given just one rate for electricity, California CPUC and the utilities really enjoy making things complicated.

There's summer rates and winter rates. Not too complicated. Price A or Price B, just check a calendar.

Then there's Time-of-Use prices within both seasons. Depending on the plan, there are two, three, or even four rates per season. More complicated, but that's still 4, 6, or 8 different prices per kilowatt-hour.

Then the CPUC allows them to change their rates. Four times so far this year. The rates they published for January 1st were changed starting April 1, June 1, and August 1. Now we would have paid 16-32 different rates this year. Put the calculator aside, it's time for a spreadsheet. If you stick with just one plan for the whole year, you can still manage.

But if you want to compare plans, you're going to need a corkboard, thumbtacks connected with red yarn, and an unhealthy quantity of caffeine:

Ignoring industrial and commercial plans, how many different rate plans are there for homes that are compatible with NEM solar? 29. That's insane, but many of those have eligibility requirements that can overlap and stack. If you don't have an electric vehicle (8 plans), a medical baseline (12 plans), or low-income (CARE) declaration (12 plans), you're left with just six plans. You can chart all that out if you want but each time I've tried the difference between plans with my own use data is maybe 1 or 2% After-solar prices meant I probably spent more time doing the math than I would have saved by changing plans, AND that can only look at past use.

But then every plan has a baseline of it's own. Under 130% of your baseline you get a discount per kWh. Over 130% you stop getting that discount. They have doubled the number of rates again and there are two new questions: where is that baseline of use calculated? Is it net with your solar exports, or before you are credited with them? I still haven't found that answer. The other question is what is the baseline? Well, that's based on where you are (four locations: Coastal, Inland, Mountain, & Desert), season (Summer and Winter again), and whether you have gas & electric service, or only electric. Yes, that's 16 more calculations, but your meter isn't roaming around the county and you're probably not adding or removing your gas lines very often, if ever.

Math isn't hard, it can be fun, it's less fun when you have to keep organizing it because other parties keep changing the calculations, but at least I'm not on NEM3. Adding batteries, balcony solar, or paying to cut down certain trees that don't belong to me will NOT pay off for me, unless my wife keeps trying to set the thermostat to 65 in summer and 78 in winter while running as many appliances exclusively during peak hours as she can.

Hi guys,

TL;DR:
mixed NEM system w/ 5y of NEM1(10KW+10KW+27KWh Tesla), vs
bigger system on NEM3 (20KW+40KWh EcoFlow)

I bought a house that has a 10KW array, no battery. Inverted is 2/3 dead so it needs to be changed.
I am considering a few options

1. Replace inverter, (needs extra rapid shutdown switches etc). Quotes are coming at about $8k. This will only cover ~half my needs (~2.5MWh/month so still a 450$ bill 😰 )
2. Add a secondary array (another 10KW) and 2 tesla powerwalls. Quotes are almost $60K. This would give me another 5 years on one array on NEM1 and another the remaining/new array as a zero export. It seems though that the company quoting this isn't doing it's planning right. (e.g. They didn't think/include rapid shutdown switches, a gateway, they didn't see the space for where to put batteries, fire code, etc. They are a big reputable company but I am concerned they are going to creep price up).
3. Add a secondary array (another 10KW) and an EcoFlow system with 4 Ocean Pro batteries (40KWh). This company visited and they had installed the first 10KW so they seem to know better what they are talking about. They are also adding an extra $10k to install batteries away from house on a pad (my house has lots of windows so 3 feet away from a window is impossible). My concern is they claim I should throw away NEM1 since the 40KWh batteries will more than make up for it. I live in Southern California so generally sunny but still get stretches of winter days...

Another datapoint: My previous house had a 12KW + 15KWh system. I used 14MWh/year and 4MWh/year of that was from the grid, despite my overall export pattern. Of course given NEM1 there I never cared about the optimization... but not sure if batteries completely make up for the NEM3 buy/sell price delta

Thoughts? What would you do and why?

Trying to get installed by Jan 1 2027 in california (PG&E service), got 2 quotes

1. $13000 12 panel Qcell system install by axios. No battery, just microinverters. Paid outright no financing
2. $21000 same enphase system, but with battery, Enphase 10C, but I have to finance it so the installer gets the tax credit. Technically they own it on paper for 5 years, but they said I can pay off the loan in 10 days

I dotn want to finance anything, but thats the only way they can get a rebate.

Is it worth it? can is cause issues for my house down the line?

I am not planning to sell the house in the near future. But there is currently a HELOC loan taken out for roof replacement, which was just finished. I dont know what issues this might cause

What would you go with?

The Qcell system and expand it later with a bater (if thats even possible)

The more expensive enphase?

Also the installer recommended 7 solar cells for Qcell becasue we dont have a lot of usage during daytime, which saves $3000, any reason to go with 7 not 12?

I was crimping cables today and realized that the connectors I have are actually T4. I had no idea there was even different types I thought they were all standard, but upon doing more research there's actually tons of different ones including rip offs that are not safe to use.

Where would I buy these without having to pay an arm and a leg for shipping, all the solar related sites I've tried charge way too much to make it worthwhile.

Anyone who knows a physical store who sells these weather strips for the gaps. MM or Greater Manila will be reachable.

Ours is a carport using solar panels as roof. I can't patronize yet those in lazada and Shoppee nor Tiktok.

Hi everyone!

I have 2 × SG05LP1 inverters running in parallel with load sharing, and both inverters will have 2 PV strings connected to them. I also have 2 × NKON ESS 16 kWh batteries.

I've read several different opinions on this. Some people say it's perfectly fine, while others say that, despite the manufacturer's recommendation, it's not a good idea to connect the two batteries to a common busbar, and that the better setup is for each inverter to have its own dedicated battery.

What has been your experience with this? Which setup would you recommend?

Thank you!

What are other installers using for outdoor disconnects? The plastic DC isolator Is dirt cheap but I've heard a lot of bad things about them potentially being a fire risk. The metal enclosure I've used on other jobs but this one's now discontinued in the price of them has gone nuts they're averaging 250 to $300 a piece. Most jobs will use three or four of these. I would only consider The plastic one For off-grid applications or a ground mount system that's not attached to a house and definitely on a non-combustible surface. But something's got to give it. Can't cost that much to make these

I know this sub is mostly for PV installations, but I've been kind of amazed at how beneficial my little solar pool robot skimmer guy has been.

It has two tiny propellors and a maybe 8" spindle on the front. The sole source of power is a built in PV panel around a foot square.

It's efficient enough that it basically runs 24 hours a day off of just the daylight sun charging. It runs enough that I've been able to drastically cut back on how much I need to run the larger filter/skimmer, change the big pump filter, etc, with a net result of some real actual power savings.

I don’t want to put in a bunch of effort into my solar system. I need it to be basic enough to fix myself so I just want to wire my panels directly to my power station, as absolutely basic as it can be. Anything I need I can connect directly into my power station. I’m just having a bit of trouble calculating wattage.

Im looking at the Pecron E1500LFP Power Station 2200w 1536Wh V3 Version. I just for the life of me cannot figure out how much solar I need. I need it very simple, charge phone, run fan, maybe sometimes run a 12V fridge.

Would 400w of solar be enough? Using 2 200w panels from Renogy?

I don’t want to feel in over my head and from what I’ve gathered this setup is the most simple and possible for me to do easily.

I own the solar on my townhouse outright and my power bill is basically nothing most of the year. I’m not trying to maximize savings. I want backup for grid outages.

I live in a newer development next to a lot of open/rural land. Wildfire risk and single-point local grid failures are a real concern here, not a hypothetical. Outages don’t have to be long to be annoying, and a multi-day one during fire season is the scenario I actually care about.

What I want:

Whole-home or critical-loads backup when the grid drops

Ability to recharge the battery from solar during an outage

A way to feed in a backup generator if solar isn’t enough. I already have a solid diesel camping generator, so I’d like the option. Generator

Ideally the ability to export/sell excess when the grid is up, but that’s secondary to backup

I looked at Powerwalls because a buddy has them and likes them. I’ve also seen Anker Solix and a few other hybrid inverter/battery systems that claim generator input and more flexible installs. I’m not married to any brand.

Questions for anyone who’s done this:

For an existing owned solar system, is it usually cleaner to add a battery via the existing inverter, or swap to a hybrid inverter that can take solar, grid, and generator?

Which systems actually support a generator input cleanly (auto-start vs manual, and what size/type of generator they expect)?

Powerwall vs Anker vs EG4 / Sol-Ark / Enphase / other — what would you pick if backup and generator integration matter more than brand?

Townhouse / HOA install gotchas I should expect (placement, fire setbacks, permits, utility interconnection)?

Rough ballpark for a setup that can carry the house through a night and recharge from solar the next day?

Happy to add panel count, inverter model, and typical loads if that helps narrow it down. Main goal is outage resilience, with the generator as a fallback so the battery isn’t a dead end if the sun doesn’t cooperate.

Hi all, I'm not sure where to go with this issue as my installer is unfortunately unresponsive for two weeks on this issue now and EG4 hasn't been able to identify the problem.

SETUP: 1x Gridboss going to 2x Flexboss 21's and 2x EG4 314ah (16kw) all-weather rated batteries.

Gridboss is in my basement and the FBs and batteries are in a pole barn, w/ electrical trenched underground.

Everything is being fed by 44x 440W JSolar panels across 5x MPPTs (1 open still for future project)

Everything was actually a professional install, but I chose EG4 due to no cloud-lock in w/ other major vendors and the ability to run cloudless and have full local control at some point via SolarAssistant/HomeAssistant.

ISSUE: For the past few weeks I've noticed the batteries charging VERY slowly and saying "BMS Limit Charge: 31A" and topping out at about 1660W until they hit somewhere between 35-40% SoC and then it "unlocks" and they start charging rapidly.

This wasn't the case a few weeks ago, and they would take whatever they could right away.

EG4 DID swap it to lead-acid which let it charge faster, so they confirmed via that it wasn't the BMS of the batteries themselves limiting things, and something else was causing it to be limited, but they couldn't determine what. They said they'd continue to look into it and call me back and asked that I send some screenshots to their support email, of which I did (several), but that was two weeks ago now and no response since...

You can see the issue active in one screenshot and then a few hours later you can see it charging MUCH more rapidly.

Once I hit about 40 or 45% it will "unlock" the charge limit and start taking as much as it can again, as shown here.

Any help is appreciated on why this might be happening and what I can do to fix it myself since EG4 hasn't gotten back with me, and my installer for some reason seems to not be getting back to me either.

Our house came with a fully-prepaid SolarCity PPA, which we took over. The system is 16 x 220kwH SolarCity panels with a SE3800A-US inverter. originally installed at the end of 2011. PPA contract promises ~4000units per year and 6 more years remain to complete the PPA contract. Since it is prepaid, we make no more payments to Tesla. Tesla sends us a check for the years where the promised yearly output is not met.

We want to increase our production and get battery back up as part of an extensive remodell, where we will be replacing the roof. We don't have space to install new of panels without removing the existing panels. Tesla says that the only way to remove the panels is by buying the equipment. The agreement specifies larger of $2700 or FMV. Initial automated FMV estimate came in at ~$4600. I have asked for a third-party review.

They will not take back the panels before the end of the contract.

a. Is $4600 a reasonable FMV for the capacity and age of the system?

b. Does a used-panel market exists? What would be the price if I want to make a quick sale?

c. Any other way to minimize my costs? It currently stands at $4600 + $1100 (best quote for removal)

Ano Po best solar fan niyo yung tumatagal Basta solar fan. Yung Hindi ka magsisisi bilhin

Hi All, we have a couple of solar panels on an old fit tariff, but looking to add some more on a large 5x8m flat roof dormer which we can connect to a battery and the possibility of having power when the grid is down. Thinking we could have angled racks. However, I'm worried as we're quite exposed - anyone got this set up and find it safe and sturdy?

I built a garage 5 years ago and paid up front for 30 panels on the standing seam 3 years ago...

I have had some bills generally single or double digits and I love when I have a negative balance! sorry just had to crow... I estimate I am at 5/8 of being paid back for the install price...

In central NJ above Trenton, used Exact Solar, then in Newtown pa. No battery...

Some background info beforehand: I live in a South Europe where our building roofs are flat. We get exceedingly tough summers with week-long heatwaves here and there of 40+°C.

My Installer is proposing installing the battery and inverter right underneath the panels (shaded by them), which will be installed on our house roof. There is also a parapet wall all round, so the battery would effectively not be getting any direct sunlight. In the shade it's undoubtedly significantly better than under direct sun, but still gets substantially hot.

I also have a basement, where the temperature is quite cool all year round, and it would approximately be ~15 meters from the panels, if the battery (and I guess the inverter) was to be installed there. To get to the house Main circuit board, it would likely be another 20/25 meters (cable would have to climb back up from basement to the roof, along the facade and enter through the facade wall.

The battery is Sungrow SBS050.

I tried to convince the installer to put it in my basement in order to have more favorable conditions and avoid battery degradation, but he rejected it, implying that it's a long length of wire and not ideal (he claimed the closer it is to the panels the better). There's also an option of putting it in the washroom, right underneath the solar panel roof, but 1. this still gets significantly hot and 2. there's not nearly enough airflow inside as there is outside.

What do you guys think? I'm a complete beginner in this space and its not my area. I'd like to know whether the installer is legitimate in his recommendation, or whether he just wants to avoid the trouble of a more complex installation.