Well, we are now a provider of electricity for the power grid! The last week of December the SolarCity crew came to our house an installed our solar array.
Before (click on images for larger view):
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| View from the back-yard. |
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| Street view, facing the front of the house. |
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| Ignore the tangled cable mess, that's left-over from the cable. |
They got it up in a day and, because our house is a little funky in where the meter and breaker box reside, finished the meter install the morning of the next day.
During the install:
Here it is installed and since the panels are below the peak you can't see it from the street - nice!
After:
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| If you look really close you can see the second meter on the lower left side of the house. |
The extras
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| Breaker box feed location is bottom left. |
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| Two inverters -- yeah, we are pumpin' the juice! |
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| Second meter is at the top left with the inter-lock below it. |
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| And finally, the receiver that transmits our monitoring data. |
Last week we passed the Washington County inspection (the whole system is permitted). Today PGE came by, inspected and approved our system, and TURNED IT ON! YA-HOO!!!
Our system is 8.64 kW DC using two PVI-3.8-I-OUTD-S-US-NG-Z Aurora inverters. And that's about all I can really tell ya. Look at the Residential site at www.solarcity.com for more info. It cost us NOTHING, SolarCity too care of everything and their customer service has been fantastic! We are leasing the system for under $60/month, will have a lower electricity bill guaranteed, and have the option to out-right purchase it at fair-market value after five years if we so desire -- which we won't because they monitor the system, insure it, maintain it, etc. so why would I want to take all that up when my life is busy enough as it is? So far I'm a very happy camper...bring on global warming!
