# My Solar Year in PA



## Bigriver (Jan 26, 2018)

2019 was our first complete year of having our solar panels installed and producing for us. It was a very good year. It is an 11.97 kW system with 38 panels, of which 13 face Southeast and 25 face Southwest. The system was estimated to produce 13,600 kWh per year, but our actual for this year was 14,000 kWh, which is a 3% bonus. Our system was sized for 100% offset of our home electricity use, plus 30% to allow for car charging (as the design basis year was before we had EVs). Our actual usage for the year was about 2000 kWh less than expected, so that we are a total of about 2400 kWh to the positive.

Plot is attached showing the expected/design basis values as curves and the actuals as bar charts.


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## NJturtlePower (Dec 19, 2017)

Bigriver said:


> 2019 was our first complete year of having our solar panels installed and producing for us. It was a very good year. It is an 11.97 kW system with 38 panels, of which 13 face Southeast and 25 face Southwest. The system was estimated to produce 13,600 kWh per year, but our actual for this year was 14,000 kWh, which is a 3% bonus. Our system was sized for 100% offset of our home electricity use, plus 30% to allow for car charging (as the design basis year was before we had EVs). Our actual usage for the year was about 2000 kWh less than expected, so that we are a total of about 2400 kWh to the positive.
> 
> Plot is attached showing the expected/design basis values as curves and the actuals as bar charts.
> View attachment 31623


Interested in the details of your system equipment.... Panel Brand/Wattage & Inverter Type/Size

My system is nearly identical at 12.35 kW just over the boarder in NJ. It's also designed to be 100% offset although estimating was tough since I hadn't had my Model 3 a full year during the design phase.
System Details:

38 Hanwha Q-Cells DUO-G5 325w Panels
38 SolarEdge P400 Optimizers
1 SolarEdge 11400H Inverter
3 Arrays/Strings Total
20 Panels South
12 Panels East
6 Panels West
Only been online since the first week of Sept. 2019, but chugging along with 3.662MWh generated to date. Excited to see what a full 2020 will bring! 
Our first year system output estimate given by our contractor GPE was 14,354 kWh.









Are you on PVoutput? You can check out my system here: https://pvoutput.org/list.jsp?sid=67749


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## Bigriver (Jan 26, 2018)

@NJturtlePower....Yes, we have very similar systems. Mine has 315 W panels and we have 2 solar edge inverters, but I don't offhand know all the specs. Thanks for the link to pvoutput.org. I was not aware of that website but it looks fascinating and I will definitely look into joining it.


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## NJturtlePower (Dec 19, 2017)

PVoutput is really cool and offers much more data tracking, analysis and reporting vs. the SolarEdge dashboard alone.

To give you a quick rundown, once you register and input your system details including monthly production estimates, etc, you then set up your Auto Upload data source which is your SolarEdge inverters. You use your Site ID from the SE dashboard to request an API Key via online chat if you don't have full Admin rights on the SE site. With that API Key you plug that into the appropriate PVoutput section and all your production data coming out of your inverters is automatically uploaded every 15-min to the PVoutput site for viewing and analysis. There are also a few advances data fields that will only populate with a paid donation (linked below)...I believe it was about $10 US (it's an Australian run site) for the year but not required. There's a full help guide as well on the top bar for any setup or fields that are not clear. For me the tricky part was just combining/averaging my 3 array estimates and details since the system only allows you to input two arrays total. I input my largest southern array by itself and then did some averaging for the smaller two.

Live Data Example for today....









https://pvoutput.org/help.html#donations

Overall it's much like TeslaFi for Tesla, which I also LOVE and been using since Day-1 on my Model 3. If you haven't tried TeslaFi yet send me a message, I can give you a referral for an extra 2-weeks free for a total of 1-month. There's so much data coming out of our cars that we never see or can use without a service like this. Example attached below*

https://about.teslafi.com/

Don't mean to clutter your Solar thread too much, hope the info is useful to you or others browsing the site....feel free to message me for any questions, etc.


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## ChristianZ (Nov 10, 2018)

NJturtlePower said:


> PVoutput is really cool and offers much more data tracking, analysis and reporting vs. the SolarEdge dashboard alone.
> 
> To give you a quick rundown, once you register and input your system details including monthly production estimates, etc, you then set up your Auto Upload data source which is your SolarEdge inverters. You use your Site ID from the SE dashboard to request an API Key via online chat if you don't have full Admin rights on the SE site. With that API Key you plug that into the appropriate PVoutput section and all your production data coming out of your inverters is automatically uploaded every 15-min to the PVoutput site for viewing and analysis. There are also a few advances data fields that will only populate with a paid donation (linked below)...I believe it was about $10 US (it's an Australian run site) for the year but not required. There's a full help guide as well on the top bar for any setup or fields that are not clear. For me the tricky part was just combining/averaging my 3 array estimates and details since the system only allows you to input two arrays total. I input my largest southern array by itself and then did some averaging for the smaller two.
> 
> ...


Hi,
How do you get your Site ID from the SE dashboard? Do I have to call Tesla to get that information?


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## NJturtlePower (Dec 19, 2017)

ChristianZ said:


> Hi,
> How do you get your Site ID from the SE dashboard? Do I have to call Tesla to get that information?


When you log in to SolarEdge you should see it on the right side directly below the "Site Status" indicator... See Red Box in my screenshot below.


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## michigantesla (Mar 9, 2019)

One nice thing about using Enphase microinverters for my DYI system is it shows output per panel. So you can easily see if there is a single panel issue. Since 2 of my panels are at a different angle then the others I have them in another group and you can really see the difference in the dead of winter in panel output for those 2 as they are at a 48 degree angle.


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## NJturtlePower (Dec 19, 2017)

michigantesla said:


> One nice thing about using Enphase microinverters for my DYI system is it shows output per panel. So you can easily see if there is a single panel issue. Since 2 of my panels are at a different angle then the others I have them in another group and you can really see the difference in the dead of winter in panel output for those 2 as they are at a 48 degree angle.
> View attachment 32828


Same is available with SolarEdge and optimizers under the "Layout" tab of the dashboard. Allows me to see daily, weekly, monthly, lifetime, etc. Even time-lapse of those periods, so you can monitor as the solar energy shifts from morning to evening.

Mine are on 3 arrays, on three different roof faces/directions. Sadly, Tesla Solar will not map panels out like this even if asked to.


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

Would you mind sharing how much you paid for your system including size and extras?

I'm in Ohio and I was quoted $38k before incentive for a 7 kw system + 1 Tesla powerwall.

Tesla's estimate is $34k before incentive for a 7.5 kw system + 2 powerwalls. Unfortunately Tesla is not serving Ohio at the moment.


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## FurryOne (Apr 19, 2019)

I just had an interesting discussion with a "Tesla-Approved" installer. They quoted me almost $60K for a 10.4KWh system with 2 Powerwalls. Tesla quotes $33K for an 8.1KWh system with 2 Powerwalls. WTF am I missing here? Has anyone gone directly through Tesla and gotten their system fully installed for the quoted price, or is that just a low-ball come-on before all the extra equipment is added in that's not mentioned????


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

FurryOne said:


> I just had an interesting discussion with a "Tesla-Approved" installer. They quoted me almost $60K for a 10.4KWh system with 2 Powerwalls. Tesla quotes $33K for an 8.1KWh system with 2 Powerwalls. WTF am I missing here? Has anyone gone directly through Tesla and gotten their system fully installed for the quoted price, or is that just a low-ball come-on before all the extra equipment is added in that's not mentioned????


Beware these Tesla-approved installers. Often, all they are approved for is installing the powerwalls. I was also contacted in Ohio in 2019 and the panels were not from Tesla. A 320 watts panel costs around $300 without installation. A 10.4kw systems has around 30 panels for a cost of around $9000. Excluding $19k for the powerwalls, $32k for additional hardware plus installation is prohibitive.


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## Bigriver (Jan 26, 2018)

FurryOne said:


> Has anyone gone directly through Tesla and gotten their system fully installed for the quoted price, or is that just a low-ball come-on before all the extra equipment is added in that's not mentioned????


Tesla didn't change my price at all after the initial quote.


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

NJturtlePower said:


> Only been online since the first week of Sept. 2019, but chugging along with 3.662MWh generated to date. Excited to see what a full 2020 will bring!
> Our first year system output estimate given by our contractor GPE was 14,354 kWh.


Have you calculated how much power you have generated in 2020?


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## NJturtlePower (Dec 19, 2017)

FrancoisP said:


> Have you calculated how much power you have generated in 2020?


So in all of 2020 (similar to my first full solar year) I made 14.28MWh and sold my 14 SREC'S for a total of $3065.

I paid only about $250 in excess usage to my utility through the year mostly due to additional charging of my car. About 8 months I paid only the $2.78 connection fee with excess kWh banked and used up in the low fall-winter season.


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## francoisp (Sep 28, 2018)

NJturtlePower said:


> So in all of 2020 (similar to my first full solar year) I made 14.28MWh and sold my 14 SREC'S for a total of $3065.
> 
> I paid only about $250 in excess usage to my utility through the year mostly due to additional charging of my car. About 8 months I paid only the $2.78 connection fee with excess kWh banked and used up in the low fall-winter season.
> 
> View attachment 36927


How many years for your ROI do you figure?


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## NJturtlePower (Dec 19, 2017)

FrancoisP said:


> How many years for your ROI do you figure?


About 5 1/2 I believe is the plan....

The NJ SREC program my system is a part of (SREC's credits earned for 10-years @ Market Rate) is now discontinued and newer systems in the state are now part of the 15-year fixed rate TREC program of $91 per MWh.

This is compared to my SREC's which vary at a market rate, but to date I'm so far averaging a sale price of $219+. The new program will definitely extend ROI unless there is a drastic crash in the SREC market.... fingers crossed they'll stay high.

https://www.njsrec.com/


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