Solar Pergola Racking Recommenation
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Been awile since I gave an update. Today electrical inspected passed. The utility company is supposed to swap out the meter for a net meter friendly/bidirectional meter sometime this week or next week. The end is very near. In the mean time, I have been working on configuring home assistant and some other home automation tools to be able to monitor power consumption/production. -
2. The plan is still a finished surface. However, that will be waiting until next year. Getting work done from contractors is no doubt a challenge in the current environment.
3. The final plans (one of these days), call for a outdoor project screen, a swim span, and overall an entertaining area out there. For now, just waiting for the electricians and utility company to do the interconnect. At this point in Indiana, the weather is changing, so just trying to finish stuff up until spring.Leave a comment:
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Nice project.
How are the panels fastened to the purloins?
Are you still planning on a slab ~18" above your foundation/steel interface?
Do you have plans for storage under your "pergola"? Or is just the pair of swings all that is going to be there?
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Can't speak to the foundation design however.
But, not my design/system/$$.Leave a comment:
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Distance between North-South Piers is about 22'
Distance between East-West Piers is about 28'
The beams between North-South poles is W12 x 35 i-beams
The purlins (east-west) is W6 x 15 i-beamsLeave a comment:
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Solar Pergola/Canopy was assembled and constructed last week. I am working on backfilling the foundation holes over the next couple of weeks along with waiting for some electricial supplies to arrive. I am hoping to be installing panels by the end of the month.
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wow this looks amazing. are you going to plant grass under it?
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It's been since I provided an update. The past month we had rented a scissor lift. During that time, we managed to get all the panels, and cabling completed. I handful of ground based tasks to get completed in the next week, then it will be time to get the electrician's out here to do the interconnect. I have attached a few photos.
IMG-1309: Photo of the installed array and structure. Yes there two swings under the array.
IMG-1310: This is the combiner box that is mounted under the array. We have 8 strings that feed the 3 inverters. 3 strings to inverter 1, 3 strings to inverter 2, and 2 strings to inverter 3.
IMG-1311: This is a ground mounted enclosure that contains lightening protection as well as the data networking switch.Leave a comment:
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Solar Pergola/Canopy was assembled and constructed last week. I am working on backfilling the foundation holes over the next couple of weeks along with waiting for some electricial supplies to arrive. I am hoping to be installing panels by the end of the month.
Solar-Pergola.jpgLeave a comment:
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After challenges around my excavating/concrete sub-contractor for the pergola foundation, the project is back on track. The concrete pour is happening on Monday. I added some pictures of all the prep work that is now complete. One of the foundation holes is close to the network of natural springs that exist on my property.
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site-overview-W.jpegsite-overview-N.jpegLeave a comment:
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Ended up getting it for about 30k after rebates/credits.Leave a comment:
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looking good, how much us the structure and foundation going to cost with labor? I remember reading you got a $100K quote which was too expensive, how much did you wind up paying?Leave a comment:
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Excavation for the footers began today. These are the footers that will hold the pergola. Instead of running the inverters up to the north side of the house. I think we are going to place them under the array/pergola. It's not totally protected or hidden from sun (LG bifacial) , but should be mostly protected from direct contact with weather elements. This will save a lot of expense on cabling up to the house, and reduce energy loss due to cabling. Looks like the detached garage I was going to put the inverters in, will be delayed until we get some stablization in lumber/construction costs.Leave a comment:
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4 ga divided by 9), I would call that acceptable. I ran for years with 60A thru 4ga,
but was not happy with the whole run getting warm every sunny day. Bruce Roe
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In my setup we are running to 3x inverters (11.4kw each). Each string of optimizers supports up to 15 amps, x 3, should get us to 45 amps on each set of 4 guage. At 45 amps, is that still too much for 4 guage?Leave a comment:
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