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Mythical $3.50/watt installation?
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I got a similarly sized system for $18,950 including all permits taxes etc. This amount is before the Federal ITC. From paying the deposit to getting permission to operate was around 7 weeks which was a little longer than I would have liked. I think it was a great deal and they did an excellent job. It's been running a little over a week and so far I'm very happy with it.
Cheers
KIWI
http://pvoutput.org/list.jsp?id=41203&sid=39052
They didn't know there is a turn-up process that steps you through pairing the optimizers to the inverter. They left the inverter on and connected to the grid, said it would take a few hours to come up and go live. I finally read the manual, turned it all down to cold steel and started it up from scratch following the manual instructions. I had it working and making power in about 10 minutes. Also got the wireless slave up and running, communicating with the router that's connected to my Comcast cable modem.
SolarEdge won't let me self-register on their website, so I've now gotta wait for the company I'm contracted with to figure out how to do that.
My payment schedule is as follows;
10% upon delivery of engineered drawings
50% upon completion of installation w/proof operation, registration and warranty activation
20% upon passing final inspection
20% upon PG&E approval to self-generate and connect to the grid.
I've only paid the first payment since they have yet to register my installation on SolarEdge's website and prove the wifi router is sending data and that my warranty is activated.
If I knew how easy solar is to install, I would have saved myself about $7,000 of the $18,414 I paid. As it is, I've made it clear that they need to 'adjust' the price considering the damage they caused to my roof as well as the time delay that was in violation of the contract.
I'm seriously considering starting a solar installation facilitator job, where I work with homeowners to get their solar installation done right. From what I've seen, there's a lot of unskilled labor out there and a lot of homeowners who haven't a clue what has happened to their home if they can't get on the roof. A permit inspector isn't going to fail an installation for the stuff I found, however, my roof would have probably started to leak within the first 5 years or so if I had left it the way it was.Comment
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https://monitoringapi.solaredge.com/sites/list.json?api_key=<YOUR API KEY HERE>
In the response, you'll see near the beginning an "id" tag and a number following it. That is your site id. Further in the response is an account ID, but that number is not the right one.
Once you have the site ID and API key, two sections of your setup on PVOutput need to be filled out:
Settings.GIF
primary.GIF
If you donate to PVOutput, the Status Interval and Polling interval can be set to 5 min, and the Temperature and Voltage data can be enabled. Otherwise, the Intervals need to be set at 15 min.
If you want the "insolation" view to work as intended, you should also make sure the array size, orientation, and location fields are filled out as well. There is more you can do with it, but that should be enough to get you started.
The site registration process only requires the inverter serial number. It will auto-identify the optimizers, and yeah... the tags will make creating the layout much easier. A little bit of intentional shade will help identify each panel if the tags get lost.CS6P-260P/SE3000 - http://tiny.cc/ed5ozxComment
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There are several smart and knowledgeable guys on this site who live in my area. I was seriously thinking it would be worth something to pay one of them to line things up as far as bids and to keep an eye on the project.
Along similar lines, I found that trying to book airline reservations with my frequent flyer miles was just way more hassle than I wanted. So I paid one of the many people offering awards travel booking services. They know the ins and outs and the tricks of the trade. It's way too complicated for me to want to spend my mental energy on it.
As far as solar, I am trying to educate myself and have learned a little so far, but will probably never be in a league with JPM, for example.
Maybe I'll start a separate thread on this subject.Comment
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