What is the right system for me, 19,485 kWh yearly usage

[out2dasea]

Hey!

I am in the process of getting quotes/info about going solar. We live in the palm springs area and used 19,485 kWh last year. Unfortunately we have eddison and will have the TOU prime plan. I have been getting quotes from the major company. I have some decisions to make.We have plenty of roof space, but unfortunately due to HOA's, some of our panels will be on the south roof and about 25-40% of the panels will be on the south roof and the rest on the east facing roof. I have plenty of east facing roof space.

1. Panasonic vs Sunpower. The temperatures out here in the summer are routinely over 100, sometimes over 110, therefore I am wondering if the heat co-efficiency of the panasonic panels make them the better choice..

2. Battery vs no battery - over summer we will have a lot of evening and overnight AC use. We have 12 tons of AC in our house, its fairly efficient for its size but we will get over 3500 kWh of use monthly during the peak summer months. The venders are trying to convince us of getting battery(s) given the fact that SCE TOU prime plan isn't has solar friendly as it used to be. Also I will likely get an electric vehicle within the next 2-3 years.

3. If I go Sunpower, is it worth the extra expense to get the 360's over the 327's if the overall system would have similar wattage?

Thanks

[ButchDeal]

Can you fit more on the south or west roof In CA HOAs cant significantly effct the cost and this the layout of your system.
If you can fit the same total kw then the eficiency doesnt matter other than cost, so not worth it for higher wattage modules.

[Mike90250]

When does the afternoon shadow from San Jacinto hit your array - are you out far enough to get reasonable harvest till late afternoon ?

[out2dasea]

As far as panel placement, I can probable get a few more panels on south/west facing. Prob wont be more than 16-19 panels on south/west facing roof. Also, My wife doesnt want any visible from the street. As far as afternoon shade, We are actually in South Palm Desert near the living desert so we get a decent amount of evening sun before the mountain shade.

[ButchDeal]

My wife doesnt want any visible from the street.

The more you can fit to the south-west or west the better. A pv module in the west is much more valuable than one to ghe east. You wife might not want to see them from the street untill that is that she finds out that not doing so will make it cost a lot more to offset your bill...

[J.P.M.]

Hey!

I am in the process of getting quotes/info about going solar. We live in the palm springs area and used 19,485 kWh last year. Unfortunately we have eddison and will have the TOU prime plan. I have been getting quotes from the major company. I have some decisions to make.We have plenty of roof space, but unfortunately due to HOA's, some of our panels will be on the south roof and about 25-40% of the panels will be on the south roof and the rest on the east facing roof. I have plenty of east facing roof space.

1. Panasonic vs Sunpower. The temperatures out here in the summer are routinely over 100, sometimes over 110, therefore I am wondering if the heat co-efficiency of the panasonic panels make them the better choice..

2. Battery vs no battery - over summer we will have a lot of evening and overnight AC use. We have 12 tons of AC in our house, its fairly efficient for its size but we will get over 3500 kWh of use monthly during the peak summer months. The venders are trying to convince us of getting battery(s) given the fact that SCE TOU prime plan isn't has solar friendly as it used to be. Also I will likely get an electric vehicle within the next 2-3 years.

3. If I go Sunpower, is it worth the extra expense to get the 360's over the 327's if the overall system would have similar wattage?

Thanks

The CA Solar Rights Act mandates the CA HOA's cannot forbid alternate energy systems on members property, but it's not a Carte Blanche for members to do what they want. HOA's CAN enforce some restrictions on how those systems are put on a property. Read the law. It's pretty straightforward. Then, work with the HOA and remember you'll get more flies with honey than vinegar. Any other arrays in your HOA ? Know that what your neighbors got is about what you can expect.

On efficiencies vs. temp.: Even if you had a way of determining any difference, the small efficiency difference from a possibly lower temp. coeff. of power will most likely not be much, if anything in terms of performance If you are worried about temp. the by far best thing you can do is ensure at least 6" of clearance between the roof surface and the bottom of the panel frames. Doing so will be much more effective than worrying about things that matter little and anyway can't be measured. Raise the array as much as possible and use the increased air flow to lower the array temp.

Skip the batteries for now and add them later, if at all, when things settle out, get more standardized, more reliable and less expensive in the battery application world.

Panels are now commodities. Do not go for the "Most Efficient" or "Best Warranty", or " Lowest degradation over time" hype from S.P. or anyone else. That's all B.S.

S.P. (and Panasonic) are good products, but no more efficient or reliable than other quality products that are much less expensive. The auto analogy: Don't buy a Mercedes as a grocery hauler thinking it'll be better than a Ford or Toyota for the same task. Sunpower systems come with bragging rights and not much more compared to other equipment in the what really matters dept. PV systems are appliances, not lifestyles.

Size the system so that for however many years in the future you plan, at the end of that time, the NPV of the money you've spent on electricity bills plus the initial and operating cost of the PV system is the lowest of all the system sizes you can consider. Believe it or not, that's often not a 100 % offset of your current or estimated usage, depending on a lot of things.

Read "Solar Power Your Home for Dummies" and then download and run PVWatts after reading ALL the help screens a couple of times. Then, use you newly acquired information and call a few non Sunpower or Panasonic vendors. You might be surprised.

Welcome to the neighborhood.

[discodanman45]

These are the only rules for having a solar panel with an HOA. The HOA may suggest changes and enforce their codes IF the system doesn't have an increase of over $1000 and the efficiency loss is below 10%. My HOA has very strict rules regarding solar panels, but because of the California rules on solar systems, they can't be enforced. For an example our HOA states that "Solar panels should be at the same pitch as the roof, even though the slope may not be "optimal."" This is not enforceable and many residents have pitched North arrays. Since is would be a 10% efficiency loss to not have the panels tilted differently then the pitch of the roof, the HOA rules cannot be enforced.

[Ampster]

To add to the above, in California, the HOA has to respond to your request in 45 days.

[discodanman45]

1. Panasonic vs Sunpower. The temperatures out here in the summer are routinely over 100, sometimes over 110, therefore I am wondering if the heat co-efficiency of the panasonic panels make them the better choice..

2. Battery vs no battery - over summer we will have a lot of evening and overnight AC use. We have 12 tons of AC in our house, its fairly efficient for its size but we will get over 3500 kWh of use monthly during the peak summer months. The venders are trying to convince us of getting battery(s) given the fact that SCE TOU prime plan isn't has solar friendly as it used to be. Also I will likely get an electric vehicle within the next 2-3 years.

3. If I go Sunpower, is it worth the extra expense to get the 360's over the 327's if the overall system would have similar wattage?

Thanks

1. I got LG panels, but if I could do it again I would go cheaper panels. I had fantastic quotes for Mission Solar and Canadian Solar panels. The installer is more important than the type of panel. There are many brands of efficient panels with great coefficient %'s. JPM analogy of driving a Mercedes versus a Toyota is great. Brands for solar panels do not mean much at all.

2. Batteries are not worth it. Just take advantage of your TOU rates. My panels produced 19.8 MWh for one year. I used 26 MWh. It cost me about $450 to be connected to the grid and to use over 6000 kWh of energy over my production. That works out to be 7.5 cents per kWh. How long would it take for a battery to pay itself of at that cost? Maybe never is the right answer because they are only warrantied for 10 years. The only reason people should consider a battery is to produce all of their own energy for environmental reasons or the expensive luxury of having energy in blackouts.

If you are planning on getting an EV I would also have them install a Solar Edge system with a SE7600 EV charger inverter. The reason for it is you can get back the 30% on the inverter with tax credits and don't have to worry about adding one later on. Something to talk to your installer about.

[scrambler]

Reviewing high quality cheaper panel alternative, I came across the REC N-PEAK recently which look very interesting

https://www.solarpaneltalk.com/forum/solar-panels-for-home/solar-panel-system-equipment/395301-any-feedback-on-rec-n-peak-panels

[J.P.M.]

To add to the above, in California, the HOA has to respond to your request in 45 days.

HOA's in CA must respond to most any properly formatted request for a home improvement that falls under the HOA's governing document authority in no later than 45 days or the request is approved. Nothing new or unusual there.

[out2dasea]

Ill do some HOA research, but bottom line is my wife also doesnt want it visible from the street. Still limits me to 16-19 panels only on south/west. We likely will need about 39-42 panels. Rest will be on east facing roof. Ill research some other companies that use LG and other panels. the REC N-PEAK panels look very interesting, but there is no installer listed on their website near by.

[Ampster]

HOA's in CA must respond to most any properly formatted request for a home improvement that falls under the HOA's governing document authority in no later than 45 days or the request is approved. Nothing new or unusual there.

Nothing new?
You may want to correct an earlier post in another thread where you insisted that the time frame was 60 days. Glad you finally got it correct, especially since you are the man in your HOA doing that. Others may have relied on that factually incorrect statement.

[Ampster]

Ill do some HOA research, but bottom line is my wife also doesnt want it visible from the street...... .

WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) still trumps HOAs or Agency Having Jurisdiction.

[bcroe]

Hey!

I am in the process of getting quotes/info about going solar. We live in the palm springs area and used 19,485 kWh last year. Unfortunately we have eddison and will have the TOU prime plan. I have been getting quotes from the major company. I have some decisions to make.We have plenty of roof space, but unfortunately due to HOA's, some of our panels will be on the south roof and about 25-40% of the panels will be on the south roof and the rest on the east facing roof. I have plenty of east facing roof space.

1. Panasonic vs Sunpower. The temperatures out here in the summer are routinely over 100, sometimes over 110, therefore I am wondering if the heat co-efficiency of the panasonic panels make them the better choice..

2. Battery vs no battery - over summer we will have a lot of evening and overnight AC use. We have 12 tons of AC in our house, its fairly efficient for its size but we will get over 3500 kWh of use monthly during the peak summer months. The venders are trying to convince us of getting battery(s) given the fact that SCE TOU prime plan isn't has solar friendly as it used to be. Also I will likely get an electric vehicle within the next 2-3 years.

3. If I go Sunpower, is it worth the extra expense to get the 360's over the 327's if the overall system would have similar wattage?Thanks

I would suggest a couple of things. First, make some measurements to see just where the
KWH are consumed. If the primary users are AC, next consider a rework of that entire
plant. Using recent high tech efficient units, my energy usage has probably been cut in
half compared to a 5 year old heat pump I had. A coupe paths might work. One is use
of a ground sink heat pump. Another is the Mini Split type which have many additional
advantages. These would take care of heating as well.

I think it is not yet prime time for batteries, compared to their huge operational issues.
Batteries on the scale to help you would be just huge. Bruce Roe