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Gauging interest in design for DIY - feedback wanted

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  • #16
    Originally posted by badutahboy View Post

    You're absolutely right. That's exactly the camp I'm in. I want to buy my parts (including the single line diagram, which I can't do myself), and run with the install. However, I also want the best production I can get, and not everyone has an optimal south facing roof with no shading issues, which is why I started looking for someone to do a shade analysis for me. I figure a couple hundred bucks upfront could save me 10% on my system cost, resulting in instant payback.

    Just as an example, in my personal situation, my house faces east/west. The front also faces about 10 degrees north. According to PVwatts, the east side of my roof would ideally generate about 10% better. However, I have a large tree in my back yard, as well as trees to the south of my house, so I want to push my panels to the center/north end of my house. On the back, the tree in the back yard may interfere with production if I push panels further north, but I'm not sure exactly how much (it defintely casts shade on the roof in the early morning, but not all day long).

    Because of those issues, I want to do a full shading analysis. If I blow $200 and figure out that my intuition is correct (that I should just stick with putting them on the front, despite it's less ideal production), that's a minimal cost, but the upside is it could save me $1500+ AND allow me to put the panels on the back of the house, where they're out of sight. That's my motivation for heading down this rabbit hole in the first place.Ultimately, signing up for Aurora is cheaper than buying a solar pathfinder, and maybe $100 more than renting a Suneye. It also saves me all the time invested in taking the measurements and doing the math.

    It's clearly not something EVERYONE needs to do. It's also not something many DIYers will want to do. IMO, that may be a bad move on their part. I see it as one more step to knowing you're building the right system, rather than just slapping panels on your house and hoping they produce as hoped. As good as the free tools available may be, they simply can't account for factors like shading (with the exception of SAM, which requires a PHD to understand).

    All that said, I have the feeling you're right. The market for something like this is likely very small. I assumed that from the jump, and never planned on making a living at it. I figured it's more my way of giving back to the community, offsetting the cost of the software, and maybe making some beer money for my time.
    How about a restart on all this ?

    Do you know that PVWatts has an hourly output option ?

    Do you know that NREL has a lot of free software for calculating solar orientation and angles, as well as a boatload of other stuff. ?

    Do you know how to use a protractor ?

    Do you know how to find true south ?

    Do you know anything about Excel ?

    If the answer to all of those is yes, or can become yes, you've more than enough capability to help your intuition perform a basic shade analysis and get a pretty fair idea of whether or not a more (but not that much more IMO) sophisticated analysis is warranted.

    I've done the above several times. I've also used the solar pathfinder. I found the results and output adequately similar using either method.

    I'd respectfully suggest that for anyone considering setting themselves up as a solar consultant, the manual method described above would be a cake walk, or ought to be, and/or maybe at least a part of proof testing one's solar knowledge.

    As for SAM requiring a PHD, I kind of doubt it. About the only requirements for success with SAM that I see are some understanding of what the solar resource is, some knowledge of how to read PV panel and inverter data sheets and understanding of what the terms in those data sheets represent, some, but probably not a lot of basic engineering knowledge, and the patience to learn. I'd also suggest those are attributes necessary, besides and in addition to any legal requirements, for someone to claim to be a solar consultant.

    FWIW, The help function in SAM can be a pretty fair education tool all on its own.

    IMO, you still have the cart before the horse in the skills vs. goals dept. Most of this solar energy business is not rocket science, but it does take something of a learning curve.

    Take what you want of the above. Scrap the rest.

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