The System We Chose

January 28, 2004 by
Filed under: Solar Energy 

Rick Brooke of Jersey Solar came to my house in mid-December, 2003 and did a site survey and discussion of our options.

Our house is a 2200-square-foot colonial home built in 1995. Unfortunately for us (our fault – we bought it new and chose the lot), the front of the house faces east, making the roof ridge line almost exactly north-south. That puts a natural limit on the amount of solar energy that we can generate, since we won’t be in full sun all day on either side of the roof. However, we should have sufficient sun to generate at least some power most of the day – sunset being the exception.

After a review of the site, Rick recommended putting the panels on the front of the roof – facing east. This was primarily for three reasons:

1. The back side of the roof has things sticking up out of it (plumbing vents, exhaust fan heads).

2. We have planted trees in the back yard intended to shade the back of the house from the summer sun in the afternoon – prime air-conditioning time. Those trees should eventually cause shadows on the back of the roof. We have no such trees in front – just a small fruit tree that shouldn’t get tall enough to block the sun.

3. The back of the house is close to other houses and a large several-hundred-year-old tree, which will block the sun. The front has the front yard, the street, and the neighbor’s front yard before an obstacle to sunlight.

We originally considered a grid-connected system with battery backup from AstroPower. We decided against it because that system would provide 5.76 kW of power and have a net cost to us (including the batteries) of $24,500. As you’ll see below, that is a $10,000 increase over the system we chose just to add battery backup. We decided that we could buy a gas generator and transfer switch for much less than that installed, should we ever want the backup capability. Besides, we haven’t had a power failure over 1 hour in the 8 years that we’ve lived there (and that only once or twice). PSE&G provides rock-steady power in our area.

We chose a Sharp system instead that will provide 6.66 kWdc of power for a net cost to us of about $15,500.

The system will include:

36 Sharp 185 watt NT-S5E1U solar photovoltaic (PV) modules
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Mounting Hardware
One exterior PVC conduit from the roof to base of the foundation for the PV module connections
One exterior cutoff switch (required by the utility)
A new electrical subpanel for the output of the inverters
Some other miscellaneous electric switches, conduit, wiring, etc.

The gross cost of the system is about $51,500, with the state rebate program paying the difference between gross and net to us. We’ll also have to pay out as much as $500 in fees for permits and PSE&G interconnection.

We have a 25-year warranty on the PV panel modules and a 5-year warranty on the inverters. The installation is warranted for 5 years as well.

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  1. Smith Electric Company » Blog Archive » Solar Installation Site Index on Fri, 20th Feb 2009 2:49 pm

    2. […] The System We Chose (Jan 28, 2004) (NOTE: Some technical details changed later.) […]

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