DiyLightAnimation
Fun => The Porch => Topic started by: RJ on August 25, 2013,
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For years I have been designing and building devices and items to take in electricity and to output light of one kind or another. So to break tradition and mix it up I felt it was time to try it backwards. So I built something to take in Light and put out electricity.
So as soon as the inspector oks it and the power company swaps my meter for it. This is the latest time sink I have been working on. Hope you enjoy.
The porch has a new view!
A few facts :
It is 12,000 watts or 12KW
It is made up of 48 250 watt panels.
it will produce more power than our house uses and will in fact provide a small check back to us form the power company.
Dad, my boys and I built it (DIY) so the cost was a fraction of the cost to put on in normally.
I ordered the panels and hardware online.
It uses Enphase M215 microinverters so each of the 48 solar panels has it own inverter mounted under it. This allows me to monitor the whole thing right down to the voltage, current, and temp of one panel and the AC power output of that panel and inverter.
It took us about 6 weeks of hard work nights and weekends to build.
It is very heavy duty do to us being in Florida we have to meet hurricane building codes so it is made from 3 inch steel pipes and they piers are 6 ft into the ground with 12 inches of concrete. Its not going anywhere soon!
It will save us enough in about 6 years with the current rate increase of duke energy to pay for it all.
It is all warrantied for 25 years and there are systems 40 years old still putting power out.
In a few weeks when I can bring it permanently online I will post a link so any of you that want can see the current and post output of the system online.
RJ
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Awesome job by the Jordans as per usual
So when is the coop? ;)
Rick R.
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+1 on the coop idea.
Mind you, I'll need to move as my backyard doesn't have enough real estate for 1/2 of that.
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Cause we have the land we did a ground mount but most people put them on there roof.
I didn't want to have to work up on my roof.
RJ
Sent from my Charge by Tapatalk
RJ
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Wow, that is an amazing setup. I envy you!
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Fantastic looking setup RJ!
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Thanks Guys!
Something the wife and I have been wanting to do for many years, it just finally got cheap enough.
RJ
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Wow, that looks great.
I would love to build and use one of those. I hope that someday the power utility here will support this sort of stuff.
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Looks great !! Looks like nobody is moving anytime soon.
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:o so.
.. where to the lights plug in?
And where is the lynx logo?
bravo, on the job well done.
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It's not LYNX it's
J.P.L.
Jordan Power & Lights
RJ
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Looks awesome RJ! I looked into doing that a while back (not DIY) and the cost was more that it would ever pay back. 6 year payback is not bad at all considering what it will cost after that! <res.
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Looks great RJ. Whose solar panels did you use?
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Does is have any battery bank that gets charged?
Transfer switch?
It would be really interested to read some of tech details behind this project!
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When does the COOP start? ;D
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Fantastic job! I've looked into it on and off, but never as a DIY project....would love to read more about it myself!
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Agreed, would a How To...
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This looks awesome, I'm so jealous!
With inverters right at the panels, you really simplify things and cut out the huge ongoing costs / maintenance hassles of battery banks. In the end, you wind up feeding more into the Duke grid than you take from it each month (for night time blinky) and make some money on the deal.......I love it.
Mike E.
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It would be interesting to see the cost to watt ratio.
Good thing you don't have to be held hostage to any private company or government agency.
I wonder if a person could break this down into small sections and slowly add panels as they could afford them. This could take the cost of Christmas lights down.
With all the out of the box thinkers people here on the site I wonder how low we could get the panels in price down.
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How tough are the panels in hail ? I'm guessing they must be very tough.
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How tough are the panels in hail ? I'm guessing they must be very tough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aI6K3xlgYoY
RJ
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Thanks guys I will do a walk around on it and answer your questions as soon as I can.
RJ
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I would love to be nosy too and learn how the costs work out on the plan of just a couple of panels and adding on every few months.
how does the back feed "electronics" work? Would LOVE some details on that. I have a 800sqft on a shop roof and would love to put a system up there a little at a time and back feed into the power grid for some money. My last electricity bill was $242, which is completely outrageous! THREE HOUSES AWAY IT'S 60% less!
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My last bill was $298. Florida is hot and air conditioning eats power. Post any questions you have so when I do the video walk around I can cover everyones in it.
RJ
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its good to be off the grid......now how to get them from reading our e-mails and listening to our phone calls :o
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Hope it answers your questions.
https://vimeo.com/73266798
RJ
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Wow RJ, that is really, really cool!!! Excellent job!! Thank you for the video!!
:) joe
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Yes thank you -- it answered all questions and then some. Excellent as usual !!
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Thanks for the video. Very informative.
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Very cool! The radio station I work for put in a huge array was dedicated about a year ago at the transmitter site. More on that here: http://radiomagonline.com/green/kezw_goes_green_with_solar_0213//index.html
The fact you did yours yourself (and with the help of your family) is really impressive! Thanks for sharing the video. We do get hail in Colorado, but I wonder if that would be covered under a home-owner's policy or if special coverage could be added. Anyway... <res.
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Awesome video! I'll watch it again when I had pen and paper so I can take notes!!
Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2
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very cool, and I like the way you handled the different factors (like battery).
thanks for sharing!
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Nice job RJ
<res.
Been reading up on M215 microinverter, big bang for he buck. It must look at the utility to sync phases, do you know if it is a true sign wave?
Jess
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Thank you very much RJ, just doing some quick back of the napkins figures, putting a couple of these up would run about $1000 to $1200 locally. At the 9.2cents per kWH I find myself paying quite often at the top tier, it's a payback in the 7-8 year range providing 10 hours a day of feedback to the grid at 210 watts per panel. During the winter it would be less, during the summer it would be more, so I figure that is pretty close.
Off to do some research on back feeding locally and to see what they pay vs what they charge.
So literally in the house panel, you just have both 240 volt sources tied to the bus bars? I never paid much attention that they had a spot for the second cable to mount, but you said a 60 amp breaker on the panel, so you just adapt your 2-0 wire to 10 gauge or 8 gauge copper and connect directly to that split 60 amp breaker?
Again thank you!
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The power comes in to the panel on 6awg and then connects to a two pole 60 amp circuit breaker. This ties it to both phases for you safely.
They are true sine wave but it does matter since they will not run with out the grid, the grid would always make it pure sine. They do sync, when they power up they go into a monitor mode where they want to see reliable power for a full minute before they will make power. During this they track and sync.
Check out pvwatts
http://pvwattsbeta.nrel.gov/
It will let you tell it where you are, the closet weather reporting location, how big a system. From this it tells you what you will get taking in the weather averages ove the last ten years.
Does a good job but is normally a little conservative or the microinverter systems. If you change the debate ratio from the default .77 to .835 you get closer to real numbers on these systems.
RJ
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I, like everyone else, love this idea. I wouldn't consider myself much of an expert on this at all. So I ask...
I did go to the PVWatts calculator above. If I put the data in correctly using RJ's setup of 12kW I entered 12kW into the DC size for the array. And the fudge factor of .835 with everything else being default. I used my area (Albany, NY) it calculates something like 15,000kW/year or energy value of about 2,000$/yr.
My electric bill is only 70$/month (a bit higher around Christmas for some reason!). This translates into about $840/year for electric.
IF the calculations are correct, I could "sell" back ~1100$/year of electricity? This seems a bit unbelievable.
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I believe they pay you a lot less for "your" energy ... than they charge you, but still very cool.
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Correct, you do not want to make large amounts of extras for this reasons. We will make close to 18000 KWH which we use about 17000.
RJ
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Correct, you do not want to make large amounts of extras for this reasons. We will make close to 18000 KWH which we use about 17000.
RJ
Does this figure include your light show that you don't put up?
(not so subtle hint to do a light show this year.)
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Yea, he can turn that giant solar grid into an active matrix display. ;D
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Hey RJ, nice job on the ground mounted array. I went solar myself (rooftop 3.8 kW) in 2009. I was so taken with it that I decided to work in the solar industry here in California. I worked for about two years as a system designer. I designed quite a few ground mounted systems and I have to say I'm very impressed with what you've done considering you're not in the business. Since then I've been working for Sunrun, a solar services company. We make solar more affordable by lowering the upfront cost (PPA if you know what that is).
I have to say, though, that doing what RJ has done properly is beyond the average do-it-yourself project. RJ clearly has a lot of knowledge and experience that most of us don't. Even a small system can generate plenty of power to start a fire, so please be careful if you decide to attempt a project. At least have a licensed electrician do the wiring and tie-in for you. That's where most of the risk is. Also keep in mind that you will have to comply with local and national building, electrical and fire codes unless you don't plan to permit it (which I wouldn't advise). These regulations vary *a lot* depending on where you live.
Gary
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Great job RJ.
Just amazed at what you come up with all the time.
Steve
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Thanks,
It really is not that difficult now a days with the microinverters. you plug the units into premade cabling. There is no high voltage DC of the string inverters or the math to design the strings etc. Its basically adding a branch circuit. The manual takes you through everything you need to know.
While I did all the electrical myself I would agree if you are not solid on doing this you should just trench, run the wire and then pay a electrician to make the connection as already pointed out.
The racking is also easy, you go to ironridge and run their program, put in your panels and the number of them, wind load speeds required and it does the work and you print the stamped engineering data to provide your building department for your permit. It's just a big erector set. You follow the instructions in the assembly manual.
I am not saying it is not alot of work but the design work is all done for you. But like most DIY if you don't mind doing it yourself the rewards can be great. To have the system installed was quoted at $63,000 We did it for $25,000. After the 30% tax refund from it we ended coming in with the $17,500 As I said. A great place to deal with is wholesalesolar, This is where we got our stuff and they were very helpful. They sell kits for it of about any size you want.
RJ
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Ok finally got the new meter from the power company and turned on my system today.
For anyone interested here is my public site
https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/public/systems/qCZT228900
There is only today's data since I just turned it. But it is a live site and you can watch it as the days and months go by.
RJ
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we are in the process of designing our new house. I think I just found our power supply. thanks RJ.
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very cool
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Looks like your getting pretty nice kwh per day if I'm reading the site correctly. Do you have a way to measure your usage? I use a TED5000 personally.
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I have been looking at getting a TED myself. The new meter shows how much I purchased from the power company and how much I gave the company, my solar system shows how much total I generated so I can do the math to see where I am from usage.
We are suppost to use more than we make this time of year due to the A/C and 93 deg temps. then the rest of the year I make more than I use to generate credits to cover the next summer. We have been doing better than expected. We are 122% of what PVwatts estimated so far and we seem to be using less than normal at the moment so we are making a little more than we are using. We have been using about 50 Kwh a day the last few days. We normally would be using about 60 Kwh.
Pvwatts expected us to make 48 Kwh per day this time of year.
Here is a pic of the array with the landscaping done. I used recycled rubber mulch and border. It will last for 25 years so a little roundup once I year will keep the maintenance low.
RJ