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Solar system install tomorrow. What do I need to know?

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phantasms

Mr Self Destruct
Supporting Member
Jan 30, 2019
2,673
15,486
White Mountains, NH
System getting installed tomorrow in NY. No Powerwalls, 28 Panasonic 330 panels, solar edge with optimizers.

I’d like to be able to see individual panel performance. There’s some setting I need to ask for, no?

Anything else good to know or lessons learned?

I’m excited to power my favorite car with a nuke.

Thank you!!!

Best,
Gene
 
I can see individual panels without any special request. No history on individual panels though.

You should consider adding a consumption monitor. Either ask for the Solar Edge one, which is a bit pricey (cost me $500, but I asked for it after install was complete causing more labor). But it was worth every penny seeing production and consumption in the one app. One problem with it, is it does not report instantaneously, so it’s hard to track down wasted energy (still can be done, but it’s very tedious). But it’s extremely accurate and robust.

You could opt for an after market one too. I highly recommend Sense (you can buy it with or without solar) most Solar installations require the Solar option for it to work right. If they back feed the panel through a breaker you must get the Solar version ($350). Sense will report changes instantly. Once you have Solar, sometimes you become more neurotic over wasted energy. With a little thought you can save a ton. Especially if you monitor consumption. I probably could have put in a 25% smaller solar system and saved $8,000 or so had I cleaned up my waste with a monitor before hand. However, that over production I have now charges my car instead of the neighbors car.

The image below from solar edge app is charging the car while Solar is producing. Notice how low my baseline can get,140 watts when the house is “idle”. What’s your baseline? You probably have no clue. Mine used to be around 400 watts. That was 2.2 megawatts a year wasted. My system produces about 8 megawatts a year.

My home theater was using 100 watts on standby. Added a few smart switches and a macro on my remote. Poof almost a mega watt of waste gone. My HVAC AC compressor has a heater that runs all year round. Poof 50 watts gone for 8 months a year. Must wait a few days after turning it back on before operating. New variable speed pump on pool. Lots of motion sensors, timers and LEDs.

33165883248_3b015c58b8_h_d.jpg
 
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Reactions: phantasms
Welp, they came, they went. Great crew. The dude in charge was super knowledgeable and I wish I was dealing with him from the beginning. He’s like “you know you can fit 8 more panels on the South side” I’m like “dude, I’ve been telling them that for months, make it so!” So now my garage is full of solar panels which is kind of fun and they’ll get the new design on Monday and come back ASAP. I’ll need to step up on the inverter which frankly I’m happy about and previously requested. I’ll be going from 28 to 36 330W panels. I need me a new Roadster now so I can put all that power to good use! There’s no reason for the post I’m just excited and happy about this minor and amusing inconvenience. lol

Best,
Gene
 
So did they install 28 panels then will come back to add more or did they leave without any work and will come back later for the full install when the new design is ready? If they left without doing any work, I wonder how that affects their comp or cost to the company.
 
I can see individual panels without any special request. No history on individual panels though.

You should consider adding a consumption monitor. Either ask for the Solar Edge one, which is a bit pricey (cost me $500, but I asked for it after install was complete causing more labor). But it was worth every penny seeing production and consumption in the one app. One problem with it, is it does not report instantaneously, so it’s hard to track down wasted energy (still can be done, but it’s very tedious). But it’s extremely accurate and robust.

You could opt for an after market one too. I highly recommend Sense (you can buy it with or without solar) most Solar installations require the Solar option for it to work right. If they back feed the panel through a breaker you must get the Solar version ($350). Sense will report changes instantly. Once you have Solar, sometimes you become more neurotic over wasted energy. With a little thought you can save a ton. Especially if you monitor consumption. I probably could have put in a 25% smaller solar system and saved $8,000 or so had I cleaned up my waste with a monitor before hand. However, that over production I have now charges my car instead of the neighbors car.

The image below from solar edge app is charging the car while Solar is producing. Notice how low my baseline can get,140 watts when the house is “idle”. What’s your baseline? You probably have no clue. Mine used to be around 400 watts. That was 2.2 megawatts a year wasted. My system produces about 8 megawatts a year.

My home theater was using 100 watts on standby. Added a few smart switches and a macro on my remote. Poof almost a mega watt of waste gone. My HVAC AC compressor has a heater that runs all year round. Poof 50 watts gone for 8 months a year. Must wait a few days after turning it back on before operating. New variable speed pump on pool. Lots of motion sensors, timers and LEDs.

33165883248_3b015c58b8_h_d.jpg
Does the Tesla app show energy consumption? Or is the SolerEdge view different?
 
Does the Tesla app show energy consumption? Or is the SolerEdge view different?

I had the option added at my request when it was installed.
Mine is a separate SolarEdge box added. SolarEdge OEM's it from someone else.
It was expensive, but worth it to me at the time.

I'm not familiar with the Tesla app or Tesla installs. I think it automatically does with Power Walls. Not sure without.
If you are in the process of getting solar I'd ask your installer what the options are.

You can also consider adding a Sense Monitor ($350 with Solar option, Amazon had a $50 coupon the other day).
I just installed a friends Sense with Solar option just last night. Took all of 30 minutes.
 
You can see individual panel performance during the same day on the SE website, but nothing beyond that, on my install anyway. Nothing really special that I can think of and I have the same type of config.

I will add another vote for Sense.

I'll take this back. The SE web interface seems to have improved. You can see aggregate performance of individual panels at the daily, weekly, monthly and yearly level. There doesn't seem to be a way to control which week/month/year, so there is that limitation unless I'm missing something.

I like to watch the playback so you can see instantaneous output for individual panels and you can only do that for the day or week.



upload_2019-6-14_16-2-34.png


upload_2019-6-14_16-6-23.png
 
I'll take this back. The SE web interface seems to have improved. You can see aggregate performance of individual panels at the daily, weekly, monthly and yearly level. There doesn't seem to be a way to control which week/month/year, so there is that limitation unless I'm missing something.

I like to watch the playback so you can see instantaneous output for individual panels and you can only do that for the day or week.



View attachment 419281

View attachment 419282

How do you get the production info??
 
They did a very minor amount of work and left all the panels/hardware in my garage. I'm sure them coming out twice will negatively affect the profit of this install.
I wouldn't worry about that, it could have been easily avoided if they'd perhaps listened to their customer in the first place.

My array is a smaller version of exactly what you got and I'm extremely happy with it. These 330's from the Buffalo factory perform so close to plated capacity that I think my inverter may be under-sized. Haven't checked production at the panel level yet, that's to the poster above for the app instructions.

Your experience with the sales process not bending to your rational requests is fairly standard. Happened to me too. With Tesla moving all their sales online, I think we'll see the entire market forced to improve over the next couple years and these communication problems will fade.

Good luck with the install!
 
The Sense interface looks pretty neat. That sounds like a good route. Thanks
I've had a year experience with Sense, and it integrates POORLY with the PowerWall(s).

Unless you've wired your CTs so either your PW lines go through Sense's grid CTs or solar CTs, Sense will get very confused by PWs pushing back into the grid. Their auto-scanning system will flag it and send CS emails to you. DO NOT let CS adjust your Sense settings at that point, or auto-misconfiguration will kick in. Similarly with a freshly installed, or factory-reset Sense, auto-misconfiguration will kick in for the first 24 hours.

What happens is Senses determines the PW negative grid data as CT issues and automatically re-biases CT input to what it thinks is correct. This cannot be undone locally without a factory reset. CS has no control over this.

Th after-effect is 0 to negative grid-values when solar is gone and PWs are in standby mode, large non-zero site/grid bias values (100w+) while PWs pushing into the system balancing solar and grid to actual ZERO, large kW errors when solar is done for the day and PWs are still pushing into the system, etc.

This is besides that Sense is a long-con, and is best a glorified TP-Link smart-plug central display.
 
System getting installed tomorrow in NY. No Powerwalls, 28 Panasonic 330 panels, solar edge with optimizers.

I’d like to be able to see individual panel performance. There’s some setting I need to ask for, no?

Anything else good to know or lessons learned?

I’m excited to power my favorite car with a nuke.

Thank you!!!

Best,
Gene

Were your panels really Panasonic 330w ones? I thought that Tesla uses QCells 315w panels? Could you please confirm?
 
My panels were installed on July 1st and I received 39 330W SC330's that said Panasonic on the label
Thanks! After posting my question, I called Tesla and they gave me the option to choose between QCells 315w panels and Panasonic 330w panels. I decided to stay with QCells because it is all black and looks nicer. Both has the same warranty. In terms of number of panels, with Panasonic I as going to need just one less panel (26 vs 25). That was not a huge benefit for me because of the way the panels are layout on the roof.
 
I just ordered my system yesterday and did all the first “surveys” today and though I’m in the Seattle area, I’m curious how long it took from the time you ordered til the install date? Was it weeks or months? Thanks!
I placed my order on May 15th and our system was installed on June 20th. Tesla wanted to install it on June 10th but we couldn't take that appointment as we were out of town. We live in Northern California.