Has anyone installed solar panels? What has been your experience? DIY install extra appreciated.
Thinking of self installing a 5kW solution onto a South facing garage. DIY solution appears to be 60% cheaper than hiring a local installer (Ohio)
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I'm an electrical engineer who designs commercial and Utility Scale PV systems (i.e. Multi acre solar power plants), though I've done a couple dozen residential systems as well.
@evranch@lemmy.ca chimed in with some really good advice, but I wanted to add a few things.
If I were to do my own system I'd go with micro inverters, enphase IQ8 most likely, as they can be setup to operate during a grid outage, either with a battery backup, or with a load balancing panel.
Careful of the downfalls of going the DIY route, not sure how it is in your state, but in some states I've worked in you will forfeit incentives if you don't use a qualified installer.
Get familiar with your utilities net metering policies, if they don't net meter power at or near retail rates then you'll end up giving them your power for free/cheap whenever you overgenerate. Some utilities will also make it difficult if you're not going through a qualified installer.
Lastly, and this is coming from someone who understands the industry intimately, really take a look at the numbers and decide if this makes sense for you. Most residential solar will take 5-10 years to pay for itself (after incentives) and start to generate a profit. Compare that with the same sum invested in a general s&p500 index fund which would likely have doubled in value during that time.
Ultimately I decided not to install solar on my home, despite the ability to 100% DIY the whole thing and get parts at steep discounts, and instead installed a backup generator and signed up with a local community solar array (which is not something that all states/utilities allow).
Happy to answer any questions you may have!
One guy from Poland posted a video in polish on YT where he calculated that his roof solar in last 10 years of operation provided significantly less RoI than if he simply bought gold at market price 10 years ago and sold it now.
This is a freaking scam over here. We need power mostly in winter, especially with the push to install more heat pumps. Solar is not working in the winter here, people literally got scammed by government that subsidized solar and heat pumps installations for lower income families on the condition that they remove coal or wood powered heating. Now they can’t afford to run those heat pumps!
Thanks for this reply! I put off the professional install of panels as the ROI was just too far out. Self install did come up as I'm fairly competent but your points still highlight the problems. Sometimes the numbers just don't work, even if you can do it cheap