Transcript The solar panels on your roof collect the energy from the sun and convert that into DC voltage. That DC voltage then travels down into your inverter which converts into AC voltage. That AC voltage is going to be used by the loads in your home like a refrigerator in the daytime or the air conditioner, something being used in your...
Transcript Here's a little science lesson for you. A kilowatt is a unit of measurement, and it's a thousand watts. A watt is the electrical Standard for energy transferred and is calculated from volts X amps. You'll typically see watts, like a 60-watt lightbulb. If I had a 60-watt lightbulb on for one hour, it would consume 60 watt hours. If...
Transcript There are a lot of different inverter manufacturers out there, and they all provide--or the majority provide--some sort of monitoring. Monitoring is the ability for you to see the performance of your system remotely. That's either going to be on a website or on an app on your phone. Typically you're going to be able to see the total production of...
Transcript Some of the main issues we run into when you have a monitoring site--it's really just internet related. You may go log in and see that you don't have a few days of data or sometimes even a month's worth of data. If that happens, it's typically that your system is just not connected to the internet. We have to use a...
Transcript There is a fair amount of systems which will have built-in monitoring. That monitoring is provided by the manufacturer and it's run by the manufacturer. This monitoring is going to be something that you, as the end user, can log into and see your production of your system and track trends in the production. You can see the different months of...
Transcript With your photovoltaic system, there aren't a whole lot of moving parts, and there's not a lot of things to fail. Typically the PV modules are going to be the most robust part of your system. There are modules out there that have been performing since the '70s, so we don't see a whole lot of failures there. The inverter would be...
Transcript It's a common misconception that your system will work in the event of a power outage. But in reality, your inverter has to be able to shut off when it loses AC power to the grid. That's in order to protect the linemen who would be working on the power outage so that it doesn't create an unsafe situation. Here...
Transcript Typical things to watch for on the performance of your system are going to be displayed on your inverter or on your monitoring website. If you have a central inverter, it's either going to be inside or outside your house, and make sure to walk by it once a month and take a look at what it's doing in the...
Transcript Here's where the energy from your photovoltaic system goes. The first place it's going to go into your home and be consumed by the loads in your home, much like your fridge or your freezer or your microwave or your TV--anything you are using in the middle of the day when you are producing energy. If you produce more than...
Transcript There's a lot of paperwork involved with getting your system certified and up and running. We have to make agreements with the utility and you to interconnect your system into the grid. They have to verify that the system that we are installing and designing meets all of their requirements. There's paperwork for permitting. There's paperwork for your incentives. Some...