this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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If you are willing to DIY you can cut that number dramatically. Out of curiosity what was the size of the array in that quote and did it include battery storage if so how much chances are that you can cut it by anywhere from 50% to 75% if you're willing to Simply purchase directly and install yourself. The amount that installers charge is absolutely asinine usually 50% or more of that quote is just the installation which is in the same because it's not difficult at all. People like to act scared like oh that'll be difficult or hard or dangerous, it's extremely simple you're dealing with DC which is very straightforward everything is very clearly labeled on that equipment and it's quite simple to do yourself
Is there a go-to source for diy product and instructions? I'm interested in doing this in the near future.
I can't think of any One-Stop shop for literally everything, but there is a lot of great material out there both on forums and on YouTube. If you take it one step at a time and look at each individual piece of the installation you'll be able to find fantastic instructions for all of them fairly easily.
If you are in the US I recommend purchasing from signature solar, they have a lot of great bundles that will both save you some money and get you everything you need. I'd also say they have the best battery storage options, their rack mount batteries and their new wall mount battery are both fantastic and very easy to work with. They also sell solar panels by the pallet which helps you get a nice large array at a good price.
If I had to pick the hardest part it would just be making sure you get the grounding right on the inverter, if you're not careful it's pretty easy to end up with a ground Loop which isn't particularly dangerous but it will cause lots of weird little issues like flickering lights and other annoyances. But it's fairly easy to correct it it's usually just a result of people connecting both the input and the output on the inverter as well as bonding the secondary panel to the primary panel which creates a ground loop. The solution is as simple as just don't connect to the input power ground to the inverter only connect to the output ground so that it has to go through the ground Bond on the panels
It will definitely sound like a lot, but again if you just take each individual piece by itself it's very straightforward very simple and you'll be able to get it done while saving an absolute asinine amount of money compared to an installer.
I will warn you that if you try to do gridtie, which is where you're able to send excess electricity back into the grid. That comes with a lot more red tape and can get a lot more complicated. I personally did an off-grid setup, which still uses the grid as a possible input so if my batteries are dead and there's no sun out I can still use the power like normal it's just not capable of sending Excess power back out into the grid so there's a whole bunch of red tape that I don't have to worry about.
An off-grid setup with grid power option is still considered a grid tie in my area since it needs a way to prevent backfeeding to the grid. Which is totally doable in several ways, just one additional thing to be aware of.
And as a former solar installer, I also remember looking at signature solar and thinking their kits looked the best.
https://infosec.pub/comment/2861266
yea diy is the way: check Will Prowse on Youtube. He is the go to for diy solar and battery storage
https://youtu.be/RHRGKQSE8QU?si=D8UGKUrMyOGNDyyi
You can't get any of the stuff Will uses in Canada unfortunately, nobody will ship it here. We have overly strict regulations on importing bare lithium cells.
i would kinda get that. since buying batteries from unknown sources could imply a risk hazard. but what about panels and inverters ? those should easily be shipped from ebay or aliexpress. Phone/electronic parts are usually shipped from asia, idk what the exception for solar for.
Well that's nice but the vast majority of stuff he does is small-scale and there's very little in the way of installation instruction. Mostly just product reviews.