Solar PV Installation, Step-by-Step
Our most recent 3.84kW Sanyo Hybrid solar PV array installation was a huge success, generating far more electricity than we had hoped for.
Let us start from day one... back in the spring of 2010 I received my electric bill from my Utility Company. How much? You know the story - you are in shock when you open the bill.
Energy Station is not new to the energy saving world. We have been saving our customers money on a daily basis. Energy Station is a division of JSD Electrical Services Ltd, a NICEIC-approved electrical contracting company based in Leicestershire. We have been trading as electrical contractors for close to 25 years. In that time we have helped many residential homes, organisations and companies reduce their energy consumption. As the old saying goes, “it’s very easy when you know how!’
We are professionally qualified electricians. and not salesmen trying to spin you a line or tell you anything to make you sign on the dotted line.
Four years ago we could see electricity costs were heading up and up. We all had 30% plus increases in our bills. Because of this, we started our subsidiary company, Litebulbs, with the aim of bringing the very best in energy saving lighting to this country. Litebulbs has been a fantastic success story, selling millions of pounds worth of light bulbs in 3 years and saved tens of thousands of people a lot of electricity. Such was the popularity of LED lighting, we founded our own LED manufacturing company - EXERGI. Every day, EXERGI LED light bulbs are sold all over Europe through our distribution partners. So, you can see we know a thing or two about how to save you money when it comes to electricity.
Along the way we started to investigate solar photovoltaics (otherwise known as Solar PV). Like most new technologies that come to the market they need a lot of research to be confident you are doing the right thing. After months of research we made the decision to enter into this market because our findings were that this technology really does work. We have left no stone unturned along our journey and we have learned a lot, re - educated ourselves and taken the highest level of Solar PV installation qualifications in the process. We are ready to embrace the rush when people really do see how good this new technology is and how much money it can save you!
By now, the time had come for us to install our own solar PV system and start reaping the rewards of solar and the feed-in tariff.
Choosing the Solar PV Panel
The first task was to work out which is the best type of solar system to go for - do we install polycrystalline, monocrystalline or hybrid panels? As this was all about efficiency, hybrid Sanyo panels were our first choice.
The Sanyo HIT 240 Hybrid solar panels have a module efficiency of 17.3%. Polycrystalline module efficiency is around 13-13.5% so when you are installing solar PV as an investment, 4% is big difference over the 25 years of the feed-in tariff. Our system will be producing electricity well beyond the feed-in tariff expires - research shows that solar panels can last up to 40 years and possibly longer.
Inverter
The next task was to choose a solar PV inverter. There are many manufactures that produce inverters for solar systems but the choice didn’t take long because from our research and recommendations SMA were proven as one of the leading solar inverters manufactures in the world.
Mounting System
Having chosen the panels and inverter, there was another consideration. The property is south facing and at times gets a very heavy battering from southerly winds.
So once again more research was required. If we are going to install a solar PV system that is going to sit on the roof for the next 40 odd years and take a battering from the weather the mounting system has to be good. We chose Schuco.
Schuco are the leaders in the field of mounting systems. Whilst they are not cheap, the quality of the equipment is second to none, and we chose to use a mounting system a little bit more heavy duty. We could do this because the Sanyo Hybrid solar panels are one of the lightest solar panels on the market. Weight is always a consideration, especially when they are on your roof!
Having chosen the different parts for the system, it was onto installation.
Installation
First off all we had the scaffold erected:
Then we started to install the Schuco mounting brackets:
As you will notice the roof is made of slate. Slate is the hardest roofing material to work with because it is so fragile. The roof has to be completely watertight so we have installed lead flashing over the metal roofing bracket so there is no chance of any water ingression. We even tested how good it was with a big jug of water!
The next stage was to install the mounting rails to the roof brackets. This is where Schuco mounting system earn their keep - they have a patented locking system so you can be sure they are not coming undone in the future.
When the solar panels arrived, as planed and on time, one of the first things we did was to test each solar panel on the ground before we were going to install them; the last thing you want is to find out one of them is not working correctly later on in the process.
As you would expect from Sanyo all was fine, so we then started to get the solar panels on to the scaffold.
Once we had hoisted up the solar panels on to the scaffold we installed the solar string cabling to the solar array and carried out our electrical tests on this cabling before installing the solar panels.
We have also installed a solar weather station on the roof to show us the solar panel temperature and the actual solar irradiation of the property. This will supply live solar irradiation data and panel temperature so we can compare the results from the Sanyo hybrid system and the actual live solar irradiation.
Next we moved on to installing the SMA inverter. We chose the SMA 4000TL-20 with dual MPP Tracking. We did this because we might want to install more solar panels at a later date to the roof area and by installing this inverter we would not have to replace the inverter when we expand the system.
We have installed the inverter in the roof space on the eastern-facing internal block wall. This will minimise any solar heat gains through the brick work of the property in the summer months but will also keep the string cables to a minimum length reducing any losses in the cableing of the solar PV system.
In order to maximise efficiency, the SMA 400TL-20 inverter has internal “opti” cooling. As you will notice from this picture we have labelled all the isolators and installed the solar PV schematic drawing below the DC solar isolators. We take great pride in our work - just because it is in a loft space does not mean it can be to a lower standard. This is heart of the solar panel installation.
Once we had carried out all our further tests and programmed the inverter to the settings we energised the solar array.
The Results
We have to say that we are exceptionally pleased with the output from the system. The Sanyo hybrid system is developing far more KW per day than was expected and on top of that we are still generating even when it is raining. We knew the system would outperform polycrystalline and monocrystalline solar panels but we did not expect the results to be as good as they are.
UPDATE: Snow!
A question many people ask is whether panels generate in snowy conditions. We have just had the first snowfall of Winter. Overnight, the outside temperature fell to -10° and at 8.30am, the temperature was -8°. Around 10.30am the ice on the panel had melted and the panel was generating electricity for most of the day.
UPDATE: MARCH 2011
We have been installing solar PV systems for our customers none-stop through the winter months and all our systems are performing well, especially the one on this page.
The SANYO PV system is performing fantastically well; it has generated 890KW to date so the coming months should really see some serious numbers registering on the generation meter.
UPDATE: MAY 2011
We have generated 2280KW to the end of May!
UPDATE: AUGUST 2011
As of 31st of August, we have now generated 3568kw (3.5 megawatts!). The system has 6 more weeks to go to complete the first year of generation.
UPDATE: OCTOBER 2011
As of 30th September, we have now generated 3900kW.
More information
For more information about Energy Stations, call 0116 288 4000 for a free, no-obligation quote.