The only ABC I know is the store I go to get my Elijah Craig. 
Alec Baldwin’s speech in Glengarry Glen Ross:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elrnAl6ygeM
It’s fun to watch on screen, less fun if it happens to you!
I finished my first course. If you’re interested in learning a lot about solar installation, look no further:
Solar Alberta Training - Solar Alberta
Yes it’s Canadian code, but there are nods to the US practices, where they differ.
Some are live, and some are recorded, and many can be taken as either recordings or live.
Be warned, though, the quiz at the end is largely based on the verbal parts of the lectures, not on the hand-out notes. If you aren’t taking methodical notes during class, you could miss half of the test questions.
Actually, the point I really thought I was going to fail was the Captcha at the end of the quiz, to get my result. The photos on Captcha are so grainy now that it took me 4 tries!
I think I passed (and the Captcha) but bizarrely, they’re only going to mail me the certificate (I don’t get one online, for instant gratification.)
I’ve effectively chosen the installer. Haven’t made the final commitment, yet, but I have lost interest in pursuing the others that I reached out to. The other quotes are for system designs so different from what I want, or can use for expansion in the future, that I don’t see the point. When asked, one flatly refused to provide an inverter that is compatible with lead-acid batteries.
Oh, FYI.
Last Wednesday, we had another power outage, for 6 hours. This one was nasty because it didn’t just get cut off. Instead, there was a lingering 20 or so volts on the line, which kept things like clocks and nightlights working, while ceiling lights and computers went dark. Weird. Could have been a transformer meltdown?
If y’all take for granted that your electricity never goes out, you won’t understand the concerns that I have. My house goes though many power outages and dozens of brownouts every year. I hope by now you can appreciate my interest in having battery backup. And my non-interest in paying the power company as much as I have been.
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Like you, i understand power outages are an inconvenience. there have been high winds lately that have caused local power outages. a friend had no utility power for 31-hours. fortunately, he has a backup generator.
Fyi, lately, i’ve been “investigating” more about solar power here in AK. 2yrs ago i sat next to a physics major returning from Singapore to AK whom specializes in solar power. i was surprise to learn from him how beneficial solar power is here in AK. i just do not see any installations, but then again, i suspect most are installed in off-grid installations.
Sounds like you are nearly at execution phase. good luck.
For our location near Seattle, we get a lot of outages. Too many of us like our 180-foot fir trees on our property, which don’t play well with overhead power lines. A few neighbors have PV installations on their roofs, but we get a lot of cloudy days here, so not sure the payback works.
@btrueblood is electricity in WA state generated mostly by hydro? Probably cheaper than the mostly coal and co-gen that we use here in Alberta.
Yes, though rates here are also going up because there is increasing demand, and no new dams are going to get built (some are likely going to come down). But I think we are still cheaper than most of the US, so that does skew against adoption of PV from economics alone.
I am nearly ready to sign the contract with my chosen solar installer, who will put in 6.5kW of Longi LR5 410W panels in a 8x2 grid on my garage facing due south. The roof slope is 4/12 so there won’t be much input in the winter.
They came to do a survey of my property last week. Even flew a drone around my house to make a 3D map. The resulting pictures are… strange.
They won’t touch my batteries, so I’ll be incorporating those later, which means the wind won’t be incorporated either. They sound pragmatic about the batteries - they can’t do it but they won’t get in my way, either. This contractor is booked solid. I’m getting a slot in October.
The system design we have settled upon uses a Sol-Ark inverter, which has all of the grid-tie PV inputs and controls they need, and the battery interface I will need. I’m glad that’s on the market because there aren’t a lot of choices which combine both of those conditions. If you’re considering a PV system, read and understand the whole spec sheet and the whole installation manual! There are 100 details that matter to the success of any given inverter in any given system.
The course I took from Solar Alberta proved to be valuable. It brought me up to speed on what the contractor needs to do, so I didn’t have to pester them with questions to understand what they’re doing and why.
The mono/poly debate seems to be over. The Longi panels in my system spec don’t actually say and at 21% Effy I don’t care, but I am pretty sure they’re mono. I looked at over a dozen other datasheets while researching - they all seem to be monocrystaline now.
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This is the creepy kind of picture generated by their drone camera.
I will spare you the animated “fly-through” where you pass through semi-invisible trees with branches floating in the air not attached to anything.
And my garage doesn’t look nearly so ramshackle and run-down as it does in that picture. I swear!
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Lidar point cloud with 2D visible light photos stretched to fit where a machine vision algorithm thinks the corners are.
Then a stock image of the panels on top of that.
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ya spurred me into investigating a PV installation. Thanks.
All, I am considering/investigating a PV installation for my new home. a little more than 2-years ago on a flight returning to AK, i sat next to a physicist whom specialized in solar installations and was surprised to learn that PV installations are a good fit in AK. In my research, i learned he is correct.
I stumbled across this site which provided ample information for me. I had the site execute the PV analysis for my location, which is beneficial.
I have the proposed annual energy use (gas + electrical power) for the home, so i can determine the size I want. The only question remains are which panels, inverter, battery, etc. for an off-grid installation. I have not researched the local utility requirements for an on-grid installation, so this installation is in standby mode. I have plenty of land area for the panels.
I will still get a permanently mounted standby generator as power outages do occur and a neighbor had a 31-hour outage earlier this year. In the future, i could sell the generator if not needed.
I now need to get cost data and may end up talking with some local suppliers/installers to get the details.
Fyi, I like the “sunflower” solar panel, but i need to further research.
so, a little work awaits me to get details.
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This is also helpful:
It is frequently recommended by solar installers to people who want an initial assessment to do themselves.
A funny side of an AK installation that I didn’t think of at first is that you can justify a pivoting mount above the arctic circle much better than you can south of it. So think of putting your panels on a tower and a pivot, including slip-rings so that they can simply go round and round, once every day!
I’ve never actually seen an installation like that, but I’m tempted to google it now.
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Um… I thought I was being funny when I suggested a 360 degree tracking mount… These guys take funny a lot further…
With only one exception, the testimonials page says “it’s pretty”. Only one of them comments on the effective production of electricity.
Oh yeah, this won’t work so great when snow blows into it.
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I will peruse the link data - thanks.
i saw the “sunflower” model on a “This Old House” episode. after perusing the site, i was not sold, but the idea is great!
you wrote on matters that concern me about “adjustable” panels. the “fix” is to encase the moving parts, pivot points, with a heavy duty plastic bag & seal w/ duct tape. Inspect x2/yr.
in winter months, the sun is really low on the horizon. in Fairbanks area, i think it is the 3rd week in January when the sun’s elevation is significant enough to have solar impacts. so the 360 tracking type panels will likely generate minimal power for about 2-months.
I’ve seen photos of solar panels installed in northern villages, but these panels appeared to be fixed.
Fyi: Super-efficient solar cells: 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2024 | MIT Technology Review
An idea/thought for tracking the sun, to track the sun get an “eye” of sorts that tracks the sun. keep the “eye” at 90-degrees to the sun.
Or
use math to determine sunrise/sunset times and to adjust the panels to track the sun during the day. this requires a processor or PLC.
Surprisingly, there is a local vendor that installs Sol-Ark invertors. I’ll be speaking with them this next week.
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Solar tracking can be dead simple or very elaborate. You can do it with a feedback system to keep them perfectly aligned, if you want to blow a lot of money, but you risk ignoring the trigonometry of the situation: PV panels are tolerant of very large deviations from perpendicular sun. You might lose a few percent for 15 degrees misalignment, which is hardly noticeable.
Compare that to a fixed array that is out of alignment for 23 hours of the day, to the horror of the high-minded perfect-tracking experts. It’s a wonder fixed panels produce anything expect for a couple of hours a day… Oh, but wait - they do.
If you can track the sun within +/-30 degrees for 8 hours of a day, you get to fill in the “shoulders” of the hump curve that a fixed solar array produces in a day.
Carry this up to higher latitudes, and your advantage grows to 10, 12 or more hours per day.
So my point is that a solar tracking system north of 60 can be drastically simple, if you can tolerate using a slip ring. It just needs a clock and a limit switch. Drive the mechanism around in a circle once per day. Use whatever adjustment frequency you care to (15 degrees per hour, 30 degrees per 20 hours, 1/4 degree per minute) they will work pretty much all just as well. Pass over the limit switch (or a LED gate, or a magnetic pickup, or anything that counts “1” per pass). This stops errors building up every day, which they will do.
I once worked out the energy requirement of a properly sized stepper and worm-gear arrangement designed to do a full 360 every day, with no slewing back and forth and no feedback for alignment. Basically just drive it around the pole once per day continuously. Since the motor only runs for a few seconds, and the power required to move an array is actually similar to the power of each panel, the cost of running the drive appeared almost negligible.
I’ve wanted to build this myself but I have hundreds of trees around my house, and I’d have to cut them all down to truly capitalize on my 15-hour long summer days at Latitude 51.
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I actually follow MIT Tech Review myself. I’ve been keeping tabs on the perovskite cell advances. But they’re not yet in circulation, so you just have to settle for the common Mono/Poly structures on the market now.
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I spoke with a very competent & capable local installer today. i obtain his contact information from the Sol Ark website.
the conversation was outstanding and very fluid. Basically, need panels, inverter, and battery storage. He stated that tracking is not economically viable here in AK; however, some remote cabins/lodges have it for obvious reasons.
i’ll discuss with him your tracking thoughts.
I will most likely have the home solar-ready. he offered a DIY or complete installation quote, so will likely make this request.
the panels he sells are bi-facial, which get power from both sides of the panel (sun reflections) & at 21% efficient & 550W each. I did not know about bi-facial panels. Inverters are the Sol Ark brand, and i forgot the battery. The battery (Li-Ion type) is easily expandable as they are installed on a rack.
He mentioned that i could install a heat pump to offset/minimize natural gas consumption. Not too receptive to this idea, but it is a possibility. AC is not needed and extracting heat on cold day is difficult.
I saw some photos of ground based panels. the structural designs are very good and simple. One photo had 8-inch vertical pipe supporting the panels mounted horizontally along structural steel rack.
he utilizes a software program to determine the optimum design for each site; i.e. panel location, direction and angle.
not sure how it is done, but he can remotely monitor the generation and consumption for several locations he has installed.
I’m getting very encouraged about all this. So, wait and see.
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Well your guy responds faster to inquiries than the guys around here!
That’s a good start you’ve made, and don’t get bogged down in my crazy ideas like pivot tracking. A fixed rack will do nicely.
Is snow drifting and accumulation an issue where you are? Ground-mounted panels can be partially blocked by snow piles/drifts/banks if you’re not careful.
I’m not sold on heat-pumps, yet, either. I don’t think they were very well in low temperatures, or perhaps what I mean to say is that, the ones that work well in low temperatures cost a lot more than the regular ones.
Check this out. It’s for Canada, so go and choose “Yukon/Whitehorse” which is pretty close to Fairbanks. There could by a US equivalent at the NWS website, of course.
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