Planning a PV Installation

The only ABC I know is the store I go to get my Elijah Craig. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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.