My Install

Location

Location-City of Vaughan, Ontario, Canada  Latitude =43.802573

Longitude  =-79.446603

Approx elevation 40-75 ft

Installation: Enviro-Energy Technologies Inc.- Steve Eng

http://enviro-energytech.com/

Description of Installation

Location of modules- 6 modules at 163 degrees, 10 at 256 degrees and 10 at 76 degrees.  Inclination- depends upon surface 20- 40 degrees.

I know what you’re thinking –inefficient and you are right. I figure approx.. 15-25% less efficient than a system facing due south.  But it works for me because I have been grandfathered at .802 cents per kwh and the price of installation has come down allowing for a comfortable return of approx.. 7-10% per year and a paid up system in 7-8 years. Not bad considering how bad the stock market is doing and the ups and downs of the world economy. 

Install Log

July 4

I signed on the dotted line. The deal is done. Next steps is for the structural engineer to come by and check out the attic and roof and apply for the building permit.  This should take about 2 weeks.  Hardware is being purchased and it has been confirmed that I can get Selikin Modules even though the Ontario made versions are in short supply since the plant has been shut down.  

My only concern at the moment is with the Solaredge equipment.  They still are a young company in a very difficult business environment…will they be around in 5,10 or 15 years etc in case of equipment malfunction and I require a warranty repair or replacement. As well, I now have 26 points of potential failure (the Optimizers) rather than 1 inverter.  I am taking a chance but looking at their design, fire & safety safegards, internet connection, shade efficiency, I still think they are the best solution for me in MicroFIT. If I wasn’t in the contract, I may have considered some other options that are out there.  But I am glad I did not go with Enphase.

 July 6

An email with the single line drawing was sent to the local LDC (Powerstream)

Next step the Structural Engineer visit

July 10

The local LDC (Powerstream) sent the request to New Connections and they will provide the installer with a Service Layout within 5 days.

Rails, optimzers, flashing and safety ropes prior to module install

July 10

Received a call from the Structural Engineer to arrange a site inspection and then an application will be made to the City for a permit.  This should take about 2 weeks.

July 12

Structural Engineer visited the house and looked into the attic and the exterior of the house.  His responsibility is to access the integrity of the roof and its ability to handle the load

July 13

Received an email from Powerstream billing me for the meter and disconnect/connect that they will have to do in order for me to connect and send power to the grid.  Surprisingly it is a little less than I had been told previously- $515 plus HST.  I am told that Toronto Hydro is more costly to connect.

July 16-

The installer received the Structural Engineers report and it has been confirmed that the roof will hold the array as recommended.

July 17

 Building permit application made. It should take 2 weeks max. to get the piece of paper.

Two months ago I phoned for an insurance quote from TD Insurance.  Now that I am ready to make the change and the quote was only good for 45 days, I had to have a requote.  Guess what!  The price has gone up $50 a month.  Still haven’t committed to the insurance yet.

July 18

I just received word that the Building Permit has been provided to my installer.  Tonight I will send the cheque for the meter to the LDC and we are ready for the install!

…since I’m busy at work and going away for a week installation will be in a few weeks.

July 25

Checked my bank account online and noticed that my cheque had been cashed by Powerstream

July 26

Received an email from my installer mid-day saying the installation would be August 2 – all day.  Power would be off approx.. from 7:30 am to noon .  They should be finished by end of day.  I don’t have to wait the extra 2 weeks. That’s great news because I want to catch as much of the sun as possible this year.

July 27

Last minute details to work out.  I had to change insurance companies because my present insurer wanted too much money to insure the panels- approx.. $700 per year-ridiculous! This was actually the 2nd company the broker recommended.  I went with TD Insurance who immediately understood the program and provided the insurance without any increase over my present policy.  In conversation with the agent on the phone he said that TDCanada Trust as a corporate policy pushes “Green” as it is part of their branding.  Good for anyone trying to install Solar on their house or property.  I would love to compile a list of insurance companies or brokers in Ontario that handle or insure solar projects.  If you are reading this and know of one or the other please drop me a line or add a comment.  It would be helpful for “newbies” to solar.

Just got an email from the installer, it seems my Rogers (cable) connection box on the exterior of my house beside my meter will get in the way of the installation and I have to have it moved.   One quick phone call to Rogers-done.

July 29

The devil is in the detail.   In this case, my installer had asked me to have Rogers move the box near my meter 6” lower.  Unfortunately that could mean a few different things to different people so I decided to photoshop the reposition and get the ok.  Of course, while looking carefully at the photo, I noticed cable wire going up the side of the meter and another box attached to the PVC conduit housing the powerline.  Do these need to be moved?  My confirmation came a few hours later, the new box position was ok and if they could move the wires to the left of the box, that to would be also be ok.  Now to see what Rogers will actually do and if it is done correctly in the end.

July 31

Rogers cable guy has shown up earlier than expected.  It is a very good thing that I photoshopped the new position and produced a printout of the position, as the installer can’t speak English very well.

August 1

1 day to go…let’s hope the weather holds up with no rain.  My new house insurance is now active and my PV system is covered.

August 2

Morning

Today is the day.  Steve was right on time at 7 am with the equipment, modules, inverter etc and over the next hour his crew filtered in. 1st step was to get the power turned off on the house.  

LDC employees turning off the power at transformer

Powerstream was about ½ hour late (I can see phone calls being made).  They at first turned off the powert to the house next to mine. This created a problem with my neighbours’ computer powerbar which took the surge when the power was turned back on but protected their computer and printer.   After a few minutes Powerstream got it right and the electrician was ready to go. They removed the old meter altogether and replaced it with a another box which holds 2 meters at the same time. 

Checking safety equimpent

On the roof the guys are setting up the safety equipment.  They are all wearing safety harnesses which would prevent or at least mediate falls.  They are measuring and checking for the joists and moving equipment to the roof.  They will bolt in the flashing, connect the rails, etc.  Not being up there, I don’t know.  I am at their mercy. 

Electrical all setup and ready to next steps

As the morning progress, the DC disconnect box was attached, along with the fuse box for the modules, and the inverter with the AC disconnect. A lot of stuff on the wall of my house.  In retrospect if I had a better understanding of the amount of room and what it would look like..hmmmm would I have done it? I personally don’t like all the industrial grey boxes at the side of my small house…but I am not locked in. I also didn’t have the space or appropriate location to place some of the equipment inside my house or garage.

Unfortunately, I had to go to work and will be missing the Electrical Safety Authority (ESA) inspection that comes after all the equipment is hooked up.  The ESA fellow lets Powerstream know that the house can be connected to power  on restoring power.  Hopefully it will be at a reasonable time as we have freezers and refrigerators full of food.

Modules being readied for installation

……Still waiting for Powerstream to show up and power our house……it’s now mid to late afternoon and things are progressing well.  The modules are being carried very carefully to the roof.  There is a way of holding the modules without stressing the glass and silicon components within and creating micro fractures.  This is an important point as this will affect the efficiency and life of your module.  They should be held at the sides rather than lifted from the top of the frame.  

Grounding wires, optimizers and modules are all connected.  Because of the nature of the Optimizer showing 1 volt when connected to a module, Steve was very careful to confirm (by testing the wires with a volt meter that the connections were good-showing 1 volt.  This also confirmed that the Optimizer was working as well.

Late Afternoon

Powerstream has arrived! 

It’s now 5 o’ clock and calls are being made to Powerstream, “where is your truck!” we were told 1 pm/2 pm. The project is complete on the roof but we can’t complete the job without the power (an also my food is starting to thaw).  We hear a large truck turn the corner and look down the street and see the Powerstream truck lumbering slowly towards our house, finally it is now around 5:30- 6 p,m  A meter is put in position and we now have power to our house.

It is now after 6 pm and we still have some modules to attach and the inverter to setup, connect to the internet, test etc.  Steve calls it for the day and the crew will be back tomorrow early

August 3

Installation on the west face, optimizers are attached to rails

The crew comes in on time and start to complete the install.  Today is a scorcher…really hot with a clear cloudless sky, it’s going to be a hot on the roof.  Steve is careful to make sure that his crew is drinking lots of water. They’ve finished. Everything now has been setup modules installed, inverter programmed and connected to the net.  Module layout sent to Solaredge for inclusion into my microsite.  Steve has a meter in his truck he uses for testing and put the it in.  The switch on the inverter is turned on and the DC disconnect switch has been turned to on. The system is booting up.  It takes awhile for all the Optimizers to register but we’ve got 24, 25,  and….oh a problem.  26 is not showing up.  With a little trouble shooting the guys go onto the roof locate the module where the problem seems to have originated and they reattach the cables…and 26 shows up- bad connection. We are generating power.  Everything is working properly.  The meter is removed and the system is turned off until the final ESA inspection and the Powerstream meter is put into position.

Modules installed!

Next step is to get the internet web monitoring solution up and running.  The communication, if using Ethernet is built into the inverter.  No additional costs for modules or add-ons. Just plug in the Ethernet to your router and you are good to go.  The installer sends Solaredge the module layout either by fax or email.  It took about an hour for my microsite to be up and running.  The installer has to fill out info on the web portal and I had to fill out some info and we were ready.

A great job done well and efficiently. Finished at around 3 pm on the 2nd day. I was very pleased with the crew who were very professional, very careful about onsite safety.  I could tell they really loved what they do.

Compete! 

August 8

I just received an email saying that my system has passed ESA inspection and Powerstream has been notified.  Next step- have the 2nd meter installed and I’m good to go!

August 9

I received my certificate from the ESA from Steve.  Still waiting for the connection by Powerstream.

August 10

went to work for the day…glanced at the side of my house but only saw one meter, had dinner…took another look after dinner and lo and behold the second meter was in!  Actually, it was put in earlier that day an I was never told by my family or the LDC. 

So what to do?

Turn the system on! 

After a brief speech (to myself ) about the start of a new era etc. I turn on the inverter and then placed the disconnect in the “on” position and we started generating solar electricity.  The only problem was that it was now approx.. 7:30 pm and we hit the minimum voltage pretty quick and the system turned itself off for the night.

Since August 10 the system has worked flawlessly during heavy overcast to bright cloudless sunshine.  I can’t say anything about the production itself since I have no history and my layout is not the most efficient, but I am pleased.  Over the course of the week the LDC has been sending me forms to fill out as noted in an earlier post.  I have just a few more forms to sign and then I will have an official contract and payment can start.

August 27

Checking on my status at the OPA, while visiting my microsite, I noticed that there is a page that asks you to upload your ESA certificate.  I had never noticed any notation about this on the OPA site, only that the site must pass ESA inspection.  So I upload the pdf to the site.  I probably missed this. I am still waiting for the OPA contract for signing.

August 30

Received an email from Powerstream saying that they have sent the document to their lawyer for review.  I find this strange as I didn’t make any changes to their document and digitally signed it where applicable.  In other words, why spend $300-$500 per hour to review a document that is their own.  What they should do is get direction from counsel that if there are no changes and the appropriate areas have been signed and dated, it should automatically go to the next stage….still waiting for the final contract!

Sept 4

 I guess you can’t digitally sign (using your own signing authority) the contract.  Powerstream has asked for a hand signed/scanned/emailed contract. Executed and sent to Powerstream.  Next step should be the OPA contract.  

My suggestion here since we are using email more and more is to confirm with the LDC, if a self signed digital certificate, or signing authority like thawte or verisign digital certificate would be ok before sending in  any documents this way.

Sept 5

Checked my OPA microFIT account and an email was in my inbox saying that my LDC had notified them and that they were preparing the contract.

Sept 10

Checked my OPA microFIT account and my contract is there and ready for acceptance.

It looks like you have to check the website daily as they don’t send a notification email and the contract had actually been sitting at the microsite for a day or so.

I’ve accepted the contract and now I am an official generator.

 Some additional thoughts

In reading the contract (1.6)  there in  Section 5 on “Environmental Attributes” , it seems the OPA wants to have ownership of any environmental benefits that might be derived from your green power generation such as future carbon credits.  My interpretation of this clause is that you must sign over any and all rights to the OPA.  Interesting!  What am I supposed to do at this point, say no and cross it out?