1st Cheque

Well it really wasn't a cheque but, it sure is good to see the funds going into the bank instead of out. We received $856.81 for the time from Sept 21st to Nov 4th. This looks accurate to me. The numbers on the chart are from the 1st of every month. This is so I can compare to the predicted numbers from the PVWatts program. Number so far have been encouraging. December is not looking good. Too much snow.

Had 6" on the whole roof from yesterday. On any previous snow falls, it seemed to slide off. Today it took 2 hours to clean it off. Sure glad we don't have a 2 storey house.

First readings

It's the end of our first whole month so we can now see how well we are doing. Here is a small print out of the readings. Numbers are in Kilo Watt Hours. September's reading is what we generated from the 21st to the end of the month. I want to track from the 1st day in the month in order to be able to compare to the predictions as accurately as I can.

Note: Hydro Meter is accumulative. Therefore the difference from the first of one month to the first of the next month is the Amount of energy generated.

What you see in green is the predicted hours I should generate, and the numbers I relied on to predict the return on investment. This was using the PV-Watts program.The dark blue Enphase numbers are what you will also find on the  Enphase link in the blog. It is what the inverters are telling Enphase what they are producing. As you can see they do not match what the Hydro meter is saying. I am not sure why yet, I am investigating. The good news is even the hydro meter shows a 3% improvement over the prediction for first month and 32% for the second. Very happy with that. Don't know if it is going to hold so stay tuned. I will update again next month.

Hooked up and on line

As you can see we didn't get 3 rows of 14 on the back roof. Do to the position of the cross braces and vent pipes in the road we only got 2 rows of 13 and 1 row of 12 on the large rear roof. We did however find out that we could put a second row on the front garage roof.

This gave us 4 more panels there for a total of 2 KiloWatts at the front. I have updated the predictions in my calculations page to reflect these changes. ROI stays pretty close to the same as it was. We also have retained the 9.6 total system capability.

The big days was Tuesday September 21st.  Hydro did a disconnect.

This did require them to move some bushes on the neighbors lot. Hope they aren't too pissed about that.  They then installed the double meter box, had it inspected, and turn our power back on, all in one day. It did take some time to schedule that everyone would be here on the same day. Panel now looks like this. Switch was turned on at 3:15PM.

I have some trim work to finish up.

To see how well the system is performing you can take a look at my Enphase web site. It will show you a total history of all the power that has created. http://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/public/systems/nJC57822

The display shows the panels are tilted to reflect the angle that they are actually facing. I will track actual meter readings and compare the output to my predictions, so stay tuned for more updates.

Construction 2nd Phase

Well, we had to wait a little longer than a week to get the material. By the time they came in and the weather co-operated it was the last week in August. First the rails and inverters.

A week later they installed the panels.

 Looks like this now.

The power connection goes through the roof

Wire run to the fuse panel

and then outside to the shut off.

To bad it's not hooked up. Well, it was inspected today by ESA and all looks good.

This is necessary before we can hook up to the grid. Hopefully next week we connect in. Then the power meter starts turning. We will then send the inspections to OPA to complete the contract. And then we are in business. 

Insurance adventure

After we got close to installing the hardware we felt it was time to procure some insurance. This project was eagerly tackled by Linda, my wife. She called 5 new insurance providers as well as our present one. 2 did not return quotes after discussing our needs. 2 did return our call but explained that they could not provide us with any coverage. One agent stated it was the wording of the Hydro One contract that prevented them from covering us, the other agent said underwriters would not cover it.

Our old broker said our old insurance company would not cover us but she had another company that would. We received a verbal price from her. Our home insurance was the same price at $600.00 but the solar panel coverage would be an extra $1000.00. 1 broker returned a quote the next business day. This was W.C. Burgess Insurance Services Ltd. The price to insure our home was a little less for more coverage, and the solar coverage was $9.00 for every $1,000 of solar cost as replacement value. This put them at a better price than our old broker.

While waiting for more responses, we received a registered letter,  from our old insurance company. This was notification of termination of coverage in 15 days. Reason stated was operation of commercial business near the home. This prompted us to move forward with W.C.Burgess. We signed on with them within a week.  A bumpy but a successful conclusion.

Calculations

The location to apply for a Micro-fit is at this Government site.
http://microfit.powerauthority.on.ca/microFIT-Rules/Submitting-an-application/index.php
From this web page you can see all the conditions, changes and put in an application. I had Upper Canada Solar do this for me although I have access to it and can see the status. The reason I asked Upper Canada Solar to do this is I wish to ensure that we meet the 40% Ontario content that is required. I am assured by them that they can do this.

If you select the Payment schedule on this web page you will see that it continues to be 80.2 cents per Kilwatt Hour. I have Used PVWatts program to show what energy I can expect from our Installation.It can be found here. http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/calculators/PVWATTS/version1/International/inputv1_intl.cgi

Because I will only be able to fit 3 rows of 14 panels on the back of our place, we decided to add an additional 6 panels on our Garage. It is on the front side of the house but one half is facing south east. This brings up the total amount of generation capability up to 9.6 Kilo Watts. This sheet shows what the back should generate  

To get a total of both I put them into a spread sheet to add them up.

        

Costs are real to date as I know it. Upper Canada now is quoting $7.50 per watt. If I multiply that by my 9.6 Kil Watts it will give us the cost of that part of the project. 

 Payback per months are estimates but rumor has it those who have used this site are finding estimates close to real. I should be a little better as I am a little south of Ottawa, 

Insurance costs are an estimate I have received verbally from an Agent. We are presently investigating. This is a story as well and I will update you further when I have more info.

Good news of the day is they are supposed to pick up the hardware tomorrow so we should be installing real soon.

Construction

The engineering drawing requires me to put in a cross bracing. This means we will need to replace the shingles as well as remove a section on the roof to access the trusses. My carpenter preferred this to adding them from the inside. Here is my old roof.

As you can see we needed a replacement on the shingles anyway. It was only 12 years old but we had some ventilation issues.

As you can see there is a truss through the center of the removed chip board. Left side of hole is original. Right side has the cross brace we installed and the venting panel placed properly. This should solve this problem. This brace is the location where the post will go. This will allow the post to be attached to 2 trusses each. When the panel is replaced the posts are installed.

Then the flashing is added as the shingles go on.

This should keep the water out for the life of the Panels.

So this is where we are today. Shingles and posts complete. 

Next week. Racks and panels. 

In the Beginning

As a member of the Brockville Climate Action Group, I have been following developments in reducing my carbon footprint. Although carbon reduction is the goal I do focus on fiscal responsibility. Most of my alterations in lifstyle have a positive payback. So when OPA (Ontario Power Authority) came out with a preliminary pricing schedule that show a homeowner could make 80.2 cents a Kilowatt hour, I got excited. This was in August 2009, when it was a suggested pay schedule. Funny thing thou. I didn't see any banners in paper. No big announcements on TV. Why isn't everyone doing this?

So I calculated what we could put on our roof. I put the data into PVWatts web page program and verified the numbers looked good.  I explained this to my wife (Linda) and she agreed to look into this further. So I talked to a number of Solar installers. A couple of quotes and lots of questions came up.

In Jan 2010, BCAG had Jennifer Kiwala, from SWITCH in Kingston give a presentation on OPA's FIT and microFIT programs. It was the best response to any presenter we had., with an standing room only crowd of over 100 people. They brought many answers and a few more questions to enlighten us on the issues at hand.


The next week I was on the phone to Upper Canada Solar to start the process. They put an application into OPA for me on Feb 2, 2010. The process had begun. As things will change for any government institution we did not want to move forward on any building issues until a conditional contract had been awarded. I did some research on the hardware required and was hoping to secure Enphase Inverters. These inverters are attached to the racking and invert each panel independently. They are also very efficient. Upper Canada Solar said that they had used these but could not verify a quick delivery as they were in demand. I therefore purchased these ahead time. I saw no risk in this, as at the price I bought these at they would be easy to unload if the project would fall through for some reason. 


Although the web page for Microfit application had stated 30 days for a response time, we soon heard that this was extended to 90 days. Our actual wait time was 101 days. 


As we wanted to follow all the proper processes as prescribed by the folks a SWITCH I phoned our City to find out if a permit was required. So I put together some information on the racking, panels and pictures of that style of installation and went down to City hall and applied for a permit. They got back to me few days latter and informed me that the want some re-assurance that the the roof I have was structurally capable of supporting the weight. Remember that Permits are not required in all cities. With the help of Upper Canada Solar we acquired a document from Unirac (our racking supplier) that has a Engineers stamp on it that verifies that the racking is capable of supporting the panels. However this did not satisfy the city. They were looking supporting structural information. After checking with The original builder and the original truss manufacturer I could not find any documents to verify what I have with my house. After trying to contact a local engineer I searched the Internet. With that I found Kollaard Associates Inc. They had a branch office in Kemptville and were willing to create the document I needed. They did this from pictures I took from my attic. This cost me a little over $500.00. I was happy to get it. This secured my building permit.