8 Costly Solar Mistakes to Avoid When You Design Your Solar Panel Kit

hi I'm Cheyenne one of the senior design and sales technicians here at wholesale solar in this video I'm going to go over the top eight mistakes people make when going solar mistake number one confusing off-grid and grid tie solar solar power allows you to generate your own energy which means you won't pay for power from the utility grid people assume this means they will be going off the grid but that's not accurate in reality most people are looking for a grid-tied solar system here's the distinction your panels generate energy but you need a way to store that energy for later use if you have access to power lines you can store the energy you generate in the utility grid the utility company will credit you for the extra power your system is producing and allow you to pull from the grid when you need it a true off-grid application doesn't have access to power lines which means that you need another method to store energy this is where batteries come in batteries are expensive but with no option to store power in the grid they're mandatory for off-grid systems the bottom line is that saving money and being independent from the grid are mutually exclusive when it comes to solar batteries eat into your retirement investment and grid-tie properties don't need them you don't need to go off the grid to get the benefits of solar power if your property has access to the power lines grid-tied solar is going to be the most cost effective solution for you so why pay for batteries when the utility grid will take care of storage for you mistake number two designing your system incorrectly if you're just starting out with your research you might think it's as simple as looking at your latest energy bill then buying enough panels to cover that usage but that wait ignore factors like climate panel orientation shady natural efficiency drop and other things that impact the true output of your system that's why we recommend that you consult with an experienced solar technician first before investing in your solar system here are the following things you should talk about with your solar technician first efficiency solar panel efficiency drops about 1% every year it's a good idea to design a little extra Headroom to account for the 10 to 20 percent decrease that happens over the course of 20 years in most cases this is an extra panel or two second weather and location solar panels are tested in ideal conditions but in the real world your system can be exposed to much harsher conditions high temperatures can actually reduce the amount of energy your panels generate your location also dictates how many sent hours you get the term Sun hour doesn't mean how long the Sun is in the sky it refers to the amount of time the Sun is in the right position to generate peak energy most places get about four to six hours per day and the exact amount influences system sizing third voltage your system needs to be designed at the right voltage based on the equipment being use and what it requires we also account for things like temperature that can affect voltage and system performance if you don't have the right voltage from your solar panels or battery bank your system might not perform well or worse you could damage your expensive hardware and finally battery bank sizing mismatching your battery bank with the charging source is the most common issue when it comes to batteries specifically with off-grid system sizing your array needs to supply enough power to keep the batteries charged but not so much that they overcharge too much or too little charging can ruin your batteries mistake number three not taking into consideration power outages you're generating your own energy so the light should stay on during a power outage right unfortunately that's not the case with grid tied solar systems although the power originates from your panels it's still stored in the public utility grid when the grid power goes out so does yours this keeps utility workers safe from energy being produced from your solar array the remedy for this is a grid tied system with battery backup when the power is on it functions like a normal grid tied system during an outage a small backup battery bank kicks in to keep the lights on it costs a little bit more but the peace of mind is invaluable especially if you live somewhere with extreme weather conditions unreliable utility power or if you have critical appliances that need to stay on 24/7 mistake number four not buying solar because you think it's a bad investment look solar isn't cheap it's a four to five figure investment we know that's a big commitment but electricity from your power company isn't cheap either and it's only gonna go up in price the reality is when you look at the long term value of owning a solar system most grid-tied systems pay for themselves fairly quickly and actually make you a profit over the life of the warranty here's how you calculate when you start profiting from solar take your total system costs - the federal tax credit and divide that by your yearly electricity cost after your payback period you're saving money year after year because you're not paying the utility company anymore it sounds pretty good right you may also be eligible for state and local tax credits or rebates that help you reduce the net cost of your system for even more savings mistake number five leasing solar power is a sound investment if you own your system when you lease your system from a third party the value of that investment pretty much vanishes the first thing to understand is the lender owns the system which means they're the ones eligible to claim all of the incentives you won't see a penny from the 30% federal tax credit or any local rebates after you've been squeezed out of the incentives you'll also pay a premium rate to lease the panel's which includes interest when all is said and done you might find you paid twice as much to lease a system as it would have cost you to finance and own the system yourself leasing also makes it more challenging to sell your home you have to transfer the lease through the buyer upon sale or you can pay off the remainder of the lease balance and add that amount to your asking price but both options limit the pool of potential buyers for your home there are a lot of ways to finance your solar system but we don't recommend leasing give us a call if you have any questions mistake number six not planning ahead I brought the fact that most panels are warrantied for 25 years that's a long time to go without any big changes in your life when people start planning your system everyone thinks about what they need right now not as many people think about how their needs might change in the future what happens when you have kids build a new workshop or buy an electric car that needs charging you'll start consuming more energy so we always tell people to look to the future when designing the system some things to think about do you have space to expand upon the installation if necessary for example say your system takes up your whole roof what happens when you want to add panels layers but have nowhere to put them is your system designed to be expandable people often think hey I'll design more panels without realizing that other parts of the system like the inverter need to be sized to match central inverters have a limit to the number of panels they can support so it's often not as simple as just adding panels micro inverters are a great option to facilitate expansion for grid-tied systems they work on a one-to-one basis each panel is paired with its own micro inverter when you want to add on just pair another micro inverter with a new panel and mount them on to your array for off-grid properties you should also think carefully about battery sizing depending on the battery type and age it might not be possible to expand upon your existing battery bank lithium battery banks can be expanded but lead acid batteries have limited options for increasing storage capacity the reason when you add new lead acid batteries to an old Bank the new batteries absorb the characteristics of the old one the new batteries are essentially being aged prematurely lithium batteries are the exception they have an integrated circuit controlling the charge parameters the old batteries charge independently from the new ones so you don't run into the same issues lithium batteries come at a higher cost so make sure to discuss these options with the solar tech to ensure that you find the best solution that works within your budget mistake number 7 overpaying for installation when you start to think about going solar their first option that comes to mind is a turnkey installation from a national provider like Tesla Vivint Sun Run or Sun power they offer an all-in-one solution to design your system source your parts and install it for you you can't beat the convenience but you also pay a premium price for the catered experience turnkey installers charge anywhere from a hundred to two hundred percent of the cost of equipment to install your system for a system worth ten thousand dollars in equipment they might charge another twenty thousand dollars to install it big solar installers need to charge this premium to cover advertising office rent insurance labor marketing and other expenses required to run their business on a national scale what many people don't realize is that you can buy a package solar system from a wholesale distributor and install it yourself you can also work with a local contractor which can save you a lot of money if you are willing to organize the project and take on some of the easy tasks if you do choose to take on the project yourself we also recommend getting multiple quotes before you choose the one you're comfortable with contract has charged quite a broad range of rates depending on their specialty as well as the complexity of the project even a rate difference of twenty five cents per watt can change the bid by a couple thousand dollars it's smart to use a service like solar power rocks to compare quotes from local installers and make sure you're getting a fair bed mistake number eight building a Frankenstein system finally let's talk about the phone call our system designers dread I have an inverter from ebay and some panels I bought a few years back can you help me build the rest of my system a fair number of people hold out for the great deals and acquire parts slowly over time until they're ready to slap all the parts together like some kind of solar-powered Frankenstein's monster but just like with cars or computers it's not enough to have just parts you have to have the right parts that are compatible with each other otherwise you get inverters that are undersized for your panel output panels that are different sizes and don't fit together properly on the racking system components that don't wire together because they have different connectors a power center missing essential components like circuit breakers disconnects remote controls or monitoring hardware a box of hodgepodge components that no one is willing to support because it was purchased from all over the internet and countless other headaches there's a lot that can go wrong but the bottom line is peace no systems like these can quickly turn into disasters unless you start with a plan and stick to it there's no guarantee the parts you buy will ever work together so how do we avoid these costly solar mistakes you might notice that you can't actually buy a complete system from our website cart we require that people get in touch for a design consultation first why do we do it this way even though we don't install solar equipment we're still responsible for designing your system properly if we sold systems with incompatible parts we get a bad reputation in a hurry in the end our advice is to do as much research as you can to account for all possible variables wherever you decided by your components run your ideas by a solar design technician first an experienced set of eyes could help you catch the potentially costly mistakes before it's too late if you have any questions give us a call or visit wholesale solar comm for further information [Music]

Channel: Unbound Solar

Views: 1,244,681

Keywords: solar panel mistakes, Off-Grid vs Grid-Tie Solar, Solar Power outages, solar investment, solar leasing

Id: vox2ZYlGo2I

Length: 10min 43sec (643 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 08 2019