Customer wanted to go off grid! So we did this...

so you want to get solar installed let me show you how here it is and believe it or not under that layer of snow there are 32 solar panels [Music] welcome to the heart of Winter in the Great British Countryside we're here it's zero degrees and what are we doing installing solar panels guys are up on the roof now just measuring everything out I'm working down in the plant room today we've got a whole layout with solar inverter battery storage and electric vehicle charging two rows of eight panels on each side they are Canadian Solar 400 watt panels we've got two strings they're going to start here go up that side hop across through to the other side of the roof and then back essentially we'll check that we've got everything that we need and then we'll mark it all out with chalk so we know that where everything's going before we start hacking tiles around and stuff so these are our optimizers that's a box of hooks no roof clamps four eight two 16 end clamps which that looks about right I mean if it goes well we might have them all on today but otherwise by the end of the day tomorrow at the latest we want to have all the rails on who wants the croissant cheers mate take that down the pub was about here that's going to completely trash your hat such a lovely blank canvas this roof it's like the dream roof to do solar really isn't it lovely Tails see these little channels they're into siphon so they actually go down a little bit lower than the normal plane tails so I would say that's the middle rafter there I may not have down with any nails of course right and how many rails we're doing four yeah two on each panel yeah just to make sure we've got enough space for the soda skirt all the way around so probably needs another 150 mil 45 yeah seven oh let's go seven five it's been on 14 foot right that's the middle all right so we've just chalked out found our center of the roof chalked in between we've gone every other rafter um from the center so we've took the tiles out on the bottom row we need we're just going to get all the hooks in place and then once that rails on we can stand on that and do the next one do the next one so we'll get this all done move around to the other side and just repeat the process while I'm screwing this down I'll get Loop just get the bits ready in front of me and I'll follow behind these are what we call roof hooks so these hooks screw into that joist and then the rail that the solar panels are mounted onto goes along on the top of these roof hooks or below these roof hooks they're installing these flashings around them that's to maintain the weatherproof seal of the roof to make sure no water or insects and things get in there are different roof hooks for different types of roofing so if you've got slate it'll be a different roof if you've got pan tiles would be a different roof these are plain Tire files so it's important to choose the right roof hooks to fit with the particular size roof type of roof that you've got depending on the roofing materials so the roof hooks along here are on now what we've done is mounted the rail onto that now we have a slight problem because the joiners have not arrived yet so we can't fix it all back fully until the joiners are here tomorrow morning but they've got another two rows to do up there as well so this row will be for the bottom line of panels we've got eight panels going along here in portrait and then another line of eight along the top and what we want is to try and space them evenly on the roof so that there's a nice even Gap all the way around and it just looks really neat they've put the tiles back they've cut out the bits that are needed in order to make room for the roof hook and they've put this flashing over when the rain comes down it will just run off and over that and it creates a quite a nice neat finish so it's going well I'll update you shortly [Music] lift the tile and do a little cut or just poke and when I see your finger I'll cut it I'll give you some plasters after all right you're done while the Luke's having a sing up there um just in a loft space of the garage luckily it's quite clear Luke's up on the roof and we're just going to poke some oval conduit through just ready for our DC cables and then we can tie them along the rails on the roof and we can clip it all down here down to the inverter where Jordan is yeah go that's it shame you've gone straight into a bit of wood but right so we're here it's freezing cold it's minus two the guys are finishing off some stuff on the roof I'm cracking on with this I did do a bit about this part in my Vlog did a bit of time lapse and stuff so make sure you head to the weekly Vlog that I've done this week Link in the card little pop-up thingy somewhere here the guys are just finishing getting the string cables in through the roof there's a few little roof repairs to do and as soon as those are done probably in the next hour or two then panels are going to go on so I've just got to be busy here so I've got this for the modbus so the solar Edge modbus it's like a an energy meter basically that reads uh how much power the house is using and it communicates with the solar Edge app so that you can see exactly what's going on so that's going to go there we're going to put the modbus in off this switchfoose connection unit so I've got my inverter on the wall obviously and my plan here it's all mapped out I actually print it out because it's just easier to follow that is basically what I've got to create now today all right good morning guys if you can see from my breath it is all of -2 at the moment so we've jumped in the Loft I'm just clipping the DC cables down to where the inverter is and then they can get put in the DC isolators so Up on the Roof all of the brackets have been fixed the rails have been fixed and what we've done yesterday in order to measure everything out perfectly and get the optimizers in the right place which I'll tell you what the optimizers are for in a minute we actually did a center line so we pinged a center line with the chalk line down here you can just see that gives us our exact center and then what we did is we cut a piece of conduit that's the exact length of one of the panels width and then we just laid that out and we put all the mid clamps in place so that we know exactly where the panels are starting and ending so that we've got them exactly centered in the center of each panel we fixed our optimizers down so these are the solar Edge optimizers and what they do is they optimize the production of each panel particularly beneficial if there's any shading on the roof but it just also allows us to monitor every single panel and the production of each individual panel and what we've done yesterday as well as we've mapped it all out using the solar Edge mapping tool so there's an app where we just scan the QR code on each Optimizer and we say this Optimizer is under this panel so it really helps with ongoing maintenance of the system as well because the weather is so damp and cold at the moment what we did last night is we put tape over the connectors here because what we did not want is for moisture to get inside and then freeze and cause us issues when we're fitting our panels so I'm really glad we did that because as you can see it's super Frosty today we also ran in our string cables yesterday so and we've done it in a special way that will avoid the possibility of induction Loops which could create problems if there's a lightning strike so at the end of each row of panels the last Optimizer we've got a connector here so this is a positive connector we've got to them fit a negative connector on here and plug those in together this one goes down to the inverter and then we have the same on the other side on the opposite side of this string and I'll show you the string drawing so you can see exactly what I mean here's the inverter and we have two strings so originally what I wanted to do is wire this as one string so it would essentially come up from the inverter and we would just Loop in between all the panels like that and then we'd come back down this row of panels and that would be one string then this would be the other however simulating everything in the Solar Edge design tool because this side of the roof gets more Sun than this that side would just be the voltage would be too high for having 16 panels uh on that side so what we've had to do is actually string it slightly differently this line and this line are on one string um so if we put one there and these the internal lines are on the second string but to avoid avoid having it induction Loops the regulations say that you should not have a big loop of cable like that you should always run the positive and negative together to avoid a long cable run what I wanted to do really was just run from here through the roof to the other side back and then like that but we can't actually do that because we basically be creating a big induction Loop so what we've had to do is run a cable from here all the way back along the rail through the roof along the rail all the way to the end here and then we Loop between our panels are up between our optimizers and then that is our other leg of the loop basically so that's how we've done that one and then this one exactly the same string two would just Loop between all the panels and then we come back along the rail with the DC cable we Loop through the roof then we go all the way along to the end and then we link between the optimizers like that so it does mean that we've got longer cable runs but we avoid induction Loops which could cause DC surges if there was a lightning strike [Music] all right absolute classic I've been given the worst job because everyone's avoiding it disarmored of this 25 mil 3 core got run to this meter box a few weeks back and I don't think any thoughts been put into it in the design stage of how it's going to get connected basically we've got a kmf switch here with a fuse in it that's got to go in the meter cupboard it's choker as it is and it's just been left in the meter cupboard and it's minus two today so you can see that's got no Bend in it so I'm gonna have to try and get the heat gun on that to make it a bit malleable but I'm going to tackle it nonetheless so what I'm going to do this little adaptable box here I've got to pull this armor back out the meter box gland it in here and then I think I'm gonna fruit crimp it with some 25 mil through crimps to a set of 25 mil Tails punch through the back of that little bit of cavity into the meter box then the tables will be a bit more flexible and double insulated to go into the kmf switch not the funnest of jobs on a absolute freezing winter day but we'll get it done [Music] so I'm doing the DC isolators but I made him a stupid mistake I cut the holes in the bottom rather than the top the cables are going to come in the top like that and when I I had the box upside down when I was drilling the holes so then I was like what what do I do I've done one so what I've actually done is I've cut all of them out now and then I'm going to put blind grommets in so it kind of like looks like it's supposed to be like that I mean it's not not really a big deal but it's just slightly annoying and I just want everything to look identical so the only way to do that is actually to do the same with both isolators now and put blind grommets in both right so I've actually got a nice job I'm inside in the warmth um in here we've got this cat cable Cat6 cable runs over to the internet Jordan's doing so we're going to bring that in the cutter box in here so this is going to feed to the back of that from there we're going to run a packed cable over the other side and Link it to these we're also going to install an Eddy in here and I've got to get another Cat6 cable take it from the board to read the read the grids and bring that out to the meter cupboards all right so we're just waiting on a gland to get delivered for the armor to go in the bottom here I've took some Tails through into the meter box so I'll deal with that in a bit I've put 25 mil through crimps on so I Loop that round I'll make a nice loop on the others get them crimped on heat shrink over the join we've got 25 mil Earth in the armored and we've got a 16 coming from the meter cupboard so I think I'm just going to screw a little main Earth terminal up there and then the 25 mil can go up and into that with a reducing crimp I'm gonna get all this side buttoned up and then I can turn the power off and work on that side so we're getting the least such a grafter it never really complains he just gets on with it you know he's got his process he's very organized and you know he works neat he works clean really takes pride in his work but he works fast as well you know they're rare those kind of people who work quality and fast there's three things you can have cheap you can have fast you can have good if you want it cheap and fast it's not going to be good if you want it fast and good it's not going to be cheap if you want it good and cheap it's not going to be fast you can never have all three but with us we always try to be good and fast which is why we're not cheap so these are our DC surge protection devices these are type 1 and 2 which means that they protect against lightning strikes as well as general surges on the power lines and stuff so that clicks on there we've got two of these so we've got one for each string actually wrapped think reddish plastic hashtag sorry Greta thumbberg so these are the Vargo top job connectors that we're going to use so basically these will go on here and what will happen is our positive and negative will come through this so the jumper bars are to link these out because basically these surge protection devices need to be connected in parallel so from our DC isolator here we're going to come out with our positive and negative into here so say the positive will go in here negative will go in there then the positive will come out of here through and into our inverter and then the negative will come out of here through and into our inverter and then off of these extra terminals here we just do a little Loop which will go into our search protection device connecting in parallel to the string enabling us to protect the system against surges [Music] to see Hilti bandsaw sb422 is uh it's an absolute Beast I'm just going to use it to cut this dim rail [Music] beautiful I love it [Music] nice no water spilled not embarrassed [Music] so what I've got to do here before we put the panels on is just put the ends on these this is an mc4 negative connector that pin goes in it and connects and goes in to there so what we've got to do is just strip this that will go in there like that what I usually do is put this in the crimping tool first like so then just pop that in there make sure all the cores are inside which they are and then that is one nicely crimped pin and then what happens is that simply size in there and clicks and then we can just tighten that up basically nice and waterproof on a beach not on a roof that's a lovely clicky sound that peeling the tape off this and I'm glad we did put that tape on because it's pretty wet to be honest there we go click so I just want to give a massive shout out to one of our amazing YouTube channel members these are Pringles for life member you get a shout out thank you so much Jacob for supporting our Channel we really appreciate it so the next part is the funnest part getting the panels on the roof do it [Music] so being extra careful to get these first two panels lined up absolutely perfectly so that all the rest will just go into place quickly but also stay in line the first two are really key to getting everything square and when it's square with all four sides of the roof which is is the tricky part and if you get it just a few millimeters out on the first one that can add up to several centimeters out by the time you get to the other side foreign [Music] just warmed up a little bit had some lunch basically brung this armored up glanded it in crimped it through to some Tails taken them through into the meter box into this kmf switch with a 63 amp fuse and then down and we've managed to get some Henley blocks new isolator in now that armored is protected by the kmf switch all the way to the garage fuse board so we can liven that up and start getting some circuits ready for this solar it is bitterly cold guys panels on one side are on which is great all lined up took a little bit of jiggling around to get it right but spawn now the guys are going to start on this side of the roof uh Lee's finished connecting the mains up so that means we can start to liven this board up soon which would be good but I just need to crack on and get everything laid out so I'm going to focus on this now while the guys are up there we've got an issue here the jumper bars haven't turned up to link between these but we can wire them all up it just means that it won't be fully working until we get the little jumper bars to bridge out these terminals these are our DC strings now normally you would have these all terminated safely before you start putting panels on because you start to get a high voltage on these but with the solar Edge because it's only one volt per panel as you connect the panels to the optimizers you we're only going to have a maximum of 16 volts on here anyway which is not enough to shock anyone so I can I can kind of work live on them almost but just so you know that's not good practice to do that in general because if it was on the solar Edge system then it would be um you'd be talking about you know five six hundred volts DC which is very dangerous I've still got to get my AC isolators on so I think what I'll do is I'll Mount those I'll Mount the meter then everything is mounted and then it's just a case of doing all the wiring oh my God all right she just got it oh yeah you do your side didn't you spawn freshman then so I got it so I've just been wiring the internal Bridges here with the DC surge protection devices we've ice we've identified the red as positive white is negative that's the new colors for DC and I've just tried to make it all symmetrical so I've laid it out this way so that it's as symmetrical as possible basically so now I'm going to take the DC cables into the isolator out of the isolator into here and then out of here into the inverter they go opposite so they if oh so we're both coming in the top here but I know sometimes they only go like round or like I'm just because I don't really want to just take that in the top because it's so tight there's still a loop in here and then in the top space yeah yeah up here for thinking down there for dancing [Music] so all the panels are on and we need to test to make sure that they're reading correctly with solar Edge it's one volt per panel so we should have 16 volts per string and we're just going to test that by testing each of our strings so if we test this there we go 16 volts boom obviously the sun is still shining at the moment so we've got a reading if it was dark then we might not have any reading so something to bear in mind but that's good so I've got my DC isolator on now little question for you guys in the comments let me know our DC Eddy currents a thing I wanted to pass the two negatives through this brass Bush here for neatness sake basically so two negatives through there two positives through there because then I could take the incoming negative in there and then I could swoop under for the outgoing negative underneath and then the same with the Positive straight down and swoop under but I am worried that if I run the positives and negatives separately through um a brass lock lock ring Bush thing then it will cause issues with Eddie currents so I've not done it Aesthetics take second place over safety I guess but let me know in the comments if that is just like not actually a thing anyway all right guys that is the end for today we're just buttoning a few things up here but it's cold we're all ready to get home and cozy in for the night and we'll see you tomorrow all right good morning it is Friday a little bit warmer than what it was yesterday which is good but still got about 100 layers on children's let's get called off to another job in Cambridge because I think someone's ill I'm just trying to prep as much of this as I can or get most of it finished if I can so there's a lot of circuits that need to go away on the board got the car charger CTS to bring down got a circuit for the AC isolator for the solar got all the modbus connections to do I'm just gonna get the radio on in the background and hopefully by the time Jordan gets here it's just a case of doing some testing and commissioning during our boarding today yes come and have a guess monster yes with me and I was like I didn't have it because I was just drinking coffee and then I was like in the fridge all week I was like I'll save that for Friday I'm gonna need it I'm gonna Crash and Burn about two o'clock I can't work in this mess that Jordan's left where's he left everything and basically I put in an Eddie so the excess solar they'd be sending back to the grid instead of that they can use that to heat up the element took it from here the few spur then from there I've just run the cable and joined onto the immersion so yeah it's just a good little money saving thing as well all right boss man's still not here so I'm having a cheeky coffee break basically DC cables come from the panels into DC isolators of label them string one which is the top two rows string two does the bottom two rows and then in here you've got your surge protection string one DC surge protection string two and then from there comes up and we've just got our positive and negative connections into the inverter got the AC from the AC isolator all wired up and I'm just running some data cable now so we're going to take one data cable through and into the mod bus and then we're going to take another data cable through up to this network switch so it's got a hard wired internet connection and I'm hoping by the time I do that Jordan will be here and you can around with his board because I don't want to touch it [Music] it is absolutely freezing it's minus two degrees Celsius which for us Brits is pretty chilly winter is finally here so we've put a call out for help and its came to our rescue today they've given us these amazing heated jackets they've got these battery packs they're in the pocket here got a USB cable this is so cool right I love this so we just literally plug it into this power bank give it a couple of minutes and I can already feel my back starting to warm up it's got like a heat mat across the back oh it's so nice it just really takes the chill off in fact it gets pretty toasty so massive thanks to its for sorting us out with these jackets make sure you head to the links in the description because there are some amazing deals in their January sale all the information where you can find out more it's in the links below now when it comes to getting solar installed one thing that's important that a lot of people don't take seriously is bird protection Birds particularly pigeons absolutely love nesting under solar panels I'll show you a picture on screen now of one I saw the other day where the whole roof was just covered in pigeons and there must have been 10 or 15 pigeons nests under there that can cause real problems so we fit as standard bird protection but there are loads of different types of bird protection out there the bog standard stuff that you'll see on most solar installs is just like a wire mesh that goes around the edge and to be honest it just looks really hideous so what we do as you know we do everything The Artisan way we use this this is called solar skirt and it's basically like it says it's a skirt that goes all the way around the panels but it's made of this solid metal sheeting the reason we like this is because it just looks so much better and it actually gives a really neat finish around the panels it almost makes them look like they're meant to be on the roof I'll leave links below where you can find out more about this because it is a fantastic product that I don't think that many people are aware exists on the market so if you're in solar installer or if you're thinking of getting solar done on your roof this could be a good option and you can actually get solar skirt to come and retrofit this so if you're having problems with pigeons what you could do is get a pest controller in to remove all the pigeons nests and then get solar skirt in and they'll actually send a team out to your roof they'll do it all on harnesses and stuff so you don't even need to pay to get scaffolding put up and they'll come and retrofit the solar skirt to your existing solar PV system so great solution so I'm just terminating these data cables now these are for the various devices so we've got this one for the inverter this one for the zappy this one is the Wi-Fi which is an existing Wi-Fi router that's over the other side of the garage that we've just rewired with a new data cable and then this one is there the main internet into the building so what I'm doing is crimping these little pass through RJ45 connectors on the end once these are done then I'm just going to get this board buttoned up everything else is pretty much done and then we can start commissioning if I lick this I will be dead right now that's the title there's the thumbnail so we're ready to turn the system on now very exciting moment commissioning and the Sun is still shining so we need to do it before the sun goes down because there needs to be light on the panels for the solar Edge system to pick up all the panels what should I say something or should I just we started the commissioning process but we forgot to film it then when we tried to film it it chucked it down with snow and then I went on holiday sorry we will try harder next time see you on the next video [Music] foreign

Channel: Artisan Electrics

Views: 145,925

Keywords: artisan electrics, electrician life, solar panels, solar power, solar pv, solar rooftop, solar panel, solar panels for home, renewable energy, renewable energy sources, solar panel installation, battery storage, artisan electrics solar, artisan electrics ev charger, renewable energy projects, battery storage system, battery storage for solar panels, solar skirt installation, solar skirt bird mesh kit, solar skirts, solar panel skirt, off grid, off grid living

Id: 0ljk3LD65zg

Length: 30min 13sec (1813 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 12 2023