Well, another end of the year project, adding a new array of 10 panels (255w ea) for 2550watts peak. This will get me up 8.5kw total. Made some changes this time around. Fixed mount, for one thing. Panels I bought last fall for $600 are down to about 300 now.....so I am mounting these on a fixed, south facing base rather than build another tracking mount. Also trying the Enphase micro inverters that will feed this array to the grid only, not to my battery bank. I confess to copying fellow Tennessean Doug Kalmer's design from Solar Gary's site: Doug's New 4.6 KW micro inverter DIY Grid Tied PV Array Got the racking built over the last few days, plan to start mounting panels tomorrow after a trip to town to buy some wiring/disconnect/etc......
Yep......from my original 12 panels (175w each) (2.1kw) in Dec 2008: to 40 panels now: (8.5kw) Turned on the latest 10 this morning. Naturally, the day sucked, was overcast and all. They did a whopping 1.4kw/hr. Sun supposed to be out nice tomorrow, so maybe more like 10kw/hrs then ! These last 10 panels, I went with Enphase microinverters which mount right at the back of the panels, and change the DC to 240AC. They also connect to the internet, and you get a nice reporting/real time info from your own page at Enphase. Here is the side I can let the public see, if you're interested: Not much to look at today, but over time, it might get to be interesting. TnAndy's Page
