Off-Grid Hillbillies Meet Enphase 

He has a whole great playlist of pv direct systems

Did you use enphase micro inverters?

Jerry Gundrum , not good to have neighbors.

Only busy bodies would care.

They are not blocking any view.

Hey David, that's great! So in Houston they let you bank any overproduction from one month to the next? Not where we are.

@@kbob8424 yes in a net metering application that bank of credits builds up like I outlined, if not I would strongly consider battery storage that way I could save any over production myself.

@@davidvelen9835 - yeah where we're at we do have net metering but the account is reconciled at the end of the month. If you under produced you owe the difference at full price. If you over produced they credit you're account, like.01 - .02 cents per kilowatt... or basically nothing.

How much did you pay?

Ma lassa perdere! Venitinni a li Calabrie ca ca un nivica mai

Haha right metal up,Hope you enjoy your system. what a great project to do with your sons!

Yeah same here. It's a code thing. If grid has issues your system would still feed power into it. When someone comes to work on it, they may get fried.

@@kbob8424 Its not so much a code thing, its a grid tied inverter thing. You have to have batteries to run when the grid goes down. The enphase inverters can run without the grid, but you need batteries and an inverter connected to them to provide a grid for the grid tied inverters to feed into. Solar panels can not support loads on their own, without a battery in the system.

@@Tro1086 - it's by code. grid tied systems must confirm with "Anti islanding" requirements. You cannot back fed energy if lines are down. There has to be a mechanism preventing this. If there is power present in the lines someone may get hurt when working on them. This is before even considering batteries.

@@kbob8424 yes dude, I got that, but regardless, a grid tied solar system can't power your house very well without at least a small battery system to piggy back on. If grid tied systems actually worked stand alone to power your house they would just have a built in transfer switch to disconnect them from the grid, and then keep running. This is what hybrid inverters do, they are basically an off grid inverter that can also pass grid to loads when solar is insufficient, and disconnect from the grid and keep running on solar/batteries when the grid goes down. I'm sorry someone sold you a grid tied system and you thought it was awesome. Hybrid systems can get pretty expensive though, with the batteries.

@@Tro1086 - we are happy with our system. I was not under the impression it would work when power went out, I knew it would stop producing. There are current inverters that will work without batteries. Look up batteryless inverters.

Enphase has published multiple white papers explaining the financial benefit of designing for clipping.

Eric Nay get over it..

Adam you are the enforcer

Gain Solar Services hahaha just can’t stand stupid question,...I get joy out of it

Skip to about 5:00 in. Didn't want (or wasn't allowed?) to block the neighbor's view.

One panel isnt even worth going thru all the permitting, inspections, and agreements with the power company. No point in doing any grid tie smaller than 4-5kw

Its not as easy as a cut off switch. If that were the case you could just turn your main breaker off and the grid tie inverters would keep running, obviously they dont. You have to have batteries to run off grid.

Yes we fixed that sorry about that.

also interested.

@@paulmacgiollacaoine8619 Hi Paul; Yes it would be good to have a good alternative to Tesla wall batteries; or making your own.

There is no central point of failure when using micro.

The panels all produce AC power independently, micros are as good as it gets when your dealing with trees/shade. If every other panel is shaded by trees, the un shaded panels can still produce their full potential.

We flipped them after the footage.

From what I remeber. 1 axis tracker adds 10% over fixed. 2 axis tracker adds 20% over fixed. With panels at about $1 per watt, for both cost and simplicity and asthetic, it makes sense to flush mounting to roof, and add an extra 20% of pannel. Say doing a 2 axis encoder adds $1,000 of costs. Could buy 3 more pannel and add 900W of fixed. capacity.

Peel off the stickers and scan with your phone on the ride home

I prefer to peel the stickers off and then put them on a piece of paper and then proceed to lose the paper

It is in a cul-de-sac.

Iron ridge Hollander style

Are these 1.5” or 2” pipes used? Looks like 1.5” and iron ridge sells a clamp system for 2” only....

@KenDroid66 Very true my friend. A full set of thouse run near 40k. 16 batteries @ 48v @ 1200Ah. But you could start with 2

Was telling someone the same thing just yesterday.

I’ve seen this in my area. One roof gets paneled and then a year later a good ten percent is solar.

There are two reasons that I know of for adding carbon to the AGM batteries and that is to help minimize sulfation on the plates and to allow for faster charge rates.

@@engineer775 recommended manufactures ?

@@grandpaseed Trojan, Northstar. If you need a quote let me know.

David Armstrong the neighbors and the county were cool with it. I was surprised. Lake life. He actually built the rack three years ago so everyone got used to staring at Pipe for three years I think they are happy to have something else now.

@@GainSolarPower Ha, well that's funny and might actually work. Now if it's going to be battery backed then they will love it at some point. :)

Roy Amberg u must not know what ur doing..

8 years ago they sucked now its all i use they are great

@@SolarTechFL they were old ones.

They sucked so bad that I wrote a song about it called ain’t got no cable on the truck. Scott was begging for me to do one. We figured with the ensemble coming out we might as well try it

@@GainSolarPower had issues with other micro inverter to

No, I would never put this in my front yard. Especially in a neighborhood like shown here.

Yeah, that new into really sucks.

John P , easier to steal this way.

Monnie Holt no ur wrong

Depending on where you live, you need to have a fence around ground mounts.

I agree it's not off grid. The rest of your comment makes no sense. I have 20 modules, and net metering with a grid tie inverter. You don't need batteries. I use the grid as a 100% efficient battery. Would I like a battery? Sure, it would give me backup, which I don't have, but I'm generating. That is not pointless.

@@fjalics so why would you spend all that money just for a grid time in system without having some type of battery backup for yourself when the grid goes down for a day or two? I mean what is the pay back on grid tie in 7 - 9 years depending on the local region. Given this video appears to be in the northeast somewhere, the amount of time per day for solar usage cannot possibly be good to pay the system back. Given the prime time usage schedules, these panels are most likely not helping this home at all. So as I said, it is useless!

@@bigphillyed I live in Ohio. The solar isn't great, but I still made over 7mwh in 2018, and nearly 7.5 mwh last year. It will eventually pay for itself, but money wasn't the whole story. People buy giant pickup trucks, 4 wheelers, boats, and all kinds of other things that not only don't make them any money, but cost them. I wanted it. I don't understand your point regarding usage schedules.

@@fjalics so you spend all that money to make a tie-in system that offers you no storage for operation after the sun goes down. How much could you possibly be making sending power back? Not enough to justify spending that kind of money. I would say if you had a battery system to safe power for yourself while sending back the extra power, is a good idea. But again you are still at the mercy of the power company during a black out.

@@bigphillyed I get full credit for every kwh I produce. You are correct that my solar shuts off when the power goes out. I do want one eventually.

Patriot Eke thanks for ur ass head opinion

@@adamgruber2342 Your place?

You don't get tornado's every where !

1 tornado and bye bye house as well....

@@Isaacmantx Depends on what type of house is built !

Dorothy?! Is that you

1 tornado and bye byte kids ;)