In this post I wrote about photovoltaic’s impact on a house’s resale value. The tl;dr is, it was positive, and the only question was by how much. Today, my insurance company told me that my house’s value had increased by 100% of the amount I spent on the recent solar panel installation. This isn’t an … Continue reading Photovoltaic’s impact on home insurance & resale value →

A good article about panel degradation: How long do rooftop residential solar panels last?

I'm enjoying monitoring our solar panels' production. SolarEdge's site provides more data than their iOS app, but the app is convenient for checking the system during the day. The UI won't win any awards but it's more than adequate for the task. It’s illuminating (no pun intended) to see how a tree or chimney shadow, … Continue reading Monitoring my photovoltaic panels →

All the panels are up, we're connected to the grid, and we are live! Here's the panel layout. I went with the maximum panel density that our roof would support, given local building codes. (Some localities, Seattle included, regulate the maximum roof percentage that may be covered by solar panels, minimum roof edge clearances, etc.) … Continue reading Photovoltaic installation, day 4. We are done! →

Previous posts in this series: Photovoltaic installation, day 1 Photovoltaic installation starts today! Solar panel changes, installation in one week! On Modeling the Economics of Residential Solar Solar power installer selected! Three solar power proposals A financial model for residential solar power Today the A&R team worked on the connections and intermediate hardware, and figured out … Continue reading Photovoltaic installation, day 2 →

Previous posts in this series: Photovoltaic installation starts today! Solar panel changes, installation in one week! On Modeling the Economics of Residential Solar Solar power installer selected! Three solar power proposals A financial model for residential solar power This is supposed to be a four-day install. The REC 405W panels were delivered. I've now got 12,555 … Continue reading Photovoltaic installation, day 1 →

Squeeeeeeee!

Previous posts in this series: On Modeling the Economics of Residential Solar Solar power installer selected! Three solar power proposals A financial model for residential solar power We've been given a date of September 19 for the installation start! And we've had two small hitches... After an internal review, A&R Solar needed to adjust the roof … Continue reading Solar panel changes, installation in one week! →

Previous posts in this series: Solar power installer selected!Three solar power proposalsA financial model for residential solar power Max Kanter published, "Modeling the Economics of Residential Solar." (WordPress is acting wonky. If that link doesn't work, use this one: https://www.jmaxkanter.com/posts/solar-economics/ ) His analysis of photovoltaics is more rigorous than mine and is a super informative … Continue reading On Modeling the Economics of Residential Solar →

We selected A&R Solar to install our photovoltaic system and signed the contract. The broad elements of the system are: Thirty-one Panasonic EverVolt 410W panelsSolarEdgePower: 12.71 kWAnnual energy: 10,562 kWh in year 1Installation cost: $40,134...after Federal tax credit: $29,699Annual projected energy savings in year 1: $1,304 The runner-up was a proposal from Puget Sound Solar. … Continue reading Solar power installer selected! →