Installation

Three men installed the rails, panels, and microinverters, and one man did the electrical work that connects the inverters to the electrical box in my basement. The system consists of 32 panels (270 watts each), and each panel has a microinverter that converts the DC from the cells to AC for use in the house and for insertion into the power grid. The microinverters are made by Endphase and are M250 inverters. The panels are made by Suniva and are black; my roof is black, and the panels partially blend with the roof. My cost for the system was $30,849, not including Federal and state rebates.

I was concerned whether our roof would support the weight of the panels. Each panel weighs about 40#. The head of the company measured the size of the beams in the attic and had a structural engineer calculate the loading the roof would sustain. The conclusion was that the roof would support much more than the weight of the solar panels. Details of the structural report are in the formal proposal made by Synergy Power.

About 80% of my roof faces south and is ideal for solar power. The only shade comes from a tree near the south-west corner of the house, and no solar panels were placed in that corner of the roof. All of the panels were placed on the portion of the roof that faces south.

The following picture shows the cells on my house. Most of them are over the living room, but six panels are over the kitchen. Except for this view looking north-east, the cells during the summer aren't visible from the street. They are visible but not noticeable during the winter due to leaves being gone from the tree. This view was taken from my neighbor's driveway.