Went solar

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I decided to go solar at the end of May. I purchased a rooftop system with 10 panels, that was installed at the end of July. It took the power company almost 30 days to put in the two new power meters so that the system could be activated. It was powered up on 8/22 and seemed to be working pretty well.

 

However, there was a glitch with an optimizer for one of the panels that was replaced on 9/7. The guy who replaced it forgot to turn the system back on, and I was out of town. So it did not produce power for 6 days. There was also a problem with the system not recognizing one of the panels, which has now also been fixed.

 

Even with the problems the system still produced half, and sometimes more than half, of the power we required. That is pretty good with the air conditioners running quite a bit due to the high temperatures. As it cools down, most of the energy produced will go back to NV Energy and they will credit me for it.

 

After a rebate, and the anticipated Federal energy tax credit, the system will cost me a little over $9,000. I had thought about over sizing the system and storing excess power in batteries to go off grid. However, I didn't think the battery systems are quite reliable enough yet.