Lord Solar

I became Lord Solar on a trip to a California convention for entrepreneurs. Elon Musk of Tesla Motors and Solar City was the keynote speaker. When I heard about the leasing option from Solar City, I knew I had to see if it was available in Arizona. I had on previous occasions requested solar quotes from local companies but none offered a lease or even bothered returning my calls in a timely manner. The lease concept is amazing, pay for the panels over time like you would an electric bill while displacing your electric bill.

Arizona can be the Saudi Arabia of solar, we have the sun. Even though solar panels perform slightly less effectively in the desert heat, Arizona has the right year round exposure to fulfill the average home’s needs. I’m not sure why most people in my home state are more excited about oil and gas development. There is much more potential for solar here in this state.

One of the frustrations I’ve always had with Arizona governance is the lack of focus on solar energy. We have one of the largest nuclear plants in the country, Palo Verde, but lag far behind California in terms of renewables.

My home is an average Arizona home. About 1,500 square feet with a two car garage. The visible roof above faces almost due south. The trees in the foreground are not in path of daily sunlight.

I have a 33 panel array on the roof from Solar City. The system is rated for 6.1 KWH but produces about 5.1 KWH on a good day. My roof is under warranty for 11 years from Solar City. The installation took about 3 days. All work was done outside the home.

The solar panels from Solar City cover almost half my entire roof. These are the less efficient panels, some of my neighbors now have smaller installs that produce the same output. A hidden upside of the panels covering the roof is that my home is now slightly cooler in the summer. I bought myself a month or so of minimal AC usage in the spring. This is also a money saver.

The panels are very easy to manage. Simple aluminum frames, glass covering, and rubber roof mounts make for easy cleaning. I’ve only had to wash them twice this year. The task consisted of spraying them down with a hose and then just because I like em extra shiny, I swabbed them with a giant sponge on a stick. The latter I discovered is not really necessary, solar production is marginally affected.

The entire solar array is fairly light weight and mounts to the roof using rubber insulators. Solar City installers were even able to mount it onto my roof with clay tiles.

On the north side of the house in the shade by the fuse box the Solar City crew connected the inverter and additional meters to my fuse box. The power produced by the panels is sent to the grid using the fuse box as a connection point. When there is no sun (at night), the house draws power from the grid. As long as the system produces more than I use, the bill from APS is zero.

All the panels run DC lines down to a union box. This is box combines all the panels into one signal before feeding it into the inverter. We added locks to all such boxes to keep the neighborhood kids safe.

The solar panel array can be disconnected at any time from the inverter using this switch. The only time this needs to be off is if the inverter or the fuse box is being serviced. With a power plant on the roof both APS and Solar City system must be off before servicing fuses or in house wiring.

The inverter in this case is the Fronius IG 6.1 KWH inverter. It runs fairly quiet, and in this case benefits from being on the cooler north side of the home. The little antenna at the bottom transmits almost real time data to a WIFI box hooked up to our home network. The results can veiwed from my IPhone or from the web on the Solar City production report page.

The whole connection process is external to the house. The Solar City team added a connection into my fuse box on its own fuse. The system has several disconnects so we can isolate both APS and Solar City from the home. When the Solar City system is producing more power than the house uses, the APS meter spins backwards. When the home is using more power than it can make, the meter spins forwards. Overall, the system has netted break even year round for us. Our APS bill is consistently $15 from APS, the minimum APS interconnect fee.

Solar City provides an online page where we can measure our solar production almost in real time. A small WIFI box inside the house transmits directly from the Fronius inverter to Solar City. The graph above is one perfect day of solar production in Arizona. About 33 KWh total for the day. A modest Arizona home uses about 600 KWh – 900 kWh throughout the year. Even with cloudy days, there is more than enough spare KWh from the solar system to cover us for the year. If you are with APS I strongly recommend the Noon – 7 PM plan.

Cloudy days cause production to vary throughout the day as clouds pass over. Sometimes we can go outside and see the individual cloud thats causing the dip in production.

The biggest surprise was that the solar panels produce electricity even in a heavy downpour. Arizona gets heavy Monsoon rain infrequently, but when it rains it pours. On this particular day the sun was nowhere to be seen. The system still produced a bit of power.

Things like this don’t happen by accident. No PhotoShop here, just the little things that make us think "There is a god and he/she has a sense of humor."

Throughout the week in the rainy season production varies. Overall we still cover our costs by building up many APS credits from earlier in the year. In Arizona, the biggest power hog is the AC, ironically the more it rains the less we need to use it.

Even in the winter time production is great. Over the whole month of january we averaged near the peak of productions.

I’m not sure Chris is with Solar City anymore but the number above still works. Yes, Solar City does have a referral program, if you mention my name "Paul Kenjora" I receive a $100 check in the mail from Solar City. Once you become a Solar City customer you have the same ability. I do not do this for profit but the extra $100 doesn’t hurt in keeping this site up, this is a personal passion of mine.

And thats how I became Lord Solar.

More from Lord Solar

• The Beginning: Going Solar
• The Year In APS Solar Electric Bills
• Expanding The Garden

Lord Solar Recommends

• The GAPS Diet: Why Our Family is Doing It (Keeper of the Home)
• Ignite Phoenix #3 – Check out the amazing submissions! (Ignite Phoenix)

Lord Solar Marketplace

• Natural Light Solar Attic Fan 30 watt (eBay | Living Green)
• Natural Light Solar Attic Fan 20 watt (eBay | Living Green)