DIY Solar Electrical Installation for Grid Tied Electrical using Enphase Micro inverters
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ส.ค. 2024
- DIY Solar Electrical Wiring - Should you do it yourself? Look at conduit bending and panel wiring need for DYI install.
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DIY Solar Electrical Installation for Grid Tied Electrical using Enphase Micro inverters
1. I am not an electrician and I do turn off the panel at the main when I do panel work.
2. Grid Net Metering (Turning backwards) requires permits and inspections
a. NEC code it is a bit simpler with Micro Inverters because no DC to a string inverter
b. You will likely be using a PV Tool Kit and pulling a permit with your city
c. You will be filling out and signing agreements with your electrical company
d. $460
3. Plans
a. Solardesigntool.com get.solardesig...
b. PV Tool Kit - California Solar permitting guide book www.opr.ca.gov/...
c. They call out EMT conduit and define the electrical components
d. Plan for expansion Run extra wires heaver gage wire more wire you want not to have to touch the grid portion. It will have relatively low cost to add additional panels if you don’t need to touch the Feed to the roof
4. Should you do the Electrical work yourself?
a. $2000 labor + $500 parts r cost for Electrical is a fixed component no matter how many panels you run. I have 2.7kw $4,500 in components but the electrical labor is $2,000. It could take my panels up to 2 years to pay for the electrical work!
b. Breakdown
i. Panel work show breaker at bottom
ii. Mounting Components and wiring
iii. Riser
iv. Roof
c. Challenges
i. Panel Interface Panel breaker
ii. Working with EMT
5. EMT Bending
a. Paint emt but keep ends free of paint
b. Emt cost is cheap. Videos on bending sparkychannel.com/
c. Apps on phone ibend and quickbend iphone apps
d. Do a ton of practice bends
e. Do practice sometimes during one of your production bends
f. Parts Connectors, couplers and straps
g. Over buy parts and return at the end of your project
h. Tools - bender , cutter use popular bender
I always hate seeing people slam someone that made a solid effort for a diy video. Conduit bending is an art that is learned from experience, worth paying someone to do. But some people won't, and I'm sure the video helped someone out there
J D Thanks. It is an art indeed. The iPhone apps help. Skilled Professionals get a far better outcome in terms of safety and quality. It was going to cost $2,200 in labor and the extra cost caused my project payback to be 3-4 years longer. If I could have got a quote for gust the bending for $800, it would have been worth it. Bending is a pain.
I’m doing it all, Canadian Solar 400w panels, (22qty), 2 strings of 11 each, IQ7As, and the combiner, 8.8 kw, all mounted on flat tile roof, this will be the culmination of many years of DIY learned knowledge. Just waiting in the city permit before I begin my install then I need to do all of the interconnect process with SCE
Great. Just want to know why you picked the IQ7A vs IQ8 stuff. Also what city are you installing and were you required to use EMT.
Yeah I think pretty much any city in California is going to require EMT all the way to your combiner box, I went IQ7A over the IQ8 because I don’t ever plan on adding batteries, although I really like the fact that if you get the whole IQ8 system you will still produce even when the grid is down, I just didn’t want to pay for the higher cost, if I lived in the mountains I definitely would’ve gone that route, but I’m in town and money is tight
With the IQ8 I believe you need an IQ8 specific combiner box (more $$$) plus I believe you need the transfer switch (more $$$) plus each battery string is $7500, plus a lot more wiring and way more design effort
@@Joe-qw6il Thanks for your feedback. I'm thinking about expanding my system by a few panels and I'll likely avoid the iq8 for the reasons you suggest.
For a DYI, as long as you did every thing to code and you are happy with the results I say good for you. If a professional did this I would tear them apart for it. A little better planning on you conduit running and you wouldnt have needed you pull box. A professional team should have been able to get your job completed in a day and had a much cleaner install. I hope you had fun learning on your install and feel proud about doing it yourself.
I really respect the job you do now that I have had some real world experiences in solar. The Enphase systems are a bit easier for the DIYer I think. It is best to hire the electrical I think if you have the budget. In my case my solar bill was only $100 per month so the system pay back was 4 years for the 2.7kw DIY system. Hiring the electrical would have added 2 years to the payback. I think a string inverter system would be a bit more risky for DIY because of high voltage DC.
We have the Enphase Micro inverters installation as shown on your video
You can read your smart meter. You should see - kwh numbers going negative in the middle of the day if you don't have ac running. See video th-cam.com/video/kAgUAapqNRU/w-d-xo.html
Do you login to the enphase site that looks like this? ... enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/systems ... if so send me a picture of your production
don't forget to add a ground bushing to your combiner box.
You want the ground bushing on conduit going to the roof from the combiner box? They made me add GBs at the disconnect switch.
You can find something like this on the Avasva page. Full step-by-step instructions right on your desk.
Thanks for the hands on instead of ....
Hey danny
Thanks for good and positive video
I'm living La,and doing construction for 8 years,
would you mind if I asked you what are steps for going diy solar?
Whats first step?can I go to end step by myself?
Hi, I documented most of the important items in the following playlist. Each video has links in the notes for you to look at. It is best to take time to learn before you start your project and pull your building permit. th-cam.com/play/PLCal7Co3mAHSR5tg48M8NGKBcjBso8Wle.html
Electricians butthurt over the bends in conduit... If someone else cares they can shell out the money themselves to have it done how they'd like.
(You took the criticism like a champ I think.)
Thanks for your complement !
You run a ground wire right? I’m not sure about the concern about the paint. I doubt the emt is a reliable ground.
Mark Jones steeltubeinstitute.org/steel-conduit/2016/04/26/simple-guidelines-painting-steel-emt-conduit/ . When we pull cable an strip the cover off insulation, we can electrify the the conduit unless the conduit is grounded. Connectors bite into the conduit ends. Nec does rely on grounded conduit. Thanks for catching this detail.
Mark Jones Article 358.60 of the 2014 NEC allows EMT to be used as an equipment ground. Painting the conduit to match existing structure is required by local building codes.
Interesting! Thanks for the info, guys. Notwithstanding this, I doubt the emt would be allowed to *substitute* for a ground wire?
@@rivernet62 Correct, an equipment grounding conductor, aka "ground wire" is NOT required in EMT installations.
However, most electrical contractors, myself included do not use the EMT as an equipment ground but it is 100% NEC compliant to do so.
@@rivernet62 The city required me to run a separate ground wire. My video shows a green #8 wire that I pulled through the conduit run. The ground wire is tied through a grounding lug then it grounds the shutoff box and I needed to add grounding collars that grounded the conduit. Metal stuff needed to be grounded for safety because you can accidentally hook the black wire to the conduit and then people can be the path to ground for this circuit. Your should be able to put a probe on black and one probe on the grounded conduit and read voltage.
So I am purchasing several used panels from Arizona and I am having trouble finding a roof mounting system. What site did you go to? And how much was your cost for the mounting without panels?
Garage Geek I did Iron Ridge racking. Tools are on he IR site to plan your installation. Look at Alte store and call them up to get a quote and check your design. Look at these 2 videos. I cover some things you ask about. th-cam.com/video/EFz6TwEAbLo/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/l_phFvEBk9o/w-d-xo.html . Enjoy your project.
look at that conduit run from the panel to the disco 😬😬
It passed
Nice install Danny, have you had any trouble with any of your enphase micro inverters
I have not had any issues and they have been running for over 1 year. The new version in the iq7a. Mine are iq7+ with 385 panels. I made a few other videos on my install.
In California, do they inspect every step? Or one inspection after the install is complete? Do they count the railing system anchors tied to the roof and check if you flashed correctly?
I would ask your planning department. I had them come out before the panels were set and after. In my city they just come out once but the panels are a pain to take off and dangerous to take off so to be save ask for 2 inspections I think.
Great videos. Any insight into the Enphase Q COnnectors, and whether you wired them yourself (field-wirable ones)? It seems like their pre-fab cable comes wired in parallel, but you can't wire the DIY connectors in parallel because the terminal crimp only accepts one 12 AWG wire, not two... Anyway, thanks again!
Sorry. I just used the stock cable shown in another video I did with "testing" in the title. Give me a link if you find what you are looking for. If I understand your issue, I guess I'd keep the Enphase crimps and make pigtails out of them and add my own wire using marine grade heat shrink but connectors and some 110v outdoor cable if I wasn't running in conduit. The enphase parallel cable comes in different spacing. Thanks for your comments. Good luck on your project!
why sk many unnecessary boxes?
Hey Danny How can I know if my solar system is tied to the Gird. I kept getting the same amount of energy consumption from our Power supplier despite having the solar company showing online kilowatts of electricity generated. No benefit for installing the solar panel. What might be wrong?
If you have batteries you have a off grid system. Sounds like it is wired as a back up system in case the grid goes down. If this is the case your installer needs to make your solar system your primary feed at the transfer switch and that will solve your problem. hope this helps.
This guy just screwed up his house lol next owner good luck 👍
Please share your wisdom with us
Question, do you have to program the Envoy? At all?
Only the wifi connection I think I used the enlighten app on the initial config and it discovered the serial numbers of the inverters. All the rest is done through the web interface. Metering etc.
COM-ponent
Must have said it wrong?
Come po nit is how it's said where I'm from
thats some ugly conduit work
Aimbot onethree Perhaps you could let us DIYers know how we could get a better result?
@@dannyjensen4954 possibly trim the super strut so its actually the size or smaller of the boxes you are mounting and not dangling over the sides?
Tony Reimer yes. As I recall, I was thinking about mounting something else on the wall at the time ..... Now I can’t remember what I was thinking? Good point.
We need more noise covering this topic dontwe?
Could you use PVC conduit?
In California, the Solar permit guide requires rigid emt conduit on the line drawing. I saw plenty of TH-cam videos with pvc used but my city did not permit pvc. I really wanted to use pvc. It would have saved me a bunch of time. You may be able to use pvc below the roof level for AC (microinverters). I know DC wiring (string inverters)may require EMT? So the Calif Permit guild may have extra safety built in? Talk to your City would be your best bet.
i did
@@charleslynn3921 How long ago? What City?
@@dannyjensen4954
I live in North Carolina my inspections were last year I'm up to 27 panels and I use all PVC and it passed with in phase system
@@charleslynn3921 I wish I could have done it with PVC. 27 panels... Wow. You must have been a slave to the project. How did you get your panels on the roof?
Not gunna lie, looks like total crap
The crap passed inspection by the city. I"m sure a skilled electrician could do better if I wanted to pay an extra $1,500 in labor. Maybe you could let us know how the DIYers could do a better job? We are open to suggestion. Do provide details and links please.
$1,500 is cheap compared to what ur loosing when u sell ur home. Nobody wants to buy that eye sore of pipe work