Help In Land O Lakes, FL

[doksinc]

Nice.
What do you think about the ground mounts you have ?

Couldn't of been any easier and cost effective. I installed that entire system by myself. The ground mounts were 1/3 of the cost of going with IronRidge type system. Permitting was a pain as the engineers haven't seen this system yet from SunBallast much here in the states. But the local distributor was very helpful in communication with them before stamping design. 10 out of 10...they get my vote.

 

[doksinc]

Final inspection today: structural........ PASS, Foundation.......PASS, Electrical Underground........PASS, Electrical Rough......PASS, and Electrical Final.......PASS!
Now onward to Duke for interconnection request.

 

[Quattrohead]

Nice one
I have all my rough inspections done, finish work now in progress

 

[Solar Guppy]

Now onward to Duke for interconnection request.

Keep in mind before you deal with Duke:

Maximum 10kw PV allowed, otherwise you get into the liability insurance requirements, read here

Unless you have a UL9540 signed off permit ( you have a hybrid inverter ), just apply for net metering, Duke to my knowledge is not setup for battery abritarge ( Florida ) and only had a pilot program that started last year, so telling them you have a battery can become an issue.

Your annual estimated generation must be sized to your past annual loads, Duke will not approve oversized solar generation. Here is there estimation tool

 

[doksinc]

Finally...a near perfect day with no clouds.

Commissioned the system with PTO on Feb 8th....already wanting to expand. Phase 2 soon....

 

[Solar Guppy]

Nice production!, as for expansion, you have little headroom left for the Duke 10K hard limit and with your current system with edge of cloud events will likely be going over 10K for small bursts.

You may need to add battery storage to implement peak shaving and a way to control the loading to keep the export energy within Dukes limits, an example is below where battery is charged during the 10am-2pm peak window.

 

[doksinc]

Nice production!, as for expansion, you have little headroom left for the Duke 10K hard limit and with your current system with edge of cloud events will likely be going over 10K for small bursts.

You may need to add battery storage to implement peak shaving and a way to control the loading to keep the export energy within Dukes limits, an example is below where battery is charged during the 10am-2pm peak window.

View attachment 197267

Going to bite the bullet and add on the PL Policy and Tier II interconnect agreement.....then add the batteries with critical load panel. Even when I expand system to 14.4 we are still under yearly overall usage. Thinking I should of just designed the system this way in the beginning. Live and learn.

 

[Solar Guppy]

What are you getting for quotes for the PL Policy?

Having the correct tier would be one less thing to worry about, but if you have storage, peak shaving will address to keep under the 10kw limits. With a 15.5kw array, it requires using just about the full 10kw BYD battery to this time of year ( cool and full sun ) to store at peak and shift selling time.

Technically any changes in your system are required by Duke to inform and get there approval

 

[doksinc]

What are you getting for quotes for the PL Policy?

Having the correct tier would be one less thing to worry about, but if you have storage, peak shaving will address to keep under the 10kw limits. With a 15.5kw array, it requires using just about the full 10kw BYD battery to this time of year ( cool and full sun ) to store at peak and shift selling time.

Technically any changes in your system are required by Duke to inform and get there approval

Currently getting quotes at around $45 per month. Have some more coming in soon. We shall see.

 

[GotaDadBod]

@doksinc I am in the Tampa Area and Basically trying to build the exact system you have right now. Id love to be able to chat with someone who has dealt with pasco and permitting and sunballast.

 

[Lillico1]

Need advice please: EG4 18KPV has 3 MPPT inputs. Input #1 is system defined parallel. I currently have installed 2 strings of Canadian Solar CS6R-400MS-HL 400 watt panels in 12 panels per string. So my math is 12.99A at 441.6V (36.8 x 12). If I put both strings into MPPT #1 that will put the strings in parallel at 25.98A (which the inverter automatically limits the parallel connection to 25A).

So should I put one string in to MPPT #1 and second string into MPPT #2? In the very near future I will be adding another 12 panel of same brand and size. MPPT #2 and #3 are limited to 15A each.

So I have a similar question. I will have 4 strings same number of panels per string. Each having 380v at 13.2amps! 1array faces south east, 2 arrays face straight south and the other is facing South west!
Would I be better to have the 2 strings that face south on mppt1 or the south east & south west strings??

 

[Quattrohead]

So I have a similar question. I will have 4 strings same number of panels per string. Each having 380v at 13.2amps! 1array faces south east, 2 arrays face straight south and the other is facing South west!
Would I be better to have the 2 strings that face south on mppt1 or the south east & south west strings??

I don't think it will matter that much, but it would be a great experiment long term to try.
Maybe keep all 4 strings separate until they hit the inverter so you can try both ways.
I have 6 panels east and 6 south I combined, because I could not combine them with the 7 string sets. Seem to produce as expected.