Description:

11.68Kw Solar PV System with 32 Aptos 365w panels and IQ7 Plus inverters, 10Kw Enphase battery storage

Other Benefits:

complete solar monitoring through Enphase, with live status showing real-time power generating from panels and routing between house, battery, and power grid

Maintenance Requirements:

Periodic washing of the solar panels is only recommended system maintenance

My Motivation:

Energy independence, hurricane prep peace of mind

Advice:

Read your contract! Be familiar with what who is responsible for what and who warrants for what- Solar installer, vs solar panel manufacturer, vs battery manufacturer, vs utility company. Be familiar with when the solar installer will consider your system "installed and complete," and make sure all components of your system are installed as ordered. Be clear on who will be your point person with the solar installer, who will provide you updates on its progress, how often. How do you get in touch if you need to. Including a battery adds a layer of complexity to your solar system and likely will extend how long your installation will take. Our contract language specified 10kw battery storage, with no specificity on whether that would be 1 10kw battery or multiple smaller batteries totaling 10kw. Those options cost different. I recommend requesting an itemized invoice be a part of your solar contract. Because of the length of the install process, many customers are obtaining a solar loan for a specified amount of money and installer is paid well before the install even begins. Without an invoice listing specific products with costs, and installation costs that are included in your system, it is possible for customers to receive different/cheaper components than what was contractually agreed to. Be sure to examine your roof and see if it's fit for solar installation. If its old, it may be better to replace the roof before installing solar. Replacing a roof with solar already installed is not something you want to have to deal with anytime soon.

Experience with Installer:

The system is now complete and up and running, but it took a long time and much intestinal fortitude to get here. We signed our contract with ESD 6/27/2022 and our panels were installed 9/23/2022. When the installers finished installing the panels, we were told the battery for our system was on backorder and there was no way to tell when/if it would become available again. We have an electric vehicle and live in hurricane alley, so a battery was an integral part of our decision. We asked for a refund for the cost of the battery and there were many months of "It will be in soon." ESD does promise (and did) reimburse our loan payments for several months until the project passed inspection with Duke energy and was cleared to go live. ESD attempted to mark our system install as "complete" since our solar panels now were generating electricity- even though we still didn't have a battery (this is the threshold many companies use in their contractual language). That's where you must be informed about your contract. We finally ended up complaining to the BBB to get ESD to agree to a refund. Things finally took a turn in March 2023 when ESD reached out to make it right, they now had the battery in stock and would complete the system as ordered. After several months waiting in an install queue ESD completed the battery installation in 10/2023. The installers were professional worked quickly and completed almost everything correctly the first time. There was one return trip to finish installing software updates to the battery so it could communicate with the Enphase app. I expected to run into issues setting up my Enphase app, and having everything work as advertised but was very pleasantly surprised how well ESD completed these functions. They didn't just stick panels and a battery up there and leave me to figure out the rest. The app, the gateway, the battery, everything worked as advertised the first time. Our experience wasn't perfect (especially with communication and project management updates), but ultimately I would recommend ESD and believe an informed solar customer armed with the right questions and expectations would be well served by them.

Additional Notes:

Our contract language specified 10kw battery storage, with no specificity on whether that would be 1 10kw battery or multiple smaller batteries totaling 10kw. Those options cost different. I recommend requesting an itemized invoice be a part of your solar contract. Because of the length of the install process, many customers are obtaining a solar loan for a specified amount of money and installer is paid well before the install even begins. Without an invoice itemizing costs of parts and installation included in your system, it is possible for customers to receive different/cheaper components than what was contractually agreed to.

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