It Takes More Than Panels To Build A PV Solar System For Your Home

A successful DIY solar PV system for your home needs some preliminary research to point you in the right direction. The 5 steps you don't want to skip when planning to build a DIY solar system will be the foundation for your success. Not doing these steps can cost you time and money and will possibly prevent you from ever having a PV system that will produce what you hoped for.

1. First you must be clear about what type of system you want. Planning for, designing and installing a PV solar system that gets you off the grid and delivers 100% of your electric needs, all year, is very different from a small single-panel system for a cabin in the woods. These are two extreme examples. However, it takes more than panels to build a PV solar system if you want to be off the grid. That means having a considerable battery storage capacity to bridge overcast days. The cabin in the woods will most likely not have any batteries at all. And the in between option is the PV system that covers about 30-70% of your electric needs. Which one is it?

2. The number and sizes of PV panels you need for your solar system depends on your total electric load. And the more panels you need, the more expensive the system. It makes sense, I would think, to lower your home's electric needs. The price for a photovoltaic system is in the range of $6 per W to $10 per W, installed. If you reduce your electric requirement by say 300W, by replacing incandescent light bulbs with LED lights as an example, you will be able to reduce the cost of your PV system by $1,800 to $3,000.

3. Take out your calculator for step 3. Or use one of the many free online tools to determine how much sunlight, ideally direct sunlight, the PV panels will receive at the location where you plan to put them. You can also check with a photovoltaic panel manufacturer if they could do those calculations for you. Whatever option you choose, you will have to make allowances for trees and/or neighboring buildings that might throw shadows on your PV panels.

4. Check what the local requirements are for connecting to the grid. You might need to install a special piece of equipment between your system and the utility meter. Check with your local utility about incentives for PV systems and, very important, if they will buy back your electricity when you are producing more than you are using. Unless of course your goal is to be totally off the grid. At which point the utility will probably not give you any incentive. Also check the following federal tax credits for PV solar systems and state tax credits for solar systems.

5. Last but not least, educate yourself. Watch videos, read books, talk to installers, attend classes. The more you know about how everything needs to be put together and why, the easier it will be to design and build the DIY photovoltaic system for your home. Investing time and money to get educated will save you headaches and lots of money during and after the installation. An excellent source is the government's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy site (www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/), where you can find really excellent information for free. If you need to see how it it put together, a set of videos on how to design and install a DIY solar PV system can be very useful.

You have completed the up-front work. You probably now have a very good idea about your goals, where to mount the photovoltaic panels, what tax credit and incentives are available and you almost have a PhD in solar PV systems. You are ready to move on to the details of designing and installing your own DIY PV system for your home. Should you decide in the end to forgo the do-it-yourself part and have the installation done by professionals, you will be an educated consumer who knows what s/he wants.

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