Top 7 Mistakes Newbies Make Going Solar – Avoid These For Effective Power Harvesting From The Sun

22 thoughts on “Top 7 Mistakes Newbies Make Going Solar – Avoid These For Effective Power Harvesting From The Sun”

• FAQ:

  Q: Refrigerators do not run 24×7, moron!
  A: Yes, I know that. But they CAN run at any point around the clock and that is the point. Because they run on and off all day they will obviously require power during times when the solar panel system is not producing energy and will thus require battery power storage. And batteries are not included with most beginner solar kits that people start with, such as the Harbor Freight 100W kit.

  Q: Refrigerators don't use 600W, moron!
  A: Not continuously, no. But they can use much higher than that for a split second when the compressor motor kicks on. So a small fridge that only requires 100W when it is running may require 600-1000W to start up and that load may be inductive, which further complicates the requirements on the inverter.

  Q: Why can't I just look at a power bill for my energy consumption needs?
  A: Because most power bills do not give enough information to accurately design a solar panel system that can completely offset your energy demand and give you energy independence so you are not beholden to the power company or if you want to go off grid.

  Q: I don't care about going off grid or energy independence. I only want a net zero power bill! So my power bill is enough.
  A: That will work perfectly fine… if you account for the net metering purchase and selling rates AND those rates never change. And that isn't going to happen. Public utilities have proven for many years now that they are less and less willing to pay much for excess solar power in cogeneration relationships and they are in complete, unilateral control over that net metering relationship and can change your rates at any time. But in order to properly do the math, which will be complicated, to achieve a $0 net bill for the year you HAVE to know your energy consumption rates at different times of day. And that information is not available on most power bills. Thus, you will need a device that can data log your real world usage for a period of time so you can accurately forecast.

• If you take the rising curve, flip it and add it to the falling curve, you get a more accurate idea of how many sun hours to expect

• #6 is BS. I put in LG panels and my monthly payment is $160/month. Xcel pays me $50/month and my previous bill before panels was $250/month. going Solar saved me $100 a month for no money down.

• LOL cause i watched this video a month too late, but atleast i have not yet mounted my solar just yet so i can now leave that air gap as suggested. The heat in Botswana + corrugated iron roof will not work in my favor.

• Several items here are covered great. But #2 Underestimating Consumption needs better definition. YOu need to know how many watts a device uses. The Energy Guide does not contain that number. The number of watts is usually on the device nameplate but many show amps not watts. There are things like power factor that impacts this but a simple formula is P = I * E, power in watts is I, current in amps times E electromotive force or voltage in volts. Let's say a toaster uses .6 amps times 110 volts is 660 watts. He oversimplifies the refrigerator in saying a 100 watt panel will not be able to handle a . A 100 watt solar panel MAY be able to handle a refrigerator if it has a battery and alternator of sufficient size. He ignores watts and watt hours. A 100 watt panel if if gets 6 hours of full six will generate 100 watts (ignoring inefficiently) for 6 hours and produce 600 watt hours. If the refrigerator runs 24 hours a day at 600 watts that is 14,400 watt hours, way over the 600. However, a refrigerator does not run all the time. If it runs 25% of the time that is now 3,600 watt hours. A 600 watt panel with enough battery to hold up overnight would work. I would go for 800 watts and at least 4 100 ah batteries -that would give 12x100x4 = 4800 wh – three batteries (3600) would not be enough.
  Ralph Brandt FCC Licensed Radio operator with experience in powering from batteries.

• Warning before going solar be sure to check to see how many power surge's you get.This is why we went solar had a power surge protector box installed to protect our solar system and our home but August 2,2021 our Electric Co-Op Company had a big power surge fried our power surge protector box and 21 Microinverters on our solar panels our surge protector box was covered under warranty but the 21 Microinverters are not now it's September 7,2021 been without solar now for over a month not sure when we will get it back up and running.

• hit me up for a free quote

• Biggest mistake you can make is read the comments while watching the video, pay attention and learn!!! Then, save money.

• Let me tell you the first mistake – the first mistake is investing in this carnival scam. If it made economic sense every house on every street would be covered in solar panels. You will NEVER regain your investment, and in the mean time you will help pollute the planet because these things are poison to the earth, both in manufacture and in disposal. It's a big scam.

• 1:54 check your utility bill over several months or over a year (preferred). This will give your household consumption.

• Imagine if more people listened in math and physics class. The math involved is so incredibly simple.

• Really cool channel worth checking out https://youtu.be/GLci5GnZ-ZI

• Refrigerators do not require very much power.

• Refrigerators, water heaters, furnace fans, sump pumps, and baseboard heaters are all "intermittent" loads. They do not use power continuously. Ideally a load controller will stagger (not overlap) their use. Generators or solar would then be sized for the largest load.

• If you pay 10 cents per kw hydro electric, don't bother with any solar or wind power. Waste of money. Hydro electric is green solar is not. Pollution producd, energy consumption of making panels, maintenance and they are only 20 % efficient at noon, no clouds in the summer.

• For me, I jumped in order accelerate the learning process. But I started off with just a couple of panels on my SUV and small 12v refrigerator for car camping. Next, I'll go with 4 more panels on my camping trailer, to power an e-bike and enough storage capacity that I can use that refrigerator all the time even if there are several days of cloudy weather. My guess is that it will be half a decade before stationary battery technology is cheap enough that PV residential rooftop power is a net positive for society in USA.

• video is about to be ok but then i had to pause and convert faehrti to celcius

• Thanks for the points.

• I live in Seattle — we get 200+ days of rain per year and we're far enough north that in the winter (at solstice) we only get about 6 hrs of sunlight per day. My approach was to simply oversize the solar array itself. I have a 3200sqft home and a 16kwh solar array capable of producing 2-3x my home's needs at peak.

  This allows me to run self-powered even with the rain and short days. I have a battery backup good for about 1-3 days (depending on usage) and I can fill that backup completely in just 2-3 hours of solid sunshine. The rest of my solar production goes back to the grid and generates bill credits with my power company.

  It's not a system that will ever "pay for itself" but I have energy independence and I've effectively locked in my energy costs at extremely low prices for the next 25 years. Natural gas for example increased in cost YoY by 20%+ for the past few years straight — I'll never have to deal with that and what I pay now is here to stay. It's nice for my only utility bills for my home to be the cost of my solar and my water usage.

  I also did this to future proof against large changes in my usage. For example, if we end up having multiple electric cars charing in the garage that's going to consume 20-30% more energy than we use today with combustion vehicles.

  Additionally, I'm helping take pressure off the local power grid and reducing the carbon footprint of 2-3 other homes like mine with my excess production. The recent heat wave caused massive grid failures which we were not at all impacted by. We were one of the only homes in my entire town with the power on sitting at 72F while the ambiet air temp outside was a smoldering 112F.

• I am a Solar salesman in Va. and I feel you have mislead people when you mentioned the to good to be true, my products have no down side, fine print problems, I love how you threw that out there with no facts to back you up.

• Forgot the error calculation on the Panels power and the input limits of the controller.

• really nice information there, and helped me a lot, but I am living in a country they do blackouts because there is no fuel, I am still in the progress of the change to solar, still, have some questions, since there will be electricity still sometimes here, I went to the inverter that uses normal power as well as the solar panels to charge and give the house the power I need, I was thinking to give the batteries another source of charging while at night and also out of the sun hours that we use, is that a good step or I will see no change if I stay only at solar panels?

  also, I am thinking to get that stand that rotates with the sun, is that gonna take a lot of power, or in general, is that worth it or not?

  lately, I get a lot of people here saying that it's not worth it because a single scratch on the protective glass will ruin the whole panel. I know it sounds dumb but I got to a point even tho I know it will not ruin it coz there is a protective glass but I want to make sure does it ruin the whole panel?

  Sorry for the long-ass comment, i know I could google it but your video a lot proved to me that you are the more trustworthy one, I just want to point out I just want to get as more information as possible since there is little to no information here
  Thanks for the wonderful video!

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