Solar Panel Installation – Site Planning

Planning a new solar installation requires lots of analysis.  You need to figure out how much sun you get and where your solar panels could be setup on your property.

Key Factors include:

Where you live – Different areas received differing amounts of solar radiation.

Roof condition – Cost to fix your roof, assuming you have any leaks or it needs work.  The solar panels will be there for many years.

Roof size – How large a system can your roof support vs how big a system you want. Is the roof in good condition? You may need to fix your roof before installing panels.  Some communities like Palo Alto have requirement specifying spacing around solar panels for fire suppression  purposes.

Roof Shading -  How much of the roof is shaded by trees or other obstacles? Clearly, you want to maximize solar panel direct sunlight access.  We had to trim trees to maximize sun exposure for the afternoon. Partially shaded areas work better with certain brands of solar panels.

Roof Pitch – How sloped is the roof?

Roof Direction – Where are the roof(s) oriented towards?

Local Permits – Cost of any engineering structural analysis plus reinforcement your City requires. Cost of City Permit. Possibly having getting neighbors to sign off on it.

Power Usage – How much power do you use in a given year?  Do you want to zero out your bill or just reduce your bill by moving to lower pricing classes.

Tax Credits – What Federal, State, City rebates do you qualify for?

Utility Company – Do they buy back excess power?  Where does the excess power go? Do they support net metering? How much they charge per kW? Are there special monthly charges for solar panel owners?

Inverters – How many do you need? Where will they be positioned?  Some communities require them to be in the shade and away from fire hazards.

SolarCity has a estimator that can take your information and provide some rough figures.  I did not find them very accurate for the type and size of system that we would recommend though.

Sunpower, makers of the most efficient panels, also has free local solar power site evaluations. These are more thorough.

San Francisco has a nice solar map. Showing various system installs and how much solar power you can expect.

Related posts:

1. San Francisco Solar Panel Discount
2. Solar Panel Maintenance and Solar Panel Cleaning
3. Solar Panel System Quote
4. No Money Down Solar Panels
5. SolarMagic Solar Power Optimizer

Posted on May 19th, 2009
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