We are hired someone to put up solar panels to generate electricity in Texas. We will learn enough from this project to be able to do it ourselves in Minnesota.
We are building a pergola to hold the panels. It will also create an awesome shaded outdoor space. The shading will also nearly eliminate the highest solar heat gain of this house. It shades the southwest windows in the dining and living rooms.
This shows the planned install:
Certified installer sized a 5.58W system for the pergola. The NREL PVWatts calculator projects 7,796 kWh/year. This should cover 10 months of the electricity use. Here's its output:
Many rain delays but they managed to get footings and a slab done:
Oh look - it's irrigation pipe that had to be re-routed around the slab.
Panels have been up for less than a week.
Last updated 4/29/15
We are building a pergola to hold the panels. It will also create an awesome shaded outdoor space. The shading will also nearly eliminate the highest solar heat gain of this house. It shades the southwest windows in the dining and living rooms.
This shows the planned install:
Certified installer sized a 5.58W system for the pergola. The NREL PVWatts calculator projects 7,796 kWh/year. This should cover 10 months of the electricity use. Here's its output:
Many rain delays but they managed to get footings and a slab done:
Oh look - it's irrigation pipe that had to be re-routed around the slab.
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| Not attached to house. Structure shades kitchen and living room windows from hot afternoon sun and provides a shaded outdoor space. |
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| The first kWh |
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| This was our daily best yield so far - 33.6 kWh. It was partly cloudy in AM hours - afternoon was cloudless. The first 6 days have generated 170 kWh. |
Last updated 4/29/15