Residential Solar, part 5

My previous posts about this project are part 1, part 2, part 3, and part 4.

After solar system installation, there is a final inspection from the city. Titanium Solar sent a representative to pre-inspect and to tell the city inspector what he was looking at. As with the previous city inspections of the roof repairs, this one was passed easily.

A few days later, and ahead of schedule, came a step called “commissioning the system.” Edgar J. came from Titanium Solar. He turned on the big switch that had cut off the system, made sure it all worked, and left it on. He showed me how to use a smart phone app called Enlighten from the manufacturer Enphase to monitor the system. It uses both Wi-Fi and a cellular modem to communicate with the inverters and the battery system.

There is one more official step remaining, called “Permission to Operate”, to be obtained from So Cal Edison. I am not sure what this really means, since the system is operating and we are over 90% independent of the grid. You can see this in the usage graph in my Edison account. Our first full day on the solar power was September 23.

I think it is now better to charge our Tesla Model 3 while the sun is shining. That will charge it directly from the solar panels, rather than charging our house batteries or exporting power to Edison. There will still be enough electricity to charge the house batteries once the car is fully charged. On September 27, I started charging the car at about 4:30pm, and most of that came from the grid, after quickly using up the power in the house batteries. Live and learn.