r/SolarDIY

A few days ago I posted a table of what 10 utilities do when they detect DIY backfeed (the "PO CO caught me" thread). A bunch of you asked for your utility and a few of you contributed procedures and enforcement stories, so instead of letting it rot in a reddit table I put the whole thing as a link in my bio.

Whats in it now:

26 utilities including everything requested in the thread (PSE, JCP&L, National Grid NY, PECO, Pepco, CMP, FPL, Avista, AEP Ohio, UGI, BGE, DTE, NV Energy, and my first co-op, Nolin RECC in Kentucky).

Every claim is tagged and documented (from the tariff etc), reported (credible user reports, dated), or being verified (row in progress). wittgensteins-boat suggested adding dates and citations, so every row now has source links straight to the tariff, handbook, or PUC page, plus a last-checked date and a button to flag a stale row

There's also a plug-in solar status strip (live in UT, ME, MD, VA now) and the zero-export notes from the thread as rhat was the majority of qs received

Credit where due the NorthWestern MT row is rwright07's full DIY sequence, the Georgia Power enforcement column is M7451's experience, and the APS detection entry ("they sent a tech when my permitted system STOPPED backfeeding") is AZbees

Free, no ads etc. Same caveats as before eg this is research from tariff documents and reported cases, not legal advice, and utilities change this stuff constantly, so read your own tariff before spending money!!

Which utility should I add next? And if your poco ever caught you (or conspicuously didn't), drop the story, the enforcement column is the hardest part to fill from documents

Hello all, hope you're all doing well. I'm currently in the middle of a solar DIY project and I'm in the home stretch. I'm currently getting quotes from electricians and they're all telling me something different. I was hoping someone could help me determine what I need electrically, without worrying about codes and ordinances, to meet my goals.

Goal: my goal is to reduce my power bill. I'm not trying to go off grid at all. If my panels produce Example#kW's per hour, I want to reduce my power usage by that much per hour, and pull the excess need from the grid. I'm hoping that's possible.

My Setup: Currently I have two panel arrays on my roof. 4 x 500kW and 9 x 500kW. They run into a junction box and the four wires run in conduit down to my main electrical panel in my garage. Next to my panel I have 2 x EG4 6000xp inverters and 3 x EG4 Lifepower4 batteries (The idea being that the batteries could store any excess and provide power until they run out at night).

I'm also asking them to upgrade my panel from 150A x 20 breakers to 150A x 30/40 breakers at the same time. My old panel could be used as a junction box if that's necessary. Can you help me understand exactly what I need to meet my goal without having to choose specific circuits, etc? I appreciate the help.

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I'm looking for someone in my area who can generate qualified solar leads and set solid in-home appointments for homeowners interested in going solar.

This is a commission-only opportunity. I don't pay per lead or per appointment. Instead, you'll earn a percentage only when the appointment results in a signed solar deal.

The goal is to keep everyone aligned—we both succeed when the appointments are genuine and actually close.

If you have experience with solar lead generation, door-to-door canvassing, networking, referrals, cold outreach, or setting high-quality appointments, I'd love to connect.

Send me a DM with:

Your experience

How you generate leads

The area you cover

Why you'd be a good fit

If you're confident you can bring in qualified homeowners who are interested in solar, let's talk.

Hello :) Dipping my baby toe into the whole solar thing. My electric bills are out of control.

Does anyone here have experience with the units that you plug in and the power generated just magically flows through your wiring?

I'm just starting my research. Concerned about safety. Also wondering if the savings are substantial.

I’m looking for options that use a single point battery backup system to back up my house. House has a 400a meter with 2x 200a panels, and 19.4 kW of IQ8M Enphase solar, currently line tap grid tied in Panel A.

Everything I’ve been able to find wants to route grid power THROUGH the device to the panel. The Sol-Arc 18K seems great, integrating solar, battery, and generator charging but it won’t seem to let me install it “on the side” through a backfeed breaker (and I’d expect to be able to do that using a generic automatic service disconnect and voltage sensing interlocks on the inverter).

I currently manually backfeed with a portable generator run to a junction box, parallel fed to manually interlocked breakers in the panels. I want to “upgrade and automate” this kind of thing.

Am I wrong about that unit can be installed? Is there a solution out there I haven’t found?

TL;DR, I want a to keep both panels fully backed up, but use a standard backup system parallel feeding each panel.

I live in on arce of land and was thinking with how high electricity prices been getting I should get some solar panels. Is it better to save and getting installed or buy a bunch of cheaper panels. Ps I have 0 knowledge and 0 solar panels now and I have a lot sunshine hitting my land and I don't care about making it pretty

Samsung 28 cu ft french door, about 70% full. Kitchen was 76-78F during the test.

Results over 24 hours in UPS mode:

Total consumption including station idle: about 1.45 kWh

Compressor draw when running: 135-145W

Idle between cycles: 5-7W

Compressor duty cycle: roughly 35-40% (on about 15 min, off about 25 min)

Extrapolating: I'd estimate about 32-33 hours on a full charge at this load. That's under the 35 hour claim but their test conditions specify 25°C / 77°F and a 700L fridge. My kitchen was warmer and my fridge is bigger.

The idle draw is the real story here. 5-7W is genuinely low. My old EcoFlow was pulling 18-22W idle which is where most of the battery goes overnight.

The Anker C2000 Gen 2 has a PV Input range of 11-60V and max 17A, and max 800W charge from solar. Which combination of rigid solar panels will provide max power for the battery, and best performance even in partial shading?

How do I ground an off grid solar power system in extremely rocky soil?

I just bought the Victron Energy SmartSolar MPPT 150volt 60 amp Solar Charge Controller (Bluetooth) for an Rv installation. Will have 2 395 watt Canadian solar panels in a series wired to it. After unboxing this thing I noticed the heat sinks on it and it has me concerned about the heat it is going to put off when charging my 280ah lifepo battery. Both are being installed in rv under my bed since that's the only storage area available. There is no outside ventilation in this area. Do you think the heat will be a concern with being installed on a plywood backer in an unvented area?

Hi,

My dad has solar system in village:

• Total about ~3kW of panels
• Easun ISolar-SMH-III-6.2KW-WiFI
• Easun Power 51.2.V 200AH LiFePO4 Battery

Easun controller is dead now... Was dead last year, Easun sent replacement board (WOW), but now it's dead-dead (not even error code!), and no more responses from Easun this year lol.

Anyway, decided to ditch Easun.

But now I need to find replacement MPPT controller, that:

1. Work with our ~70V panel system. Could rewire into ~140V but that's lot's of work :(
2. Compatible with Easun Power 51.2.V 200AH LiFePO4 Battery (Pylon protocol)
3. Has similar AC power (like 5-6kW).
4. Has "Cloud" access to see solar/battery parameters remotely.
5. IMPORTANT BONUS: Has "smart load" functionality, to enable some 1000w-2000w load during sunny days to "dump" solar excess.

AI suggest Deye, but they are SO expensive, and they need rather high startup voltage, so will need to rewire our panels :( . Their SmartLoad (looking at manual) is rather powerful though - select SOC *and* excess power threshold.

Are there any similar alternatives - more reliable than Easun, cheaper than Deye, and with "SmartLoad" feature?

Big Thanks!

P.S. Alternative would be to buy MPPT without "SmartLoad", and sniff Pylon to detect SOC>99% and turn on load using relay, but I just don't have lot of time for tinkering myself...

I'm just start to look into plug-in solar, and I'm confused about how it works. From what I saw on a couple of videos, it either plugs right into a 120v plug, or plugs into a bigger 240v outlet much like you'd use to power the entire house from a whole-house generator.

What I'm confused about is --

1. am I just confused and this is totally wrong, and

2. if I'm not confused, how is this not dangerous. When you power your house with a generator you need to use a lockout switch switch so you never simultaneously receive power both from the grid and also your generator. Why is this not required for plug-ion solar?

[edit]

It looks my primary point of confusion was generally that pushing energy into a wall outlet is generally actually safe, and the biggest risk is actually to line workers if there is a widespread outage. Previously if you'd asked me, I would have claimed that generators have lockout switches because you would potentially blow the generator or start a house fire or something. But it sounds like in principle you can just put energy back into your system, and the primary problem is just ensuring this is done in a safe and regulated way.

my roof is mod bitumen. flat. i just want 1 panel to feed my EcoFlow for now.

where can i get a ballast mount kit as seen here? seems they only sell to businesses and not residential???

https://preview.redd.it/ykevpihhclbh1.png?width=661&format=png&auto=webp&s=ee7aaf5d121e76c2ca485dde3a5d165092c98e10

i dont want to drill into the roof using this EcoWorthy kit.
OR is there a way to hold the skinny 1.5 inches rails down with 4 cinder blocks?

https://preview.redd.it/oa2e0cqcclbh1.png?width=1151&format=png&auto=webp&s=31ba5f959e299c88e20978bf0280582449513664

In the last couple weeks I upgraded my charge controller from a 20 amp to a 30 amp Eco flow 12/24v. Add 3 200 W biracial solar panels and add some 2/12 outdoor Romex. To replace the used extension that it's been using for several years. Now everything is acting up. The charge controller is overheating blacking out the screen. I keep trying to rearrange the setup parallel in series and individually and I can't fathom what changed to have such a drastic response. Or every combination gets nearly the same result.

Did I just over charge somewhere? I'm not sure I've moved that far from the micro-solar I've been using, but burning down the building isn't on the list.

Hey all, thanks for all the helpful advice since I started following the sub. I've read through the stickied posts and run my numbers, but I've got some knowledge gaps and would like to have those with experience check my numbers before I buy cables and BOC so I'm not burning my house down.

The goal is to run a standard refrigerator for no fewer than 24 hours on a manually-switched backup (read: extension cable plugged into an inverter) as a starting point, with the eventual goal of whole-home grid tie-in. That second part is not what I am concerned with right now, and I plan to expand as needed once I have the small system running and managed.

Right now, I have:
4x 100W Thunderbolt Solar mobile PV panels with SAE connectors (got them at a solid deal, planning on getting SAE to MC4 adapters or cutting and crimping MC4 on there). 18VDC/100W/5.56A rated, 21.6VOC;
1x EPEVER Tracer4210AN G3 MPPT Solar Charge Controller. 12/24V 40A operation, max PV input of 92VOC, max charging power 1040W;
4x PowerSync LFP12.8-100G31 100Ah/12.8V LiFePO4 batteries;
1x Giandel PS-3000KAR-24 3000W/24v Pure Sine Wave inverter.

Load is expected to be 120vac at approximately 250W in your standard fridge duty cycles.

My intention is to run the batteries in series/parallel to end up with a 200Ah/24V system. This is because I'm trying to keep the battery cables at or under 6 AWG, which is the maximum physical size the MPPT can accept. I intend to run 8 AWG to the panels, which have a one-way cable run to the MPPT of 68 feet.

My missing information is this:

1. Is it advisable to wire the panels in series/parallel to keep overall voltage underneath the MPPT input voltage max of 92VOC? This would get me to 43.2VOC at 11.12A, but sticking to pure series would get me uncomfortably close to that 92VOC limit at 86.4VOC.
2. The charge controller has an output for load. Is it advisable to connect the inverter to this output, or should I connect it to the battery circuit via buss bar instead? I'm imagining the cables are going to need to be beefier than 6 AWG for this application, but I'm less than certain on the math.
3. Is it advisable to connect two lugs to the battery posts for the sake of connecting the batteries, or would additional buss bars be preferred?
4. Are DC disconnects or breakers the general standard between the MPPT and the batteries? Everyone has an opinion and I'm having trouble reading between the lines.
5. Is there anything I've missed here? Any additional advice?

Thanks a lot, I know questions like this can be annoying when the information is out there, but having just enough experience to connect things and not enough to know when it's in a dangerous edge case is something I've learned about the hard way. Much appreciated!