POTD was doing a little clean up on our solar array. The horizontal supports of 1/8” thick galvanized steel overhung the array by over 2 feet. Our installer was going to cut them back in June, but never finished the job. They cut off the lowest one, but left the other three long. The middle one was at about 5’ 8”, so at my 6’ it was SURE to be a “bonk-a-head” while weed-whacking around the panels. I used a Milwaukee M12 Hack-zall to do the cutting which worked great. The ends were covered with a protective edge wrap after cutting as there’s no way to get around a little overhang from the edge of the panels.
Our solar panel installers left the horizontal supports long on the LH side (little long on the RH side too, maybe a future POTD). Ironically, they cut back the lowest one and had started on the second one up, but his sawzall battery died. . .
Heavy work was done by an M12 Hackzall
After trimming
And some edge protector
I also did a little OCD electrical work. When the installers cut back the heavy sheathing on the #6 cables, they cut it back a little further than I’d like. The back of the array has hardware cloth to keep critters out. They cut the sheathing back so the insulated wires were setting on the edge of the hardware cloth. My fear was with a little wind moving things around, the hot feed at ~400 VDC would wear through and short out the system. My belt and suspenders fix was to wrap the wires with PVC tape used to join drain tile sections together. Then cover all that up with some flex conduit.
The 22 panels are wired in two parallel strands of 11 panels each wired together in series. The installers had cut back the sheathing on the output lines of #6 wire so the red/black wires were resting on the edge of the hardware cloth (there to keep critters out). I initially did some rerouting to get them off the edge of the hardware cloth for a temporary fix.
After PVC taping
And after slipping on flex conduit
So, WHY WAS I CUTTING the horizontal supports that our installer was supposed to do in June and repeated missed service calls since? Our provider was Pink Energy. My last call with their service department was on September 15; a crew was scheduled to come out on Saturday, September 24 to wrap up the job. Well, September 24 came and went and no crew showed up. Subsequent emails were not returned. On a whim, I Google’d “Pink Energy bankrupt” which told me that they had filed! That’s why we weren’t getting any call backs!
Most of Pink Energy’s customers paid for their arrays on credit and are still making payments though they might have a non-working system with no service from Pink to get them up and running again. We could write a check for the install which got us a 10% discount. Bottom line for us was ~$66,000 (actually closer to $49K after the 26% federal tax credit) for a 22-panel system putting out up to ~8.4 kW with a Generac battery backup with 9 kW of reserve. We paid $21,600 up front with the balance due once the system was completed. I refused to pay the balance because the work wasn’t done. Their argument was “you’ve been making power since June 24, pay your bill!” My analogous reply was, “Suppose a tree fell on your house and knocked a hole in your roof. Do you pay the contractor fixing the hole after they throw a tarp over the roof and trust they’ll finish the work, or do you pay them AFTER the roof is completely repaired?” I’m a fan of the latter, finish the job, and we’ll happily pay the balance!
For now, we have a $66,000 solar array for just $21,600 (actually closer to $16K after we get our 26% federal tax credit for the money paid to date)! I don’t know how bankruptcy court works (Chapter 7 filing), but we do owe “someone” money. I would imagine at some point whoever is processing the bankruptcy will come to us for the balance, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed!
If you Google “Pink Energy”, you’ll see many links referring to their lawsuit filed against Generac for faulty “SnapRS” devices. If I understand it correctly, the SnapRS is essentially a fuse that goes between each of the panels. It’s for a rapid shutdown if there’s a problem with the array, and they aren’t self-resetting. Pink Energy alleges that Generac’s SnapRS’s failed at up to a 50% rate. Generac says that the problems were from Pink’s installers not properly following the installation instructions. We have the SnapRS 801’s that are supposed to be bad; no problems so far after 4 months (hard knock-on wood though they are warrantied by Generac for at least 10 years). And another knock-on wood; looks like our Pink installers did a good job though they did miss a number of details. If our system goes down, I’ll be calling Generac’s Customer Assistance line as at this point any issues are very likely not from improperly installed hardware (Pink responsibility), it’d be the hardware itself (Generac responsibility). Regardless, Generac has been great to work with! They'll be coming out shortly to do a "once-over" the system and replace our SnapRS 801's with the latest and greatest hardware.
The SnapRS is the device between the pigtails from adjacent solar panels. Since the run is in series, if one of these fails it knocks out the power being supplied by any good panels upstream.
And in case you were wondering, YES, other solar array providers use Generac equipment. Enlightened Power out of CA, Appalachian Renewable Power, Solar Industry out of CA, SolarFY out of CA, MI Solar Solutions of MI, CBS Solar of MI are a few who use Generac hardware. I contacted them all and they indicated that they were not seeing any increase in service calls (Pink Energy reported going from 800 calls a month to 30,000 calls because of Generac problems – it overwhelmed the company so they filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy).
So, where does the truth lie? It would seem to me that if Generac had bad SnapRS devices going into systems for about a year (according to Pink Energy), that some of the other solar companies using the same products would have had problems too. Google (because we can trust the internet. . .) shows no other solar companies suing Generac (though there are a number of Law firms investigating) for bad hardware.
I feel for the (former) Pink Energy working stiffs who were just doing their jobs as they were told and trained. Some Pink employees had their company gas cards turned off while on the road with no warning. I reached out to our sales gal (Tiffany) to see how she was doing. She landed another job shortly after being laid-off, but also found that Pink had turned off her medical insurance with no warning or notification 3 months earlier. If she’s correct, how does that speak to the integrity of the company’s leadership? On the plus side, I would imagine the CEO, who is worth 1 billion, came out okay, so at least one person wasn’t impacted too harshly.
Ranting on just a bit longer. Pink Energy had been sued by multiple customers and are/were under investigation by multiple state attorney generals for improper sales tactics (lying salespeople) and poor service.
Our math was an average electric bill of $175 a month. We were projected to drop to an average of $40/month or a savings of $1600 per year. I asked our sales gal how many years we could expect for the payback. She said people were having their systems pay off within 5-8 years. “I’m sorry Tiffany, but that just doesn’t add up to me. I’m paying $49,000 for a system that will save me $1600 a year? My math says that’s more like a 30-year payback assuming no interest earned on the $49K.” Her reply was that Pink Energy was projecting electrical rates to go up by 500+% within the next 5 years.
“Say what! Our power company charged $0.09/kWH when my wife and I were married 31 years ago, our current rate is $0.135/kWH. What horrific event are you forecasting that will cause our electric rates to go up by 5X over the next 5 years!” I told Tiffany, “We are not doing this to save money. If we were, the numbers don’t even come close to adding up. We are doing this for a bit of a generator and to get a little greener, plus, my wife wants to do it (biggest reason).” I also mentioned that they may want to reconsider their sales pitch cost forecasting as their numbers were just flat-out wrong. We knew the math going in, unfortunately for a lot of Pink Energy customers, they didn’t do the math.
So, would I do it again. We would, but not because we are expecting to save on our electric bill. We don’t have a bypass generator and did experience 4 days of “camping at home” around Christmas 2012. It would have been nice to have had (well) water and had the furnace run in December in Michigan! And yes, a propane Generac generator would run a lot less than $49,000! Or a gas generator though I’d hate to have to continually fill the tank if we were out for a few days. By the way, we are seeing a good reduction in our electric bills. Our September 2021 bill was $180, our September 2022 bill was $40.
Our Generac battery system holds up to 9 kW of power or a 15A 110V circuit at full capacity for a little over 5 hours. Our auto-transfer switch box keeps power to our well (1/2 HP pump at ~400 W), furnace (1/3 HP blower at ~250 W), our kitchen frig and a couple of plugs (frig says it draws up to 3.4A @ 110V or ~400 W), and our Wifi (negligible, need the Wifi for the inverter). If everything was running all of the time, we have about 8 hours of power. That won’t happen so we should make it through the night until next morning. On a cloudy day, we only make around 500 W/ hour which would take 18 hours to charge the battery if it was fully discharged. It’ll still be “camping at home” mode, but we’ll at least have heat in the house and can do the “if it’s brown, flush it down” with the toilets.
Okay, rant of sorts is over! Wish me luck that Pink Energy’s creditors don’t come knocking on our door so we end up with a $66K (as billed) system for $16,000!
As an aside, our Generac inverter has a number of modes for directing the array power, battery power and grid power. We leave it primarily in “Self Supply” mode which sends solar 1st to the house, 2nd to the battery if it isn’t fully charged, and 3rd back up the grid if we’re making more than we need. If the house needs more than the array is making, it pulls from the battery. If the battery gets to 20%, we start to draw from the grid.
Another mode is “Clean Backup”. In this one, solar is 1st sent to charge the battery. If the battery is charged or is getting charged at its max rate and we have extra solar, the solar is sent to the house. If the house needs more than the solar is providing, we draw from the grid. Again, if we’re making more solar than the battery and house need, we send it back up the grid. When the sun goes down and we’re not making solar, our house will draw from the grid and leave the battery charged.
The last mode I’ll probably use is called “Priority Backup” (there are a couple more modes). In this mode, solar and grid power are sent to the battery to get it charged. This is the mode I’d switch to if we knew a big storm was coming; make sure the battery gets charged in case we lose the grid. It’s pretty close to the “Clean Backup” mode except the battery will be charged by a combo of solar and the grid instead of just the solar charging the battery.
Thanks for staying awake if you got this far!
Bruce
We usually stay in Self Supply mode. In this case, it was a pretty sunny day; the Generac invertor is saying we are making 6.66kW of solar (PV - photo voltaic). The battery (lower left) is about 50% charged, and is getting 4.39kW from the solar. The house (upper right) is drawing 1.63 kW which is being supplied by the solar. The grid (lower right) is showing nothing, nothing going up the grid (because the battery was charging) and nothing coming from the grid (because the solar is keeping up with the battery charging and house draw).
In Clean Backup mode here. We're making 6.67 kW of solar power with 4.86 kW of that going to the battery which is the battery's maximum charge rate (though I've seen it at 5 kW also). In this mode, 100% of the solar (up to the battery's max input rate of ~5 kW) is sent to the battery. If the battery charge rate is maxed, any additional solar is sent to the house. In this case, the house is drawing 1.61 kW. The solar is not quite able to keep up with the max battery charge rate and supply the house, so we're drawing 0.39 kW from the grid to supply the balance of the power to the house.
Priority Backup mode here. Again, we're making 6.66 kW in solar and are sending 5.07 kW of that to the battery. The house is drawing 1.60 kW, so again the make up for lack of solar to max charge the battery and supply the house is made up with 0.60 kW from the grid. You'll notice the numbers here and with the Clean Backup above are pretty close. The Clean Backup mode anticipates based on the time of day that it has "time" to get the battery charged before night, so it dialed the power sent to the battery from the max of 5.07 kW to 4.86 kW to minimize draw from the grid.
