Photos of our solar array under construction
Our solar array was built by Sun Volts Unlimited in July 2009.
Click on an image to zoom in.
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- Panels waiting to go up to the roof.
The easiest way up was to go up one ladder onto our neighbour's porch, and then another ladder up to the roof.
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- The front side of one panel.
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- The back side of one panel.
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- Closeup of a panel.
There are 72 solar cells on each panel.
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- It's a long way down!
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- One panel comes carefully up the ladder.
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- Sliding a panel up the roof.
The easiest way to get panels from the front side of the roof to the back, was dragging them on top of ropes to raise them above the shingles.
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- The Sun Volts Unlimited crew installs the mounting racks on the roof.
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- Closeup of one of the roof brackets.
The brackets are attached to the rafters (the roof beams), which ensures there's no leaks in the roof.
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- Attaching part of the mounting rack to its bracket.
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- Closeup of the bracket, mounting rack and panel, all attached.
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- The mounting racks and the first mounted panel, as seen from the ground.
It turns out that the rafters in our roof are not evenly spaced, which is why the mounting racks aren't evenly spaced either.
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- Closeup of the first panel to be mounted.
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- #10 gauge teck cable being fed through a hole in the back of the house.
This cable will connect the array of panels on the roof with the solar inverter in the basement. The inverter converts the DC current from the panels into AC current that can be used in our house and the rest of the grid.
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- Closeup of the cable going into the house.
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- Teck cable fed through the basement ceiling beams.
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- The solar inverter (center) and disconnect switch (right) mounted in the basement next to the electrical panel.
The inverter converts the DC current from the panels into AC current that can be used in our house and the rest of the grid.
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- Closeup of the breakers in the panel.
The green wire is the ground for the inverter. The double breaker on the top right is where the line from the solar array eventually feeds into the rest of the house, and from there to the grid.
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- Closeup of the inside of the solar inverter.
The inverter converts the DC current from the panels into AC current that can be used in our house and the rest of the grid.
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- The solar inverter (left) and disconnect switch (right), now connected to the rest of the system with teck cable.
The inverter converts the DC current from the panels into AC current that can be used in our house and the rest of the grid.
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- The exterior disconnect switch, and the new second meter housing on the front of the house.
The power produced by the solar array is metered independently, so an additional meter had to be installed on the front of the house.
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- The switch and meter housing all connected to the rest of the system.
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- On the roof, the array takes shape.
There are 18 panels in our array, with a total of 1296 solar cells all together.
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- Closeup of a panel, looking down from the top of the roof.
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- The array under construction.
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- Detail of the solar cells.
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- Only a few panels left!
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- Some friends take a break once the ladders come down.
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- A finished array, ready to go!
