A residential PV power system allows a homeowner to generate electricity from sunlight to meet some or all of their daily energy needs. The system remains connected to the electric utility for any additional power needs. Attention to proper installation is important to ensure the system operates as designed and avoids performance shortfalls. The document provides guidelines for installers to specify and install residential PV systems that meet the homeowner's needs and result in high quality, well-functioning systems.
A residential PV power system allows a homeowner to generate electricity from sunlight to meet some or all of their daily energy needs. The system remains connected to the electric utility for any additional power needs. Attention to proper installation is important to ensure the system operates as designed and avoids performance shortfalls. The document provides guidelines for installers to specify and install residential PV systems that meet the homeowner's needs and result in high quality, well-functioning systems.
A residential PV power system allows a homeowner to generate electricity from sunlight to meet some or all of their daily energy needs. The system remains connected to the electric utility for any additional power needs. Attention to proper installation is important to ensure the system operates as designed and avoids performance shortfalls. The document provides guidelines for installers to specify and install residential PV systems that meet the homeowner's needs and result in high quality, well-functioning systems.
A residential PV power system allows a homeowner to generate electricity from sunlight to meet some or all of their daily energy needs. The system remains connected to the electric utility for any additional power needs. Attention to proper installation is important to ensure the system operates as designed and avoids performance shortfalls. The document provides guidelines for installers to specify and install residential PV systems that meet the homeowner's needs and result in high quality, well-functioning systems.
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SECTION 1: INTRODUCTION
Photovoltaic (PV) power systems convert sunlight directly into
electricity. A residential PV power system enables a homeowner to generate some or all of their daily electrical energy demand on their own roof, exchanging daytime excess power for future energy needs (i.e. nightime usage). The house remains connected to the electric utility at all times, so any power needed above what the solar system can produce is simply drawn from the utility. PV systems can also include battery backup or uninterruptible power supply (UPS) capability to operate selected circuits in the residence for hours or days during a utility outage.
The purpose of this document is to provide tools and guidelines for
the installer to help ensure that residential photovoltaic power systems are properly specified and installed, resulting in a system that operates to its design potential. This document sets out key criteria that describe a quality system, and key design and installation considerations that should be met to achieve this goal.
Once a system design has been chosen, attention to installation
detail is critically important. Recent studies have found that 10-20% of new PV installations have serious installation problems that will result in significantly decreased performance. In many of these cases, the performance shortfalls could have been eliminated with proper attention to the details of the installation.
1.1. Basic Principles to Follow When Designing a Quality PV
System 1. Select a packaged system that meets the owner's needs. Customer criteria for a system may include reduction in monthly electricity bill, environmental benefits, desire for backup power, initial budget constraints, etc. Size and orient the PV array to provide the expected electrical power and energy. 2. Ensure the roof area or other installation site is capable of handling the desired system size. 3. Specify sunlight and weather resistant materials for all outdoor equipment. 4. Install equipment according to manufacturers specifications, using installation requirements and procedures from the manufacturers' specifications. 5. Properly ground the system parts to reduce the threat of shock hazards and induced surges. 6. Check for proper PV system operation by following the checkout
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