The day has come. We are good to go. We got an email from PG&E, our utility provider, saying they had inspected and signed off on our solar power system installation done by our friends at Solar City. Following close on that email’s heals was the official word from Solar City saying we were good to turn on our system.

It is a simple process but I still printed out the instructions for powering up the system and read them over a few times, not wanting make any mistakes and all. Turns out it is super easy and I may have worried too much, but better safe than sorry eh?

I installed the network monitoring device to my internet broadband setup so we can monitor our output of solar energy and so Solar City can monitor the system to make sure it is working properly.

Then I went out side and flipped the breakers on the inverter box for our solar system, then the breaker on our main electrical panel, and finally the electric ac/dc disconnect breaker next to our inverter.

The Solar City system power up instructions:

To Turn Your System On and Off:
(To turn off your system, follow these steps in reverse order.)
1. Locate your inverter(s) similar to the ones pictured Below. Turn on the inverter by flipping the AC/DC Disconnect switch(es) to the ON position. The inverter should be the first step in turning on your system and the last step in turning off your system. If you have multiple inverters, the order in which you switch the inverters on or off does not matter.

2. Locate the main electrical service panel similar to the image on the next page. It should be mounted on an external or garage wall. The switches on the front of the panel are called breakers. Turn on the breakers labeled “Solar System”, “PV”, “Photovoltaic Backfeed” or “SolarCity”. Some customers have an additional sub-panel. If this applies to you, please switch on the breakers for the solar system on both the main and sub-panel.

3. Some systems have external AC and DC disconnects similar to those depicted at right. If your system has one or both of these, then switch the handles to the ON position.

We are live. However the big irony today is that it is stormy and dark today with a big nasty winter storm rolling through on this December day. So not sure we will be generating very much solar power today but as soon as the clouds roll out we will be pulling juice out of the suns rays.

So solar power for homes and in particular our home is now a reality thanks to the solar power leasing arrangements we made with Solar City. We started this process over a year ago and the time frame got massively delayed but the economic crunch that hit our country but we still feel very good about doing this and adding solar to our home. Now that the funding is available to companies like Solar City and others to offer these leasing deals many more homeowners will be able to install solar power on their homes. It should not take nearly as long to get the system installed going forward and therefore the hurdles to going solar are reducing.

I would highly recommend homeowners look into adding solar to their homes as a viable way to offset some or all of their electrical power consumption and to contribute top the efforts to reduce global warming and fossil fuels consumption.

What a great day it was last week when the crew from Solar City called me to come check out the completed installation of our solar power system on our home. The First Solar panels had all gone in, the electrical had all been run, the inverter installed, and everything tested out.

Now it was time to turn on the system and show the homeowner (me) that it was working fine. Mark from Solar City showed me the inverter control panel and pointed out how the system was producing power ( although not a lot because it was late in the day on a late fall day) but never the less it was making power from the sun. He then showed me the electric meter on my house and you could clearly see that even though the system was not putting out full capacity yet it was slowing down the meter measuring our house electrical consumption.

He caught me with a wide smile on my face I have to admit.

Please watch the video below to get the details of the system as well as hear a bit about how installing these systems makes guys like Mark feel about their job.

It is pretty cool that these green jobs can be created by solar and other alternative energy options, that give the workers a feeling of doing right in addition to making them a living. We have not done a lot of that kind of job creation in this country for awhile and this sort of thign should be encouraged and celebrated as much as possible.

If you have been following along, and even if you haven’t, the solar power system for our house is now moving along nicely. Over the weekend Blue Turtle Roofing came and sealed up all the mounting posts for the solar panels on our roof so that the whole system is sealed and ready to mount and install the solar panels.

Now we are at the point of installing the rails that the panels are attached to on the roof, laying in the electrical conduit, connecting the panels electrically and installing the inverter on the side of our house.

We are getting a 2.4KW system installed by Solar City on their SolarLease plan. This has enabled us to get this system put in for a very small down payment up front and then monthly lease payments on the system. When you average out our power usage we should come out about even in terms of our monthly payment. Instead of paying money to PG&E for our electrical usage we will be paying for the solar lease. Plus when we are not home and the system is creating more solar power than we are using it will go back into the grid and we get credit for that power generation from PG&E.

So today Mike and his crew from Solar City are cutting the rails, installing the rails to the mounts on the roof, installing the inverter on the house and beginning the conduit runs to tie it all together. He tells me that we should be installing the solar panels tomorrow.

I am looking forward to the day when we can switch the system on and be generating solar power. However once install is done we have to get the city inspector out and then finally a sign off from PG&E before the big switch. I am hopeful that will not take more a couple weeks at most.

Right now Solar City is offering a terrific deal where they will let you get in on this program for $0 down. It is only good till 12/15/09 but if you are thinking of going solar but cost has been an issue you should really look into this offer. If you do please tell them Kevin Rockwell sent you and they will treat you right.

The installation of our Solar City solar power system for our home has moved forward nicely. One of the things we had to have done was a bit of upgrading to the rafters in our attic so that our roof can be structurally sound and support the panels effectively.

We have a low slope roof and thus our attic is pretty tight with barely enough room to stand in the middle of the house to very tight out on the edges of the roof. The Solar City crew ended up taking out my solar fan and cutting a larger hole in our roof in order to access the attic, load in lumber for the upgrade and do the job. Dave and the crew had to work in tight conditions but thankfully the warm weather we had been having cooled down on the rafter day and so it was not roasting in there.

After they had completed the rafter upgrade Octavio from Blue Turtle came by to seal up the footers for the panels and the reinstalled solar fan which the Solar City guys had used as access to the attic. It is a three step process, one to install the wetsuit coating around all the areas where the roof has been penetrated by bolts, conduit, and the fan. Then there is the primer coat of solar reflective paint, followed by the final coat of the solar reflective paint.

Next comes the panel install on Monday of this coming week, installation of the electrical connections, and inverter installation on the side of our house. If all goes well this next week we should be all set and ready for city inspections and sign off by PG&E so that we can turn on the system. Fingers crossed that his will only take a few weeks to get the official blessing for our system to be generating power for our household.

We took advantage of the Solar City lease option to secure a solar energy system for our home in California. The program launched in 2008 but when the economy went south the financing for the lease program took a hit and it caused big delays which were no fault of Solar City. So it has been some months since we signed up but I knew the day would come when we would begin the installation process of our solar power generating system.

The Solar City crew arrived yesterday and began the install process by giving me the tour of where the system will go, the inverter and the conduit runs. Then the process of locating rafters and drilling for the footers of the panel system. We are having terrific weather so it is a great time to install and begin generating power from the sun.

Next up is the upgrading of our rafters in the attic, followed by panel install and inverter install the next day.

Follow this project here

Solar energy system installation photos:

Well after a long road of planning and some delays due to the financial meltdown in our lending industry here in the USA we are now at installation day for our Solar City solar energy system on our house.

Pretty exciting to finally have it put in place and maybe be turned on later this week. Good timing too as we are in a spell of very nice autumn weather with lots of sunshine. I look forward to soaking up some of those rays into our system.

As you can see from the image on this post our house has a low slope roof that has a white solar reflective coating on it that was put on by our friends at Blue Turtle Roofing. So when we combine the cool roof and the solar panels on our roof we should have a terrific energy saving system.

For background on the process check out our project history here.

Step one today (wwatch for video to be posted later) is to shore up our rafters int he attic so the system can be supported by our existing roof. That will entail removing our solar fan so the carpenters can load the lumber into our smallish attic space. Then once the rafters are upgraded the solar install begins and should be in place by end of week.

Going Solar. Soon!

The process of getting our house fitted with a solar system has now run its course and we are very close to the installation day and then of course the big moment. Switching it on and getting power from the sun!

Solar City has been in touch a lot in recent weeks to inform us of the process of getting the plans approved, permits approved at the city of Oakland, and to detail the rafter upgrades our house needs in order to be able to support the new system.

Our house is old (1918) but very sturdy built out of redwood. However the spacing of beams in the roof is a bit much so Solar City and Blue Turtle Roofing (the guys who installed our new cool roof coating) will be working to beef things up in the attic.

Not a simple job in our case as access to our attic crawl space is tight. The plan is to remove our solar fan and insert the lumber into the attic space via that portal in the roof. It might be a tight job and I appreciate the effort they will have to go through to accomplish it.

Once the rafter upgrades are done then the Solar City crew comes and does the panel installation. I will document that process on video and share it with you soon. It turns out that in the time since we signed the contract to lease a solar system from Solar City there has been a new generation of panels come on to the market so we are getting those on our roof. Good news in my book.

Looking forward to the next call from James, my Solar City rep, setting up the date for all of this. But it should be in the next week as long as the weather cooperates. Fingers crossed.

Watch SolarCity video

So full disclosure first here everyone. I am a big fan of solar. I think everyone should be looking into adding solar to their house to reap the rewards of energy from the sun, save money on energy, and basically help the planet from having to use oil and more oil for its energy needs. But…..

My long march to getting solar energy installed on my house in California continues it slog towards the final day when it gets turned on and we jump for joy. It all started last Fall when SolarCity was heavily promoting its new program for leasing a solar energy system. I was not in the position to buy a system for my house so the idea of leasing the system and putting down a modest down payment ($1000) and being able to basically pay the same amount each month for the lease and my electric bill as I am currently paying for the electricity straight from the utility had some real merit to me.

Fist off was the arm twisting with my wife. She is very green too but I had to explain the program a bit in order to get her on board. But she got it and we signed on. We got our house inspected in measured to start the design process.

Then the bottom dropped out. You see SolarCity was funding all of this lease financing through the same Wall St financiers that were going down in flames at the end of last year. Bummer for them for sure. But way bigger bummer for us consumers. So all planning and engineering got slowed way down. The folks at SolarCity were always nice when I inquired as to the delays. But it has gone on for months.

Meanwhile we decided to seal our roof so that it would last for the life of the solar system we install. We got together with Blue Turtle Roofing and had them install a cool roof for us using the “Wet Suit” technology which is basically a rubber suit applied to your roof which is then covered with solar reflective paint to give you great insulation for your house. We noticed a 7-10 degree difference in our in house temperature after adding the new coating to our roof. Nice.

So we were now in the stage where we hoped the install would happen soon. But today came the word that we are still a ways away from it happening. We will have another engineering inspection next week so that the rest of the design work can be done to our project. We may need some rafter upgrades in our house so that needs to be planned out. That was good news. But our rep at Solar City also told me the bad news as well. Due to the financing issues money is still tight and we are not slated to get our solar system installed until November of this year. I am still looking forward to it happening, just wish it could come sooner so we could take advantage of the summer months’ sun.

OK so we announced that we were going solar or at least partial solar for our power generation on our house using the new SolarLease program by Solar City. They had made it very easy to analyze and determine what kind of system we could install and how much it would save us in terms monthly payments and ROI over the life of the system.

So the first step after agreeing to go forward with a solar energy install was to fill out the lease application. This was a very easy step. Their application only required details of our first and second mortgage and basic homeowner details. Frankly I did not have to go digging deep into the file cabinets to fill it out and that makes me happy.

We were approved in a day (guess we have good credit rating) and we set up an appointment with Mike from Solar City to get the papers signed. This is where the process sort of resembles refinancing a mortgage. There is a stack of legal paperwork that has to be gone over and explained and then signed and initialed in a number of places. Mike made it easy and answered our questions.

So the ink is dry and the applications are in for our new solar power system. Now we wait for the engineers to set up an appointment with us to look at the house and determine how the system will be laid out at our house. Then the installation process begins.

Watch for more posts on the whole process, including video. If you want an analysis of your home and energy use to see if you could go solar too then contact Mike at Solar City [mlombardo @ solarcity.com] and tell him Kevin sent you.

Solar City, California’s largest solar system installer has announced a new solar lease program that can get homeowners set up with their own solar energy system in their home for as little as $1000 to start and a monthly lease payment that keeps their outlay below their current electricity bill.

Wow is all I have to say. For years many of us have been looking at solar and trying to make it work for our situation. Tax credits, rebates, lower panel costs have all been nice incentives but the cost of entry was still formidable for the average homeowner.

But now with Solar City’s lease program I can for see many more home owners jumping into installing solar on their roofs in the short term. I am ordering up my consultation to get mine this week. It is too good of an offer and energy is such an important topic right now.

AEHQ will get a solar system and document for our readers so they can see just how it works out and what if any obstacles there may still be in the process.

From Solar City:

SolarCity custom designs each solar system to the homeowner’s needs, based on roof space, electricity usage and other factors, so lease terms will vary for each customer. Interested San Francisco residents can estimate their potential savings by using SolarCity’s solar calculator, available online at http://solarlease.solarcity.com.

For example, SolarCity can provide 2.4 kilowatt systems for monthly lease payments starting at $25 per month for eligible installations on approved credit. A 2.4 kilowatt system can typically reduce a $100 monthly electricity bill to $40 in San Francisco. In this example, the $65 cost of the combined lease payment and new electricity bill create a net monthly savings of $35. The lease structure—with fixed lease payments that increase 3.5 percent annually—is designed to allow customers to save money immediately, and continue to save over the life of the lease as electricity rates increase.

More info

The City of Berkeley, CA has also started an interesting program for residents. You can install solar and pay for it in your property taxes. A different form of a lease but never the less it has low cost of entry which is attractive. Since it is tied to the property tax of the house the payments carry forward to any new owner of the property but then so does the increased value of the home from the solar installation. Check it out here.