Connecting a solar power package to your home is pretty straight forward, but like anything involving electricity it is dangerous. A local electrician needs to be involved when connecting the package to your house and your power company must contacted before you ever consider connecting a solar power package to your house. The first thing you should do when installing a solar power system is contact your power company and inform them that you are installing a solar power system. Your power company will send you an application and ask you where you are installing the solar panels on your property, what kind of inverter system you are using, and where your electrical disconnect will be installed. They may also ask you to provide a one line electrical diagram of how the solar panel system is wired.
After you get approval from your power company and have hired a local electrical contractor to make the final electric connection. The process for hooking your system is as follows:
Install your solar power package mounting system
Secure your solar panels and inverters to the mounting system
Connect the inverters to the solar panels
Use the included trunk cable to connect the inverters together
Have your electrician measure the voltage coming into your electrical breaker panel
Have your electrician connect the trunk cable to the disconnect
Have your electrician connect the disconnect to a dedicated breaker inside your electrical breaker panel
Have your electrician turn the disconnect to the on position and turn the dedicated breaker to the on position
Measure the voltage coming from the solar power system and make sure it is higher than the first voltage measured before the system was connected
Your solar power package should now be connected to your home and sending electricity to your electrical device
There should be little maintenance required after this process is completed for a grid-tie solar power package. It is suggested you clean your solar panels after each weather season changes. If you would like to monitor the amount of power your solar power package is producing you can purchase a monitoring system that most inverter manufacturers offer. Hemphill Solar sells an Enphase monitoring system that not only monitors your solar energy production, but also can monitor your building’s electrical consumption and help you make decisions that can increase your return on investment.
