April 8, 2010
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Editor’s Note: Scientific American‘s George Musser will be chronicling his experiences installing solar panels in Solar at Home (formerly 60-Second Solar). Read his introduction here and see all posts here.
Solar power involves wondrous quantum physics and materials science, but its fate may hinge on whether contractors can learn to bolt on the panels without losing too many screws. The panels themselves account for only about half the cost of a solar array; the rest is the installation and back-end equipment. As panel makers slash their prices, the nuts and bolts loom ever larger. Fortunately, a quiet revolution is now underway in installation. Brendan Neagle, the chief operations officer of Borrego Solar, a major U.S. installer, says they’ve sped up installation by 40 percent over the past two years. Zep Solar has invented a new roof mounting system, already supported by the module maker Canadian Solar, that speeds things up by another factor of two. And Nat Kreamer, president of Acro Energy, another large installer, says they’ve streamlined the preparation work and can get a system up on your roof within 30 days of your first phone call — quite an improvement on the eight or so months it took me.
In fact, historically, most of the cost savings for solar power have come on the low-tech side. According to a Lawrence Berkeley Lab study last year, arrays in 1998 cost about $11 per watt of generating capacity: $5 for the modules themselves, $6 for the installation and equipment. By 2008 the modules have fallen by $1 per watt, the installation by $2. Prices have come down as installers have climbed up the learning curve. And there’s clearly room for them to do even better. The study reported that arrays in Germany are $2 per watt cheaper than in the U.S. "Anything that is inefficient needs to be attacked," says Mike Miskovsky, the general manager of Canadian Solar.
Zep Solar CEO Jack West says he began to rethink mounting systems 12 years ago. The roof-mounted rack for a typical 5 kW array consists of 429 metal rails, screws, washers, and other parts that must be hauled up to the roof, kept organized so they don’t go missing, and bolted together using a power drill and a set of nut drivers. The electrician must then run grounding wires to all the metal pieces for safety. Often the parts are a mix of copper, aluminum, and steel, creating dissimilar metal junctions that slowly corrode. In a few years, we may see a wave of grounding failures that create a risk of electrocution for anyone who touches an array.
The system he and his colleagues developed has 91 parts (see the comparison photo above, although it shows a 2 kW rather than 5 kW system) and requires just the drill and one specialized hand tool. The system has a minimalist elegance. A small, adjustable mounting bracket anchors each panel to the roof, and a lateral Erector-set-like piece connects adjacent panels, providing both mechanical support and a grounding connection. In the company’s demonstration video, a pair of workers installed an array in 15 minutes, versus one hour for the standard array (not counting the set-up time on the ground). ZepSolar vice-president Daniel Flanigan claims that the system reduces labor and parts costs by about 50 cents per watt. It also makes it easier to remove and replace a panel should the need arise.
I should point out that I haven’t verified these claims firsthand, although I can attest to the difficulty of assembling a conventional mounting frame. Neagle agrees that most mounting systems are baroque and says he likes the Zep approach, although he’s waiting to see how it proves itself in practice.
Neagle told me about the myriad other ways Borrego has cut installation costs. They preassemble panels into units of four before arriving on the site, standardize practices such as which side of the array to run the wires on, and, adhering to the "measure twice, cut once" adage, thoroughly plan out the installation before anyone gets near a ladder. The company has a team of people who do Frederick Taylor-like controlled experiments of new techniques, using a stopwatch and timekeeping logs. They both collect ideas from workers and train and retrain them. Kreamer offered similar lessons and also says that cost-cutting generally means consolidating smaller firms into a larger company to spread out the overhead costs.
One challenge, says David Kaltsas, vice-president of SunWize, a large distributor of wholesale solar equipment as well as a residential installer on the West Coast, is a shortage of experienced and talented workers. And that’s also a reason that solar arrays are, for the most part, not quite a DIY project yet. Putting them up take expertise and, if anything, the amount of expertise they take has been increasing. Over time, the efforts to simply the process for the professionals may filter down to us weekend warriors. For now, though, I think homeowners would be grateful simply for lower prices.
Photo courtesy of Zep Solar
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There are other ways to bring the installation cost down–one is to use satellite imaging to size the system (saving the time/expense of a site visit). But an even bigger game changer is the Solar Lease offered by Sungevity.com and power purchase agreements offered by other companies. With a solar lease, Sungevity installs the system for free and then the customer pays monthly the same or less than what s/he used to pay for electricity. What really matters to the consumer isn’t so much the cost of asssembling nuts and bolts, but the up-front cost to them, which is now, for a growing number of companies, zero.
Link to this30 days from the first call? I’m not exactly sure what that entails. But I did mine in less than 30 hours.
Link to thisHowever, I must agree with Ms. Etelson; the up front cost is indeed the largest hurdle. I am very glad to see more companies poping up, that do the solar lease method.
Very true. I’ve written about these leasing programs before and I think they’re the way to go for homeowners. But solar’s prospects ultimately depend on whether, and when, it can reach grid parity — which requires innovations on both the module and installation.
Link to thisMy energy bill is way too high.I was talking with my boss who agreed he pays to much in energy costs. He said solar can help reduce the monthly energy bill.He was saying that this one time investment will save me a lot and take care of my future power needs.Moreover, my energy company wont bug me with increasing rates all of the time.So I did some research on this solar panel thing.I hit upon a website <a href="http://FreeCleanSolar.com"> FreeCleanSolar.com </a> which has a lot of info and price comparisons, financing and leasing, tax credits and rebates.I feel more knowledgeable now.Do you guys think that I should go for this solar?Let me know
Link to thisHi George,
If you’re not tired of the conversation spurred on by
Link to thisyour "Are Old Homes Doomed?" post, check out my latest blog on historic homes and solar.
Patrice
http://blogs.nationaltrust.org/preservationnation/
AMPV american photovoltaics was founded by Bastian Peter Ringsdorf (Ringsdorf International Group, Merenberg) to create the future of energy with the help of the sun. AMPV offers in the U.S.A. a complete service for everybody who is interested in solar energy. This service contains a extensive consultation concerning financings and compensations, the technic planning of the systems, their dimensioning, installation and maintenance.
Link to thisAMPV and its companies offer competence in solar and electro technic for 5 years and have clearly focussed on the US-market. Our philosophy means the highest quality for a good price! Your system shall supply proceeds the next 30 years, therefore four us only count the best what we find worldwide on components for you. This is our promise to you!
Visit: http://www.american-photovoltaics.com
We are a roofing company in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan standardly installing PV at $5.50-6.00 per Watt. The secret is selling the PV as a piggy-back value added product to a new roofing instalation. We are building a franchise on this model called Energy Roof Systems and are looking for Quality roofing contractors to be affiliates. See some of our work on my roofing website: http://www.danperkinsroof.com
Link to thisJust a few thoughts, when looking over solar sites, I haven’t seen much ink on new building designs. It seem one way for solar to compete with present systems, is getting our heads out of the basement for utility rooms, and start thinking of rooftop gardens with space for solar systems.
Link to thisJust look on e-bay and one can see the day of plug-an play is near. Collectors, trackers, thermal storage batteries, will be off the shelf bolt up easy.
I worked as an lineman for 30 years, and that experience tells me nothing will dive down the cost as ease of ACCESS.
Tax credits, cheap loans, energy ratings, the whole picture need to support ACCESS.