Anyone know if plug in solar is legal in Ohio?

I'm trying to get a pre-owned solar system kit from FB marketplace and had the idea of splitting the system for dual purpose. EG4 4500EX and rack battery 51.2v/100ah on a hand truck as a mobile power station and the 1200 watts of panels, (2) Ecoworthy 51.2​v/50ah, pick up Ecoflow microinverter to backfeed the house. I'm trying to figure out how to temporarily/easily wire the systems together to allow mobile setup to power plug in over night to overset power usage through house. Would it be as simple as installing breakers to isolate the mobile battery and use a high amperage Anderson connector to make a big battery pack when wanted? My thinking is it would be nice to use that power in the summer to offset time of day rates from 5pm-midnight.

We are exploring the possibility of adding solar to our property, but our home is older and we just put on a new roof. I’d personally prefer not to have them roof mounted or on the ground. We have several acres to work with and are considering adding additional carports and out door recreation coverage out back that panels could be mounted upon if weight can be accommodated. I was doing some cursory research and it looks like most pre-fab structures won’t support the weight of solar panels. I wondered if there are any you’ve found in your line of work that will? Or is this a situation where we would need to build the entire structure based on weight expectations?

We installed solar + battery storage about 2 years ago, mostly to shave down our electric bill and have some backup during outages. Worked fine for most of that time, until we got a cold snap last winter, single digits for almost a week straight.

Turns out our battery just... stopped charging properly once it got that cold. Nobody told us this when we bought it. It was buried in a spec sheet we never really read closely, something about charging being restricted without supplemental heating once things dropped below freezing for an extended stretch. So during the exact week we actually needed backup power, ice on the lines and a couple short outages, the system barely had anything to give.

Called the installer, and they basically said "yeah, that's normal for a lot of LFP batteries without built-in heating." Would've been nice to know that before spending what we spent.

Now I'm going through and actually reading the operating temperature specs instead of just looking at kWh capacity and price. Feels like most of the marketing pages don't make this stuff obvious at all.

I have a 7.5 kW setup. I am capped at the capacity in order to sell energy to my utility at the retail rate between 12 and 7.

I would like to add capacity and battery storage.

Is it possible to configure this so that the new solar and the existing both feed the battery, but the existing 7.5kW setup switches to selling energy from 12-7?

Hello with the upcoming labor day sales I was looking on picking up a solar generator. from my research I decided to pock the Pecron E15000 LFP kit. There are limited reviews on this kit so I wanted to ask everyones opinion on both pecron and this specific kit. Thank you.

FYI this kit is more for camping and charging small devices such as flashlights, my phone, etc. more as a portable solar kit but an also an addition to my prepping kits.

Hi everyone, Fernando here 👋🏼!! I wanted to give everyone an update on my new vertical solar panel project!! We finally got done installing the solar panel arrays and after using them for a week I wanted to share the results with the group in case any one has been thinking of doing something similar to this!!

(System specs)
Our new vertical solar panel array consists of six 400w bifacial panels from a brand called Qcell. We wired the solar panels in a series configuration for a total maximum output of 2.4KW. We split the solar panels into two separate arrays consisting of three solar panels per array. Each of the two solar arrays is connected to its own E10 inverter directly using some 10AWG MC4 extension cables.

(Hardware used)
This is where things get creative!! Most off the ground mount solar panel kits are meant to install the solar panels at an optimal angle. This would not have worked since I was trying to do a vertical solar panel set up along our south facing fence. The kits found that would have worked for this use case were outrageously expensive. I started searching for something that could work as a brackets for our solar panels and thats when I stumbled upon some old metal bed frames that we had laying around!! The metal bed frame brackets were the perfect length to support our solar array. They also had a few pre drilled holes that would come in handy to attach the cross brace metal rail that we purchased from Home Depot. We purchased some solar panel brackets from a company called sunmak that would bolt the solar panels to the metal cross brace.

(Installation)
We screwed the bed frame rails directly into our concrete floor using some concrete screws and a rotary hammer drill and a concrete drill bit. Next we bolted the metal cross rail to the metal bed frame brackets using the pre drilled holes on the bed frame brackets. After this we places a 1 by 1 piece of wood on the concrete to support the solar panels. Lastly we placed the solar panels on top of the 1 by 1 piece of wood and securely bolted the solar panels to the metal rail behind them. We used the sunmak brackets to attach the panels to the metal rail using the pre drilled holes on the metal rail. The entire structure feels extremely rigid and strong since it’s entirely made out of metal!!

(Solar production)
Since the solar panels are not angled properly. The panels are not producing as much power as they could if angled correctly. The solar panels are producing a peak output of between 1.2Kw - 1.4Kw. The total production of the solar panels is between 6KWH up to 8KWh on a daily basis!! (Approximately half of the arrays maximum output)

(Should you do this?)
The main reason we decided to start this project was to offset the energy consumption of our four ton central AC system. The new E10 system makes it extremely easy to add more solar panels as your energy consumption grows. We already had an existing 4.2KW roof mounted grid tied solar system. Unfortunately our home is really small and installing some more solar panels on our roof was not possible. We also had very few options on were the six solar panels could fit. For people with limited space, installing a vertical solar panel array system is the perfect solution to add more solar!! That being said, if you have the space and you want the maximum output out of your solar panels. The best solution would be to angle the solar panels correctly!!

(Results)
We successfully offset the energy consumption from our four ton central AC system reaching our goal!! I am extremely happy with the results from this new project. I would definitely recommend considering doing something like this for people that want an easy way to increase their overall solar production!! Thank you all for reading this and I hope you all have a wonderful Labor Day weekend!!

​

After our week long power outage from multiple tornados in the Midwest I felt it's time to get a little power insurance.

Hi! I have been prepping food/water for many years, but finally need to pull the trigger on a solar powered generator. It would just be for emergencies/the grid going down. Main uses would be for cooking a couple times a day, charging devices, possibly for one fridge, etc. We live in Sunny San Diego.

I was looking at the Anker SOLIX 3800 w/ 3x 400W
solar panels. We are hoping to spend 3-4k tops. To be honest I've tried understanding a lot of these different options, but it's all a bit overwhelming. I'm just curious if you were my position with a couple kids and looking for this what you would be leaning towards. Also, I've heard a couple people say that if you go with this specific one I listed above, that you should not buy the solar from them and get your own solar?

What would you get if you were in my position?

Built and mounted tilting frame for solar panel.

Bought my 1st, a BigBlue 100W foldable for light charging during an outage.

When shopping I notice all the panels output listed something like

USB-A: 5V / 3A, 9V / 2A, 12V / 1.5A
USB-C: 5V / 3A, 9V / 3A, 12V / 3A, 15V / 3A

Why are there multiple volts/amps listed per port, and how do they work, is it determined by the device being powered or something else?

For reference, I am only planning on doing the front, up until the point where it juts out with the ridge. Will do as much as possible on the rear side, which unfortunately has less sunlight.

Hi everyone,

I have currently a Plug&Play Kit from MaterFrance (SPD800v2 Micro-Inverter),

I had it on the ground for more than one year and decided to move it to the roof to have better production. (Since 4th August)

Everything went fine from 4th to 12th and then suddenly production went to 0W..

The 15th of August I decided to shut off everything on my electric meter and restart, the panels went back again for one day and stopped the 16th

It seems it always stops after the night and never on the mid of the day.

My hypothesis are that it's not a app data track problem as I the next day I see that my house consumed electricty all the day. and the main house meter display shows no injection / no reduction.

When I go to the roof the micro-inverter show a blinking slow green light, which is correct for me, if I remove cables it goes red blinking or no light at all.

My App shows : -- W and 241V of the domestic network

My question is : What could be the problem ? I don't understand how it can stop out of nowhere, the heatwave maybe ? but then how can solar panels works in hot countries if it burns directly when it's above 35°C ? and how did it work for more than 1 year on the floor but only 8 days on the roof ? If it's software problem how can a software prevent solar panels to produce energy, it makes no sense at all

Thank you !

Hey Guys,

I had been working with someone at Solar Wholesale on a complete DIY package and the guy who I was talking to stopped responding to emails and his phone number is disconnected. When I call the main line I get an answering machine and nobody calls me back.

What I like about them is they offered to help with design and permitting and package everything up and ship a complete package to you with wire and everything. Does anyone else offer something like that? Most other places will send you some panels and an inverter and say good luck.

Hey all- I'm new to this and am feeling somewhat overwhelmed with data. I recently I stumbled upon what seems like some really key information about mismatched MC4 connectors.

Question 1: I bought 4 195W ECO-WORTHY panels to charge my Bluetti 100 V2. They will be wired in a series. Do I need to cut their MC4 connectors off and replace them with Staubli MC4s, or should I buy ECO-WORTHY MC4s for the cables in that circuit?

Question 2: Are crimpers proprietary too? I've read some conflicting accounts on this.

Question 3: Selecting the correct temperature rated AWG cables for attic runs. I live in sunny southern California, so I need something with a high temperature rating for piece of mind. I've read from other posts that 90C-rated cables can overheat in attic runs so I'm sending back my 90C cables for higher rated 105C/221F marine wire - does that sound like a better option? Its still PVC insulated which does not seem ideal, but I'm having a hard time finding silicone insulated cables. I haven't read much about silicone insulated cables on this subreddit though. I'm curious to know more.

Thanks for your time everyone.

I can't help but feel I'm missing something, but I can't figure out what it might be. I live in Massachusetts, so obviously cold winter with significantly reduced solar generation. I feel like I've hit a wall with how much we can get off fossil fuels.

For context, I have ~11kW ish of solar between two systems, which is pretty much the max I can fit on the usable roof. In the summer, this more or less keeps up with our total demand. Not quite, but fairly close to net zero in the summer. In the winter it's not even remotely close. The major reason for this is we switched from oil heating (natural gas isn't an option) to air source heat pumps for both heating and cooling, but that means that the solar in the winter can't even come close to the usage. I accept that, and don't really expect it to, I don't think I'm missing anything there.

What I can't figure out is any use case for batteries. MA does full net metering, but does not at this time seem to do any kind of off-peak pricing. There's a small program for off-peak EV charging which can save a few cents per kWh, but that's pretty much it. So from a financial perspective, I can't find any use case where batteries would save me any money at all. Given that the power we send to the grid doesn't just vanish and does get used by someone else, a battery system wouldn't reduce overall fossil fuel use. Backup power isn't really a need, the grid here doesn't go down unless someone hits a pole up the street or there's a major early snowstorm. Certainly not worth spending a lot of money to try to prevent something that almost never happens.

Is there anything I'm missing here, or are battery systems just mostly for states where they don't do full net metering, have off-peak pricing, or have unreliable grids?