Grid-tied Residential PV w/ Battery Backup

This home was build in the early 90’s and the family’s electrical usage is about 5,000Kwhrs annually, which is below the average American home. This home incorporates solar hot water, thick window treatments on the southern side and radiant floor heating. The homeowners’ intent is to eventually go Off-Grid once the contract of three years is fulfilled with NYSERDA. This client has a Net Metering (explained in the What is RE? page) agreement with the utility to sell back any access electricity back to the utility (grid) company. As you can see in the picture below the PV system is roof mounted and for those of you who have read the “What is RE?” page you know the many reasons why we try NOT to do roof-mounted PV projects. For this client there was no other alternative but to locate the array in this fashion. The size of the PV array is 4.5 Kw. They have battery backup for the periods when the Grid/Utility is down. The system is configured for 48Vdc.