Solar power notes

Timeline

28 March 2022	Installation of rails, Soladaks, inverters and rough electrical.	✓
6 April 2022	Installation of panels and finish electrical.	✓
April 2022	Provo City Power inspection.	✓
9 May 2022	Received e-mail authorizing system turn-on.	✓
9-17 May 2022	Worked through missing PV meter problem.	✓
17 May 2022	System turn-on.	✓
May 2022	System generating up to 60kWh on sunny days.	✓
February 2023	Installation of Enphase battery.	✓
???	Commissioning of Enphase battery.

Observed during installation...

• Soladak (spelling? a brand name?); a black, junction box up on the roof) ties all in it then to two strings each to a 20 amp breaker down at the combiner panel. These Soladaks end up under panels and are installed on the roof like vents in the sense that they penetrate, but do not lead to leaking.
• The DC/AC inverters are installed mounted to the rails, one per panel. This means that each panel is inverted and one panel shaded from the sun won't "take out" the effectiveness of any other panel in full sun. In fact, the granularity of this is at the "sub panel" level and even shaded cells don't ruin the rest of the panel. This is what you get when you spend real money for real panels (unlike the ones I have experienced previously).

• From left to right on the outside of the south wall of the garage, here is the electrical installation:
  1. Enphase Combiner panel—combines the Soladaks from the various panel groups
  2. PV disconnect—rapid shutdown for the solar installation)
  3. PV meter base—for the solar installation
  4. Service-entrance loop-back subpanel (makes my system unusual)
  5. Original service entrance, but new "Net metering" meter
• Back-up interface (BUI)—not yet featured; will connect including disconnect when grid down the components belows. In an Enphase system this is, I think, the Enphase Enpower Smart Switch.
  1. photovoltaic panels and inverters,
  2. Enphase battery(ies) and
  3. Provo City Power grid.
• It turned out that the missing PV meter was not an obstacle, but only Provo City Power was able to impart this understanding.
• The battery(ies), missing so far, will be mounted inside the garage/shop on the south wall (on the inside of where these electrical panels are all mounted as shown near here).

Installation photos...

Various details
Rooftop rail mount.	Installed inverter.	Soladak junction box.
Fire-stop door in attic (garage/shop side)—cabling from other Soladaks in main house roof.	Cabling down from Soladak into attic over mezzanine (right leg) and from other Soladaks (left leg); these are daisy-chained.	Soladak cabling down from attic (right leg) through mezzanine over garage/shop to Enphase Combiner.
Electrical panels
		Wiring of Enphase Combiner.
Roof mounting railing
	Note Soladak—gathers cabling from panels and conveys to Enphase Combiner via attic.	Note Soladak. There is one of these per group of panels. Loosely, these are called "strings" even though the panels are independent unlike a string of panels connected in "Christmas-tree" fasion.
Unorganized photos
Channel/rail on way up to roof.	Mounting of channel/rail to bracket.
Brackets are pre-tarred and ready to lag to roof with screws.
West-facing installation.	Inverter cable and connector.	Back of panel (inverter is mounted on the rail; connectors on panel leads at bottom).
Back of Q Cell panel.	West-facing panel mount.	South-facing roof with mounting rails.
Carrying panel from truck.	South-facing access.	Bottom of back of Q Cell panel.
Inverter detail before installation.	West-facing installation progresses.	Rail and mounting bracket detail.
Rail and mounting bracket detail.	Rail cross section detail.	Back of Q Cell panel —connectors that go to the microinverter.
South-facing installation progresses.	South-facing installation progresses.	South-facing installation progresses.
Cabling in new PV meter base. Someday Provo City says there will be a meter there, but they're out of them and, anyway, they don't rely on that meter to measure photovoltaic power (but on the new "Net metering" meter replacing my old one).	Loop-back cabling added to original service entrance.	Loop back intercepts in-coming Provo City power to subpanel, then subpanel ties in photovoltaic power, then back to the main cut-off in service entrance.
Left to right: combiner disconnect (rapid shut-down) and PV meter base (before nicer clear-plastic cover.	Disconnect and PV meter base with nicer plastic cover.	The electrical installation.
New grid power meter (Net metering-ready) performs same function as original meter.	Detail inside the combiner: for each of the three "strings" coming down from Soladaks, there is a breaker.
Inside the Enphase Combiner, the "cloud" LED isn't lit because system isn't talking to the Internet. The other two are lit (solar arrays active). After turning the system on I had to configure this box' connection to a wireless- access point.	Inside the Enphase Combiner, all three breakers—one for each "string" (2 × 20 amp plus 1 × 15 amp)—are now in the "on" position.

Instructions for system turn-on...

The images containing large, red-outlined numbers are from Titan Solar's instructions for the initial system turn-on. However, they're from a canonical recipe that doesn't match my own installation.

1. 
My system's "PHOTOVOLTAIC DISCONNECT" isn't in the service entrance (figure 1) whose cut-off breaker would bring the whole house down. Instead, it's to be the loop-back subpanel (2, 3) bearing a red label marked, "PHOTOVOLTAIC AC DISCONNECT" and likely the leftmost breaker.

1. Provo City Power service entrance.

2. Loop-back subpanel (left) from Provo City Power service entrance. (Shown opened with two breakers —the right one cuts house power and the left one connects the photovoltaic system.)

3. Loop-back subpanel.

2. 
The "PHOTOVOLTAIC DISCONNECT" is this subpanel. The label in question is red.
3. 
Here's where the instructions go seriously downhill. Underneath my Q Cell panels are microinverters that transform the direct current output from the panel to alternating current. There is no "inverter" as part of the electrical panels per these instructions. Instead, what's pictured looks a little like the photovoltaic meter base.
4. 
And, of course, the whole point is that, as of 11 May 2022, my system still has no photovoltaic-system meter.
5. 
This instruction is for naught because there is no "inverter" that's part of the exposed electrical system. Here is the entire system spread across the south, outside wall. Not one of these boxes or panels is labeled as an "inverter." From left to right:


combiner, photovoltaic disconnect, photovoltaic-system meter base, loop-back subpanel and Provo City Power service entrance.


6. 
Same puzzlement as #5 just above.