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Ask HN: Do you have home solar?
Hi! I'm one of the co-founders of Jasmine Energy (YC S22) and I'm looking for people who have installed solar panels on their home. If thats you, would you be open to sharing the documents you received from your installer? We're working on a new tool at Jasmine Energy that may be able to help you find rebates and incentives buried deep in those documents.
- novateg 2y agoI have home solar. I'm interested
- mmayberry 2y agoThank you. Just sent you an email
- sharpshadow 2y agoGermany is steadily reducing the legal hurdles to install balcony solar plants. Now one does not have to ask the landlord for permission, no tax, 800W allowed, etc.. Berlin grants one 500€ with the purchase of a balkony solar plant.
- idontwantthis 2y agoDo you run it as it’s own circuit or do you connect it to your main power somehow?
- sharpshadow 2y agoOwn circuit, main power, feeding it back to the grid for profit, feeding it back to the grid for free are possible options. The options come with additional costs. In the latest round of new regulations they allowed the use of 230V Schuko plugs for balkony plants.
- idontwantthis 2y agoThat’s wild. There’s no way I could ever do that with a condo or rental house in the U.S. I would never get to touch main power.
- jupp0r 2y agoI think all you do is connect the inverter to any wall outlet. Basically a male-to-male power chord.
- mikestew 2y agoSurely it is something safer than a suicide cord,[0] especially if used inside where things like children live. [0]https://www.consumerreports.org/home-garden/generators/why-suicide-extension-cords-are-so-dangerous-a1189731437/ https://www.consumerreports.org/home-garden/generators/why-s...
- phiresky 2y agoIt's a male end on the PV side, but every of these plug-in inverters I've seen only start outputting when they get the 220V 50Hz input, so they are inert as long as they are not plugged in. As far as I know they always rely on the grid frequency.
- jeeeb 2y agoThis is necessary to prevent islanding. If the inverter outputs when the grid has lost frequency then other inverters can respond by also starting to output. This creates a chain reaction and can generate serious currents in sections of the grid that are expected to be on outage, which is a safety hazard.
- marshray 2y ago"children-like things" :-D
- ssl-3 2y agoGrid-tied solar inverters, as a general rule, do not (cannot) output any power at all in the absence of grid power. The act of plugging in a normal grid-tied solar inverter with a regular ass-plug[0] is just exactly as safe as plugging in any other electrical appliance is. (There are other concerns, but the physical plug is not amongst them.) 0: https://xkcd.com/37/ https://xkcd.com/37/
- animal531 2y agoHere in South Africa our main electricity supplier has been failing for the last few years due to corruption, nepotism etc. As a result solar power has really taken off for both businesses and homes.
- dbetteridge 2y ago800W ... total? I guess for apartments thats better than nothing, but wouldn't it make more sense to install them on the roof of the building and tie it into rebates for everyone?
- sharpshadow 2y agoIt’s for people which rent or own an apartment with balcony. Landlords and home owners can still install panels on the roof. There are options to invest in solar farms which start to yield returns after some years.
- prdonahue 2y agoI do, feel free to DM on Twitter. Just pull an 18 kW system in a few months ago and it’s been great. (Full disclosure: I’m in the solar industry, but on the software side. Recently left Cloudflare to join Aurora Solar as CPO.)
- mmayberry 2y agoDM sent. Much appreciated!
- Yawrehto 2y agoNo, but when the roof eventually needs repair we probably will. Sounds like an interesting idea though!
- toomuchtodo 2y agoConsider talking with the folks running NREL's SolarAPP platform. Potential partnership opportunity considering the data flows in scope for automated permitting. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40777288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40777288 https://solarapp.nrel.gov/ https://solarapp.nrel.gov/
- mmayberry 2y agogreat find. thank you!
- cmclaughlin 2y agoI’d be happy to help. My email is in my profile
- mmayberry 2y agoemail sent. thanks!
- theogravity 2y agoI had my panels installed in 2018. I doubt there's any incentives at this point? Are you looking for more recent installs?
- mmayberry 2y ago2018 still works! We're most interested in the paperwork associated with the install. If you are willing to share any documents related to your installation you can do so here: https://driveuploader.com/upload/UdA5Ev9YFP/ https://driveuploader.com/upload/UdA5Ev9YFP/
- gavinh 2y agoI expect to by September. DM me.
- metabeard 2y agoCan you setup a form to allow us to upload the docs? I had solar, panel, and roof done by SolarCity before it was purchased by Tesla.
- mmayberry 2y agoUpload portal is here: https://driveuploader.com/upload/UdA5Ev9YFP/ https://driveuploader.com/upload/UdA5Ev9YFP/ Thank you for helping out. Much appreciated!
- megablast 2y agoI only have solar!! It’s awesome. Completely off grid. Sailboat life.
- ryandrake 2y agoI've got a pretty old 7400 watt system installed back when the incentives from California were pretty good. It's lost quite a bit of efficiency over the years, and usually tops out at around 5200 watts, providing ~40KWh during cloudless days in the summer. I don't know much about net metering and incentives, but what I do know is that I can't make any major changes to the installation without ratcheting down to the current regulatory system, which reduces compensation for selling during off-peak hours.
- mmayberry 2y agoif you have any paperwork related to your installation we would love to see it. The standard installation pack (diagrams, blueprints, system info, tech specs, etc...) is what we are most interested in. You can drop anything you are comfortable sharing here: https://driveuploader.com/upload/UdA5Ev9YFP/ https://driveuploader.com/upload/UdA5Ev9YFP/
- pfd1986 2y agoOT but what's the best way to find incentives and rebates given a zip code? Google just suggests 1,000 ads...
- nick238 2y agohttps://sunroof.withgoogle.com/ https://sunroof.withgoogle.com/ kinda works, but strangely if I try it on my house in Chicago, it omits the state rebate. Illinois/local utilities cover 20-40% the installation cost, depending on how well they produce. After the ~30% tax rebate from the feds, basically halves the "price after incentives". TBH, best way is to talk to a solar provider. They're not as hard to stop talking to as Mormons.
- tdaltonc 2y agoDSIRE (Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency) is the database that all of those companies use. https://www.dsireusa.org/ https://www.dsireusa.org/ Disclosure: I'm also a Jasmine cofounder.
- metadat 2y agoPlz shoot me an email, collect.metadat at gogglestermale. P.s. this thread would've been less noisy if there was a decodable email address in your profile, sweetie pie. :) Then again, maybe you know the trick where more comments is mo' betta'. No judgement, haha.
- metadat 2y agoFWIW, OP never bothered to contact me. Not everyone uses twitter and slides into the DMs like that. Best wishes, Metadat Edit: please do downvote this benign message to your heart's content, cheers
- chrsw 2y agoDo incentives and rebates apply to batteries as well?
- kkfx 2y agoI do, self-made (legal here, France), composed of: - 12x Trina Solar Vertex S 400Wp (TSM-400DE) - solar inverter Fronius Primo 5kW - battery inverter Victron MultiPlus II-GX - 8kWh LFP BYD LVS - smart meter (zero injection setup) Victron/Giavazzi ET112 - EV charging piloted by the Victron (EVC300400300) There was not much 400V batteries and inverters back than. I log a bit via Home Assistant, so far without InfluxDB simply because I still have to find value in logging over longer time period, pruning data etc and HA alone was time consuming to setup due to the devs passion for YAML (GRRR i HATE modern YAML mania). Personally in commercial terms I'm DISGUSTED by the current state of thing where in China prices plunge and here in EU skyrocket, as quotes from professional installers are so high that a not-self-made system is simply economically not a good investment. Feel free to ask what you want :-)
- paultannenbaum 2y agoI put solar on my roof right before the NEM 2.0 -> 3.0 switch over. Email is in my profile.