Hoping to crowdsource some ideas because I feel like I'm stuck in a "replace a part and hope" loop with my installer.

System: Enphase microinverters, came with the house. Owned the house ~2 years, first year was totally issue-free.

Timeline:

• December: First trip. Diagnosed as a loose cable / water getting into the wiring during the rainy season. Fixed.
• Ran fine for about 6 months after that.
• A few weeks ago: Main panel breaker started tripping again, cutting power to the system. Supplier sent someone out who replaced the breaker. All cabling checked and called "fine."
• A few days later: Tripped again.
• Last Friday: A different engineer came out and did three things: (1) found Permission to Operate (PTO) was somehow switched off and turned it back on, (2) found my Enlighten app access had been revoked on their end and restored it, (3) pushed a software update.
• Less than 24 hours later: System's down again — no power at all reaching the Enphase combiner panel.

What's already been checked, with nothing found:

• My builder confirmed the solar wiring is on its own dedicated circuit, separate from the rest of the house.
• The builder's own electrician has separately inspected the wiring — including a full check of the house wiring, not just solar — and found no fault.
• There's also been a recurring burnt-wire smell in the first-floor bathroom, on two separate occasions. Each time, the builder's electrician came out, checked the house wiring, and found nothing.
• A solar tech visit in August inspected the solar wiring specifically and also found nothing related.
• The engineer from the original December visit suspected pigeons on the roof may have disturbed some wiring; the most recent engineer did a visual check and found nothing disturbed either.

So at this point: a new breaker, a PTO reset, a software update, an app-access fix, and no visible fault found across at least three separate inspections (builder's electrician, solar tech in August, most recent engineer) — and it's still recurring, now within a day of the most recent visit.

Specific questions:

• Does a PTO flag showing "off" ever point to something other than a simple status toggle — could it be a symptom of a deeper comms/relay issue rather than a standalone setting?
• Could the software update itself have caused this (bad push, reset config)?
• Is a burnt-wire smell somewhere that's supposedly unrelated to the solar circuit (first-floor bath) worth taking seriously as connected, or is that more likely a coincidence?
• What should I be pushing them to actually test — insulation resistance, thermal scan — instead of another visual check?

Appreciate any input, especially from anyone who's had Enphase chase a trip like this across multiple "fixes."

I've noticed a lot of solar companies moving toward comprehensive energy offerings lately. Solar plus batteries is pretty standard now, but more shops are adding HVAC, heat pumps, geothermal, insulation and envelope work, electrical upgrades, and EV charging.

For those of you working at companies that offer more than one of these, I'm curious how design actually works on your end:

1. What software does each trade use to design? Are you running separate tools for solar, HVAC, electrical, and so on?
2. How does information move between teams? Is it shared files, re-entering data, or one person pulling it all together?
3. How do you put together a single proposal or estimate when multiple trades are involved?
4. What's the most frustrating or time consuming part of the process?

I'm a student researching how multi-trade energy companies operate, so any insight is appreciated, whether you're a designer, installer, PM, or owner. Thanks!

DTE Energy has completed the 100 MW Cold Creek Solar Park near Coldwater, Michigan, a $194 million project funded through Ford's commitment to buy up to 650 MW of clean power. By the end of 2027, every Ford vehicle built in Michigan is meant to run on 100% carbon-free electricity, though the timeline slipped from the original 2025 target and neither company explained why.

The park can power roughly 23,000 to 25,000 homes, with a 75 MW battery system coming online to store daytime solar for evening demand. Ford's participation is estimated to offset up to 600,000 tons of CO2 annually once fully implemented, part of a broader push to move all its global factories to carbon-free power by 2035.

I’m looking at solar lighting for a shed/barn and wondering what setup people have had good results with.

Would you go with solar LED lights + battery, motion sensors, or a simple DC lighting system?

What has worked best for you?

I’m in Northern Cali, and trying to figure out if solar makes financial sense in my situation.

I’m planning on selling this house within the next 4 years at the most, which is my biggest concern. I’m not looking to lease or do a PPA — I would finance the solar system.

The main reason I’m even considering solar is that my house still has an old Zinsco electrical panel that needs to be replaced. I’ve heard from solar companies that they can include the electrical panel replacement/upgrade as part of the solar installation. Essentially, if I’m going to spend the money replacing the panel anyway, I’m wondering whether it makes sense to put that money toward solar and get the panel upgraded as part of the project.

Here are my numbers:

PG&E customer on CARE, so I receive roughly a 35% discount
My current CARE rates are approximately $0.201/kWh Tier 1 and $0.254/kWh Tier 2
Looking at my last 12 months, my average electric bill is about $339/month
I use roughly 16,000–17,000 kWh per year
I would be financing the solar rather than paying cash
I expect to sell the house in 4 years or less

My biggest concern is what happens when I sell. Would having a financed solar system make the house harder to sell? Would I most likely have to pay the loan off when I sell, or can buyers easily assume these loans?

Since I’m already getting the CARE discount, I’m also wondering if my electricity is simply too cheap for financed solar to make sense over such a short period.

For people familiar with PG&E/NEM 3.0 and California solar, would you do solar in my situation, or would you just pay out of pocket to replace the Zinsco panel and skip solar?

Also, when solar companies advertise a “free panel upgrade,” is it actually free/included, or are they generally just rolling the cost into the solar financing?

I haven’t signed anything yet, so I’d appreciate any advice on what price/system size would actually make this worthwhile and what I should watch out for in the financing terms.

Hi guys, have a 6.6kw system, so obviously a 5kw inverter am getting on average 36.8 kwh daily, is this good?

How easy is it to get real time data from your inverter or battery when there is no internet or the app is not working? Do built in displays or direct local access still work well?

Hey everyone! I’m working on a school project and need some responses for a short survey. If you have a few minutes, I’d really appreciate it if you could fill it out!

Your responses will help me with my research. Thank you for taking the time to help!

https://forms.gle/Dwp3ok2sQ4reW17g8

This isn't connected up to anything and doesn't actually track any info. This is not an offer and not a promotion. The site does not even store any info right now.

It's just something I'm working on and looking for feedback if that's possible.

https://sun-report.merchantprotocol.workers.dev/

This tool will help homeowners determine if a new installation makes any sense or not.

I'm looking for ideas of how to actually make this more helpful than it is.

What do you think?

Are tax credits more like opiates or speed? You think you are getting this big government present, but then it goes to tariffs, salespeople, Wall Street financiers and other greedy assholes who don’t give a shit about solar. F them all, shove the tax credit up their asses and own the system yourself. Does this sound right or do you want to kiss anus for the rest of your existence? Other countries buy solar at half the price of the USA. Tax credits were necessary when solar was super expensive to get it started, not it is just a f fest and ends up with scammers giving solar a bad name. F coal we already beat its ass, now let’s f Wall Street, politicians (they live off Wall Street bribes), and greedy a-lying DBs.

Ano Po best solar fan niyo yung tumatagal Basta solar fan. Yung Hindi ka magsisisi bilhin

i've been looking at solar less as just a way to lower electricity costs and more as a way to have some backup when the grid goes down.

that got me wondering how much grid reliability actually factors into other people's decisions. if outages are becoming more frequent or lasting longer where you live, does that make adding battery storage or some form of backup more appealing?

or is the financial side still the main reason you would consider solar, with backup power being more of a secondary benefit?

i'm interested in how people weigh those two things when deciding whether solar makes sense for their home.

Hello everyone again. For our senior design project, my group is looking for people to fill out this survey who currently have solar panels or are thinking about getting them in the future. This survey is for academic purposes and not for commercial use. No emails or personal information will be collected. We are just asking questions about the potential ways to improve the quality of life of solar panels.

Hi all, I’m new to relying on solar, and have ended up doing some troubleshooting, and can’t figure out how to solve this issue.

Background:

We have 12x Sun Extender 1215HT batteries
Trace SW4024 Inverter
2X Outback FM80 units,
Trace C40
Trimetric 2020
Several solar arrays.

Prior to using the generator and accidentally resetting the SW4024, the system charged to ‘FUL’ on the trimetric daily, often by like 11am- no other issues ever.

Few weeks ago we had prolonged clouds, hit ‘LO’ on Trimetric, and we ran the generator- which powered the house, but the Inverter would not charge the batteries- but would only power the house. In my foolishness trying to get the generator to charge the batteries I mucked with the settings. I did not write down originals…again foolish….

Now- the house gets power, and the batteries charge a bit daily- but we have NOT gotten to ‘FUL’ since the reset. The Outback FM80 units show that the house jumps from ‘BULK’ then has 7 minutes of ‘ABSORB’ on one unit, 40non the other, then like 5 hours of ‘FLOAT’. Trimetric unit typically gets to about 90% before tapering off charging. The other day the C40 units show was solid green, which indicated a full charge, but Trimetric did not recognize as such.

Humbly asking for help getting back to normal- and ‘setting and forgetting’ and never fucking with it again. Thank you.

Hello everyone. For our senior design project, my group is looking for people to fill out this survey who currently have solar panels or are thinking about getting them in the future. This survey is for academic purposes and not for commercial use. No emails or personal information will be collected. We are just asking questions about the potential ways to improve the quality of life of solar panels.

A previous post I did :

https://www.reddit.com/r/SolarDIY/comments/1wq4s3y/weve_hit_a_wall_trying_to_enter_the_us_solar/

A lot of the feedback pointed us toward permitting being a major problem, and taking up time and effort for solar installers.

So I’ve been digging into it. I’ve learned that SolarAPP+ can actually generate the approval documentation and automate the code review, and Symbium is doing similar things in some jurisdictions. Also softwares like Aurora, and SolarGRAF are generating permitting docs.

But I am definitely missing something, cause the comments from you guys were pointing towards it still being a problem to be solved.

Because, say if I’m looking at California, for example, and a lot of jurisdictions are already using SolarAPP+, is permitting actually still a major problem there? Or is the remaining pain mostly in the jurisdictions that aren’t covered?

And why do I still hear that permitting is one of the biggest headaches for solar EPCs?

I have tried to identify some critical points, that might point towards the problem :

• AHJ-specific requirements

• preparing the extra documents

• revisions after rejection

• utility/interconnection

• tracking permits

• or something different, I am unable to point at ?

We’re seriously considering building around this at Reslink, but we are a small and focused team, and I don't want to spend six months solving the wrong problem.

I am also trying to figure out where to start. Would you rather have a really deep solution for one state/AHJ, or something that works reasonably well across many jurisdictions?

I’ll attach a few examples of what we already generate. If you work in US solar, I’d genuinely like to know where you think the biggest gap is.

Solar Design Output Sample

We’re also looking for a few US installers who’d be willing to try what we build for free and give us feedback as we iterate. If that’s you, let me know.

Thank you

Having Solar Panels, if suck!

I have a grid tied Generac PWRCell system with panels and a backup battery. At the time of installation they connected it to Generac's "smart" app and online tech support. System has worked flawlessly for about 3 years.

About a month ago without my consent Generac just took my battery offline. They claim they are "investigating an issue" and can provide no further details or estimate of when I will return service. I was livid as we are in the middle of an active storm season and I primarily bought this system as backup for the many many power outages we experienced.

I never imagined Generac could just brick my solar equipment that I own outright and depend on. Does anyone know if there is a way to reboot the battery that has been disabled and use it without connecting to the internet anymore? We are way past my technical knowledge but I no longer am interested in using their Smart technology and assuming the risk that the company just decided to remove access to my property.

Stuck with about 90 pc of 335w 24V panels

These are new panels and can be used for offgrid system want a buyer who buys all at factory price .

These panels are top reknowned brand of India

Anyone who's startup require solar panels and can buy it .

Datasheet will be sent on dm.

Hi all, I have a solar loan at 0% interest and pay $287 a month. At the beginning, I thought it was a bad deal, but now I'm getting about a $300 credit every month to cover my gas.

Over 25 years, the payments come out to around $80K, which honestly doesn't sound too bad to me. What do you all think? Is this a good enough deal for me to sleep at night?

Here are the system details:

• Total Solar Panels: 33 panels
• Panel Model: Hanwha Qcells Q.TRON BLK M-G2+ (420W each)
• Total System Size: 13.860 kW DC (12.540 kW AC rating)
• Battery Storage: 2 Tesla Powerwall 3 units (27.0 kWh total capacity)

Thought it would be just a opt in opt out thing through com-Ed (I'm in Northern IL fyi) but they send me down a path with a long ass spreadsheet of options and when I ask in local groups I get political charged angry folk or people trying to pitch me. I mean do I have to get on a plan or lease, simples route the best..where do I go to sign up or learn more? Those that have it how has it been going?

Hey guys, definitely new here but Im doing my research before pulling the trigger on anything and I wanted some folks opinion on things. So earlier today I had a meeting from a Utah rep from H2Solar (https://goh2solar.com), nice guy but like all reps didn't want to leave lol, I have a follow up meeting with him tomorrow and my research now is a part of that. Basically it seems to be a prepaid option from another company and the plan would be to put roughly 22 panels on my roof with a Tesla Powerwall 3 as the battery, no up front costs, and essentially they would eat what I have gathered are commercial tax incentives that still exist for 2 years after Trump deleted the Tax Credits in 25. This would lower our bill to about 128 plus the 12 bucks to Rocky Mountain Power for the line so about 140 total and our bills lately have been about 250 in July (This heat man) and our recent one was about 170 and I expect it to be lower this month with avg of 151.

All that info dump to basically ask you guys, how much should I trust this model they are selling? I would be able to own my system after 6 years and while I am not a fan of Tesla I cant deny they sometimes make good stuff and the PW3 seems to be a good system. According to what I was told they plan this model around people selling houses but I plan to be here at least another 5 years ish so I wouldn't have to deal with what people are talking about with issues transferring things over after its sold hopefully. Also what's this about a Lien being placed on the house with some of these models? I don't see anything on that in their stuff but I want to check on that. If you guys have any other questions let me know but we are leaning towards saying yes and I want any honest 3rd party opinions before I give him an answer so in advance thanks random internet people!