Home Roof Systems

Motivation 

There are many reasons to have a photovoltaic system on the roof of your household. A correctly installed system will provide you with years of clean energy, generated without emissions of CO₂ gas to the atmosphere.

The energy necessary to produce a PV system is much lower than the power that this system will generate over the years- studies set this "energy pay-back" time to be between several months and a couple of years.

A roof PV system generates electricity at periods of time at which demand is the highest- therefore it substitutes expensive peak power, reducing the price paid by the grid operators for conventional energy sources. Additionally, PV power generation happens in a distributed way, a phenomenon that improves the stability of the power grids.

In many countries around the world, especially in the European Union, there are laws that enhance the conditions to which end users can purchase, install and operate PV systems. These conditions vary from subsidies for the construction of the system to fixed prices for the generated electricity. If you want to purchase a PV system for your home, you will need to inform yourself about the local regulations. The best way to do this is to consult a professional local installer.

1- Find an installer

The most important step in your way to your PV system is the collection of several offers for turn-key systems from professional installers

At SANYO we work with especialized distributors. If you let us know where you come from, we can pass this information our local partners and they will give you the name of an installer close to you. For this, please send us an email to: solar.requestsanyo-solar.eu

Please include in your email the location of the system and some contact data. Please be aware that we will forward this information to our partners. They will only contact you on this topic and never for any other issue.The installer will not only make an offer, but also consult you about subsidies, regulations and any other detail that may be specific to your case.

2 - Get several proposals

Once the installer has analyzed the viability of the project, the next step will be getting a commercial offer from them. A complete proposal must content the following points:

• System size (kW)
• Amount of modules and module type
• Inverter selection (brand, model) and amount
• Connection plan from modules and inverters
• Analysis of yearly expected performance
• Impact of possible shadowing in the performance of the system
• Dimensioning of DC connection (wiring and connection box)
• Net metering equipment
• Mounting system
• Analysis of the stability of your roof
• Installation covering all items until start of operation
• Fixed price for the above listed items and binding installation date

Additionally to these points, the installer may offer you a profitability calculation, extended guarantee to the system, insurance, maintenance contract or monitoring system. Depending on your needs, these are quite useful add-ons.

3 - Legal conditions and subsidies

The next step in order to realize your home PV system is to find out the legal framework in the installation site.

The legal conditions define the permissions that are required to construct your system. This may vary from environmental and visual impact to electrical compliancy and many more. The fastest way to find out these conditions is to ask your local photovoltaic installer.

The other important legal framework is the subsidy that you may receive from the authorities and the possibility of selling the electricity you generate to the grid at a higher price than your purchase tariff.

You need to have these items cleared before you decide yourself for one of the offers. Some installers even solve the administrative hurdles for you; this can be a valuable service if done properly.

4 - Financing of the purchase

PV Systems require a comparatively high investment before working with very low maintenance cost for many years.

Therefore, it is very usual that the system owner gets a credit in order to pay some or all of the price of the system.

In several countries, this credit has special conditions in order to promote renewable energies. Ask your local installer about the existing programs.

Depending on the bank and the country, perhaps you will not need any security for this credit beyond the PV system itself. However, in other cases you may need additional securities. Consult all posibilities with your bank and installer before making a decision.

5 - Insurance

Being the investment on a PV system quite high, we recommend that you contract an insurance on it.

In every country conditions are different; therefore please consult your local installer for recommended deals.

Common PV insurances cover damage on the system due to fire, hail, vandalism or similar. Some of them even cover the loss of income that you may suffer if your system has downtime and you stop selling energy to the grid because of that.

Before choosing one insurance, check whether your home insurance covers any or several of the risks involved in having a system on the roof- maybe you can combine both with low cost or you need to update your home insurance.

6 - Select one proposal

It is usually recommended that you collect a few offers before you decide on one of them. Do not worry if you need to clarify any point with the installer or with the manufacturers of any component. A PV system will be installed on your roof for over 20 years and decisions must be made carefully.

In order to value an offer, you need to see if:

• It fulfils your expectations in terms of price
• It contains components of the expected quality
• Dimensioning is done fitting to your necessities

It is very common to gather references from the installer, to see running systems, and to discuss the details of your offer with other system owners.

There are several discussion forums in the Internet that can help you in this phase.

7 - Installation of the system

The installation of the PV system will finish with the start of operation. Usually this is a procedure that has to be coordinated with your local grid operator and the installer.

From that moment on, your PV installation should provide you and the grid with clean energy for many years with very low maintenance.

We recommend that you keep safe the whole documentation of your system for future use, especially the guarantee conditions of the different elements and of the system as a whole.