Hello, I am hoping that you can help to resolve this issue.
Westinghouse Solar (formerly known as Akeena Solar) has been claiming for quite some time that it will be selling 200 Watt solar panels with built in grid connect inverter through Lowes.
CEO Barry Cinnamon claims that there is no need for any unnecessary paperwork....just take em home and plug em in.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com...dalay-ac-solar-panels-available-at-lowes

http://www.westinghousesolar.com/index.php/do-it-yourself

Lowes don't actually have any yet and my humble opinion they never will.

Would NEC and NFPA be happy about the idea of hundreds of thousands of grid connect solar panels installed by Joe Public?

Interesting claims by Bazza Cinnamon here.... http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/guest-post-epitaph-for-solyndra/

If it is listed by a NRTL, I am not sure how you stop it.

DIY installation ok?

New South Wales?

In America the tax credits are not available for DIY installations.

So -- in economic terms -- the answer is no.

These things come with a NEMA 5-15 plug cap on them. If they can get it listed it is just like a table lamp or a toaster.

No, I am not planning to use them in NSW Australia (I am off grid and a solar enthusiast)
I am interested to find out whether the claims of Barry Cinammon that his panels will shortly be available from Lowes for DIY installation has any chance of becoming a reality or if it is just more hype to boost Akeena/Westinghouse solar's share value.
Barry has been a very naughty boy in the past...
http://www.zhlaw.com/Akeena-Derivative-Complaint.pdf
and again in 2009
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/akeena-solar-shares-skyrocket-on-lowes-deal-2009-12-10

I can't see how any device generating electricity fitted with a male cord cap could possibly be considered acceptable in any country of the world!
So... in my eyes no.
Edit: on the other hand grid inverters tend to have fairly complex electronics designed to prevent putting power into a disconnected line (so for example linemen working upstream in case of a fault won't get injured) so it might(!) be considered safe.

As I said, this will all hinge on the listing. If U/L (TUV or whomever) deems these to be safe, I see no reason why they can't be marketed. Whether they actually make any economic sense is another question but they sell snake oil by the tanker truck quantities in the US so I expect they will fly off the shelves. If they can actually deliver 200 watts for less than $1000 ($5/w) it might not be a horrible buy ... assuming you can get the various rebates. That is going to be another fight for Akeena. If they can get Obama on board, this is a stock to own, at least for a while ... until they get knocked off by an Asian company selling for $3 a watt.

My concern is how are all those 55-15 receptacles are going to make it to where these solar panels are going to be located. Are we now going to see outlet strips nailed to facia boards and extension cords run into open windows?

My guess is we will see the orange cords going through attic vents. I agree this is a concern.
I imagine the chance of these outlets being GFCI protected is nil.
This is an opportunity to sell another outlet under the eaves for these collectors and the Christmas lights or de-icing equipment in the gutters.

Are GFCI circuits are power source sensitive, in that they work the same whether power comes in thru the building system and is used by the load connected to the receptacle, or vice versa.

I suspect they will not work correctly because the power for the sensing magic comes off of the building wire side.

I can't see too many people buying a panel so that they can run the Christmas lights in the daytime.
I can't see too many people buying DIY panels if there is no rebate available.
What I can see is share market shenanigans.
Bazza has done this sort of thing before.

This is from 2009 (Lowes seems to be a bit slow putting them on the shelves)

Akeena to sell solar panels at retailer Lowe's
Thu Dec 10, 2009 1:41pm EST
* All-in-one panels to sell at 21 Lowe's stores for $893

* Part of company's strategy to boost revenue

* Akeena shares up 43 cents, or about 43 pct

LOS ANGELES, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Akeena Solar Inc AKNS.O will start selling its all-in-one solar panels at Lowe's Cos Inc (LOW.N) retail stores in California, Akeena said on Thursday, as the company looks to boost revenue.

The Los Gatos, California company hopes to break even by selling panels at retail stores and to installers outside its home state, in addition to its traditional installation business. The move puts the company in competition with the likes of SunPower Corp (SPWRA.O) in selling panels.

Akeena's panels hit the shelves on Thursday at 21 Lowe's home-improvement stores in California. Each panel will sell for $893 and can plug into a regular electrical outlet, generating 175 watts or enough electricity to power a computer or 42-inch flat screen television.

In October, Akeena's chief executive Barry Cinnamon told Reuters the company was actively trying to sell its solar panels through big-box retailers. [ID:nN27259574]

The company says its panels -- branded Andalay and manufactured by Suntech Power Holdings Co Ltd (STP.N) -- have 80 percent fewer parts to install than comparable products, reducing inventory logistics.

Akeena has struggled to turn a profit and posted a narrower-then-expected quarterly loss in October. [ID:nBNG480161]

The news sent the shares of the solar company up about 43 percent, or 43 cents, to $1.42 each in afternon trading on the Nasdaq. (Reporting by Laura Isensee; editing by Andre Grenon)

Naughty naughty Bazza

http://www.zhlaw.com/Akeena-Derivative-Complaint.pdf

Since this is a grid tie inverter and will not work without power on the line side, I bet a garden variety GFCI will never know the difference. The current in the CT switches direction every 8MS anyway.
I can't believe they have not tried that.

Keef, the point was that the receptacle would be in the same spot, not that the usage would be coincidental.

As for buying them, Americans are pretty gullible. They sell tons of solar garden lights and they suck.
At $5.42 a watt with tax it is not horrible. If Obama would give you the 30% tax credit, I bet they sell.
You are still looking at a 24 year payback without a rebate (16.8 with) at 12 cents kwh but that is not bad in the solar biz.

AS long as UL does a test through and gives a green light I see no issue. As long as some device inside can safely stop backfeed during loss of AC, these should be safe.

They should forget homes and go for RV's.

Any use that is constrained to good weather -- and clear skies -- and to PLAYTIME use -- is bound to be a money maker.

One should never target basic human needs at the outset -- always start with status assets -- purchased by the price insensitive crowd.

Solynda manufactured a collector specifically tuned for snow country.

Then the idiots tried to go toe-to-toe with simple Arizona technology.

Their true market was Alaskan and Canadian gold miners. These fellows are in a mining boom -- and paying bloody royal for diesel-electric juice well off the grid. They only work the summer months -- when the Sun is up 23-24 hours a day.

All that Solynda would have to do is punch up the rays with a reflector and keep their collector aligned to the Sun. Far enough north -- you don't even have trees to block the Sun. The cool local temperatures would permit the array to really perk along.

The additional back-scatter would pump Solynda's performance twice over. And mirrors are cheap.

All that would be left is some high wind sensor -- which would trigger an array shift -- into protect mode.

Throw in batteries and inverters -- and Solyndra has the lowest cost juice at any northern mine site. There are many -- to include Siberia.

BTW, it'd be a big hit in Nome -- it's off the grid, too. Power prices are brutal.

Miners claim that it costs them $3.00 per kW-hr! They are THAT far off the grid -- and ( no kidding ) hundreds of miles from the fuel pump.

Gold is now at $1900 -- so the tempo is only going to pick up.

With enough arrays -- even the excavator could shift over to electric power.

Even without road taxes -- diesel in the boonies is brutally expensive -- like $10 per gallon.

The other market for Solyndra was and is Afghanistan. Our DoD is paying brutal prices, net, net, net -- to get power to our troops.

What's up with Solyndra?

It sounds like solyndra is not interested in competing with the real solar boys. They are trying to slide in the back door and go for the DIY crowd.
The Lowes connection is interesting.
It may not be a bad strategy, particularly if they can get the rebates going. I wonder who their lobbyists are.

****caution shameless stock market statement ***
It might be worth buying some of their stock.
I think I will do a little more research ... like how much money did Lowes give the Democrats and Obama?

I looked and Lowes is greasing all the right people.

What the hell, I put in an order for some WEST at 90 cents.


Now I like these collectors

Sigh!
Greg, have a look at the 5 year chart for WEST
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=WEST#symbol=west;range=5y;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=;

Golly, what happened back in 2008 to make the shares worth $60?
http://www.zhlaw.com/Akeena-Derivative-Complaint.pdf
What happened back in 2009 to make it perk up again?
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/akeena-solar-shares-skyrocket-on-lowes-deal-2009-12-10

Solyndra?
OMG!!

Even…More…Fraud… And it Goes All the Way Up…
September 1, 2011 nsl Equities, Scams
Solyndra is the latest in a long line of Solar Pump and Dump frauds going bust and taking with it billions of dollars of investor and taxpayer dollars. First there was ESLR (0.18 ↑0.00%), then there was ENER (0.66 ↑0.00%), and now there is Solyndra — All told, the US has likely lost over 1-2 Billion funding pump and dump scams in the solar space! Where are the jail sentences? How do you catch a fraudster when the SEC is understaffed and, well, less than well equiped to gauge accounting fraud? Here is an excerpt on Obama’s latest Solar Debacle: From Infowars.com

“We smelled a rat from the onset,” Republican House Energy and Commerce Committee members Rep. Cliff Stearns and Rep. Fred Upton said in a statement to ABC News of the the $535 million government loan guarantee awarded to Solyndra in 2009.

The manufacturer of rooftop solar panels opened in 2005 and in 2009 became the Obama administration’s first recipient of an half-billion dollar energy loan guarantee meant to help minimize the risk to venture capital firms that were backing the solar start-up. Obama made a personal visit to the factory last year to herald its bright future.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news folks, but the wonderful American free enterprise system is in need of repair.
Much too easy for corporate crooks to exploit the renewable energy boom and gouge money from the gummint and the shareholders.

We have a wonderful new GREEN WIDGET.
It will be ready real soon, just give us the MUNNY now!

This thread is starting to touch the forum "3rd rail" of no political comments.....

I Misspoke about Solyndra. I was referring to Akeena.

WEST is not an investment, it is a trade.

Gentlemen:

Politics aside please!!!

DIY solar panels may be 'on the truck' to a big box store near you.

I am not sure how the electrical inspector will even get involved in this DIY thing.
I do agree it sets up the likelihood that some pretty nasty wiring may take place but is it really going to be worse than Harry Homeowner walking out with a load center?

I can only shudder to imagine a HO solar install. I can only hope that the 'sources' for solar materials remains as it is, and not become another section of the 'big boxes'!

IMHO, the PV situation is getting to be problematic with a lot of 'no-experience' contractors jumping on the bandwagon.

They went belly-up on 8/31/2011, laid off their ENTIRE workforce and filed chapter 11.

I have had two projects using them, great idea, but sadly the process is extremely complicated and labor intensive for manufacture and being thin-film, they can't compete with traditional manufacturing processes.

It also produces noticeably less than traditional silicon modules, we have both on sister buildings in a building complex and while you can cram a significantly larger quantity on a flat rooftop it is producing the same of less than the traditional angled row spaced out array on the sister building, which has significantly fewer modules.

Still a great idea and the no anchorage method of mounting is a great installation timesaver, just the whole cost/watt problem.

The NEC was developed as a response to new perils introduced by the new technology of electricity. It never was intended to be a tool for furthering political discourse.

Safety? There are plenty of ways to address the issue. Yet, I refer to the introduction of the NEC, which states that one is presumed to already know the trade.

The trade. Not parlor-room debating, where you try to drag in and twist every imaginable thing to suit.

Keef, we try to give new members the benefit of the doubt - but every post of yours (so far) seems to want to discuss the politics of the issue, rather than the means.

This isn't the forum for that. We've discussed solar / wind / hamster wheels many times. Yes, it is true that many of the current electrical 'issues' seem to be driven from outside the trade, by folks with a political ax to grind.

I've been quite vocal in cricising these attempts to hijack the code-making process. Yet, that's not where your arguments lead. Instead, you praise one party and condemn another.

Hell, I might even agree with you - but this isn't the place for that sort of thing.

That 'solar' has been great on promises and short on delivery has been recognized here for a very long time. If you were to use this track record to draw attention to some proposed mandate, we would be interested. We are not interested, however, in hearing about how evil so-and-so is, or some great conspiracy.

Take the wormtongue back to Middle-Earth.

LOTR The PV Towers?

I ran some numbers to see what this thing can cost for me to get breakeven in ten years. Assuming that it's a square meter, and it's 20% efficient, that's 200W when the Sun is shining. The Sun provides about a kilowatt per square meter of light at the earth's distance. The Sun probably only usefully shines on it for say 5 hours a day, so I'm calling that a kilowatt/hour yield per day. Now, according to my electric bill I'm paying 17 cents a kilowatt hour. Ten years would be 3650 days, and at 17 cents a day, this thing better not cost more than $620 installed. And assuming it still works after ten years outdoors. Anyone who owns consumer electronics nowadays knows that that would be a risky bet...

Any electrolytic capacitors in the micro-inverters will fail long before modules solar cells for sure, they are the doom of most every inverter made today except for a few, most notably AE Solaron and PVPowered inverters, several others are coming around, but as a rule most inverters will fail because of this within 10-15 years and required upgrades or complete replacement.

It should be noted that in many parts of the world the rates are well above $0.40/kWH and several EU States are above $0.50/kWH so payback there would be considerably quicker.

Reno.... excuse me but the forum is called "General Discussion Area"
Does that mean we should only discuss general things like Volts, Amps, Inductance etc?

I have to go and feed my Oliphaunt.

Right then, I think the lovely panels that might one day be on sale in Lowes are using Suntech panels and Enphase inverters.
They sound really good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJPXsN_gFz8

"Installed a 5KW enphase system about 6 months ago using Mage solar 180 mono panels. I have been back to the site 3 times to replace inverters. I have been less than impressed with Enphase. It has been over 3 months and we have not been compensated for the service calls on their product and the less than stellar output if each inverter. I have only seen a peak output of 130 watts for each 180 watt panel. Thanks, I'll stick with SMA.

hazeyfla 6 months ago

NEMA 5-15 plug OUTDOORS IN THE WEATHER

Good idea?

Keef:

Political references, comments, debates, etc. are not tolerated within the ECN website. (Period)

That includes all areas within the forums.

Please abide by the rules, as setforth when you registered.

Board Rules
*** Please understand that this Discussion Forum is meant for the benefit of those in the Electrical Trade and other related persons. Although related discussion by others may sometimes be permitted, questions of a How-To nature by untrained people (aka DIYers) are not within the scope of this Forum and may be removed at our discretion. ***

Considering the real-time.........etc etc.

Can't see any prohibition on debates there.
Have I mentioned politics?

Debate within trade related topics is one of the lifebloods of this forum IMHO. That said, you are correct that there is no prohibition on debate.

This was posted on page 2 of this thread by Norcal:



All this said, let's get back on track, talk solar, PV, inverters, ohms, NMC, surviving the recent floods, earthquake, hurricane, and other mayhem.....and leave the politics to the politicians.

Thank you!

The panels are warrantied for 25 years, the inverter for 10.

The question is how good is the warranty.

IMHO, any warranty is only as good as the company that wrote it. Hopefully, the inverter mfg will be around in the ten year period, and the panel mfg for 25 yrs. Be interesting if the warranty is underwritten, or by a third party.

http://www.westinghousesolar.com/

It's got the Westinghouse name behind it.
How could you go wrong?

(cough, splutter, choke!)

About Westinghouse Solar
For more than a century, the Westinghouse name has stood for reliability and innovation. It began in 1886, when George Westinghouse introduced the first alternating current (AC) electrical system which soon powered every American home and business. We've been a leader ever since - developing solutions that deliver safe and efficient electrical energy while introducing smart products for the home that bring comfort and convenience to the lives of millions.
Today our innovation is the spark behind Westinghouse Solar. Building upon our legacy of dependability, we are making residential solar power - like the sun itself - accessible to everyone. Westinghouse Solar Power Systems are safer, more powerful, and more reliable than any other while backed by the proven quality of the Westinghouse name.
Westinghouse Solar fits the way you live, allowing you to power your home safely, cleanly and affordably.
Brightly, like the sun.

Yeah.........right!

House rules, Barry. No chundering, no technicolor yawns and no dunny jokes.

a tad misleading>








http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blwestinghouse.htm

~S~

I am guessing this warranty is like the warranty on roof shingles ... just a rough idea of the expected life, not anything useful.

Keef, you might want to take a peek at the terms of use you agreed to on enrollment. This is not a political forum. We're not about to discuss whatever particular topic / firm / scandal is the current darling of the talk show circuit.

If you have something to contribute to the general discussion of solar, we might be interested.

Reno:

Thanks for the above! I believe that 'he' has been taken care of.

An article about solat panels
http://energy.aol.com/2011/10/07/solar-panels-dont-work-and-no-one-knows/?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl23%7Csec1_lnk3%7C103537

Reliability issues and efficiency issues mentioned.

Well, that's a crock of.........

You get what you pay for, nothing new there.

Read the last line



This is a drop in advertisement for Ray's company. I bet good old Ray paid a pretty penny for it too.

Crap! Plug and play panels!?! They will not be able to keep extension cords and power strips on the shelves. OMG!

Just because they are listed don't exempt them from codes and local regs on installation