Installed a 7KW system in October. 3000 SF home. Knew we didn’t have a south facing roof so it take efficiency down a lot in the winter. Do you have a good south facing roof that you will use? Goal was to drop us below zero in summer and allow for growth in energy consumption without pushing us beyond tier two.
Buy versus lease: the primary thing to think about here is simple. The lease has to be bought out by any future buyer of your property if you try to move before the full term of the lease.
As for heating a pool, that would’t be solar electric, that should be straight up solar water heating which is much more efficeint use of solar for heating.
As for size of the system, how many KW are you burning a month? The sweet spot is to drive your usage to just drop you enough to the top of the tier 2 rates. Unless you believe California’s rate climb is just beginning. I do, plus, ironically, I think night time use is will some be charged higher rates than daytime as we reach our mandated green energy levels, most of which will cut out at or shortly after sundown.
As for going off the grid, you’ll need massive batteries to act as a sink. Not worth it. As for going brown out, yep, they replaced the power poles the other day in the ‘hood. Took us down the whole day because the system sees a no load condition and errors out.
