This Solar Energy System was designed to maximize electrical production from the owner’s available Southeast-facing roof space, and also use secondary space to heat a new swimming pool.
The 10.8kW Solar Electric system on this property is one of the highest-power systems in New Orleans, and one of the largest Enphase installations in the state. Its 50 Sanyo 215 Watt modules provide over 12000 kWh per year, over half of this large home’s annual energy needs. Microinverters were employed specifically to allow minor, unavoidable shading to have a minimal impact on the remainder of the array by adjusting power tracking on a per-module basis.
The Envoy gateway communicates with each module-mounted inverter, and allows monitoring of the system through a web-based interface including full-system history and time-lapse playback of production levels.
Collectors are mounted flush to the roof in this installation, in a parallel configuration slanted to drain back to the pump when necessary. When pool water is pushed through the collectors in sunlight, heat is directly transferred to the pool at up to 400,000 BTU per day. This can heat the pool at up to 5-7 degrees in a day, depending on ambient temperatures. A dual-sided (heat reflective/absorbent) pool cover is included in this installation and is crucial to full heat absorption and retention in the cooler months. Not having a pool cover for a solar pool system would be like leaving your refrigerator door open in the summer.
This system extends the owner’s swimming season by 40%-50% with no fuel input, and uses only the existing variable speed pump for circulation.
