Megan in Hazlet has been a Green Sun Energy Services client since August of 2017. The array went up that October and the generator already on the property came onto our books that December.
27 panels in October 2017
Twenty-seven Trina 285-watt panels, 7.7 kW in total, on Ecolibrium mounting with a SolarEdge SE7600A inverter and a P320 optimizer on every panel. Estimated first-year production is 9,218 kWh and the utility is JCP&L. It was commissioned on 12 October 2017.
A 14 kW machine taken on that December
The standby generator here was installed by another company — a Generac 14 kW from the 5000 series, model 5884. Its servicing came to us in December 2017 under a PowerBase Silver plan, and it was last serviced on 1 July 2022.
Why the wires overhead matter
The electrical service to this house comes in above ground, which is recorded on the survey as a single field and is worth rather more attention than one field suggests.
An overhead service is a service exposed to everything above it. Where the supply runs underground the failures that take it out are rare and usually somebody else’s — a fault at a substation, a dig that hits a cable. Where it runs overhead, the failures are local, frequent and seasonal: a limb comes down on the drop, ice loads a span, a nor’easter takes out a pole two streets away and everything downstream of it goes dark.
That is why so many houses on overhead supply end up with standby generation and so few on underground service bother. It is not that the household is more cautious. It is that they have already lost power four or five times and have stopped treating it as bad luck.
An array on the roof does nothing about any of this — a grid-tied system shuts down the moment the supply fails, and must, so that it cannot energise a line a crew is working on. The panels and the generator on this property answer two different questions, and the wires overhead are the reason the second question was worth answering.
Project Facts
- Location
- Hazlet, NJ
- Services
- Solar Panel Installation, Standby Generator Service
- Client since
- August 2017
Solar
- Panels
- Trina Model # 285 DD05A.05
- Panels
- 27
- System size
- 7.70 kW
- Inverter
- SolarEdge SE7600A-US000NNR2 Inverter (12Y) W/ P320 HD Wave
- Mounting system
- Ecolibrium Solar
- Estimated first-year production
- 9,218 kWh
- Share of the home's electricity
- 98%
- Electric utility
- JCP&L
Standby generator
- Manufacturer
- Generac Model # 5884
- Rated output
- 14 kW LP / 13 kW NG
- Electrical service
- 100 amp
- Transfer switch
- 60 amp
- Load management
- Managed Whole House
We were able to see progress of paperwork, approvals, etc from the moment we signed our initial contact which was super helpful. Installation went very smoothly and the entire crew was kind and left our property spotless. We are also very happy with the design of our system and how it looks. I highly recommend Green Sun to anyone.
Green Sun Energy Services replied
Thank you, Megan. Seeing the paperwork move is deliberate: solar involves approvals that take weeks, and a household that can watch progress is never left wondering whether anything is happening. The 27 panels at your home in Hazlet went up with the overhead service to work around. Leaving the property spotless is the crew's own standard.
Questions from Hazlet homeowners
Standby generatorDoes a generator keep the well running during an outage in Hazlet?
Yes, when the well pump is included in the design. A private well pump is electric, so without power there is no running water at all -- a different order of problem from losing the lights. Homes on a well are among the clearest cases for standby power, and the pump belongs on the load list from the start.
SolarDoes a bigger array always produce more?
Generally yes when everything else is equal, but size alone does not decide annual production. A smaller unshaded south-facing array can outproduce a larger one that is shaded or poorly oriented. Azimuth, tilt, shading, inverter efficiency and module characteristics all bear on it.
Standby generatorHow is the gas pipe size worked out?
From the generator's demand, the available pressure, the pipe length, the allowable pressure drop, the fittings, the pipe material and every other appliance connected to the system. The adopted fuel-gas code carries the sizing requirements and tables, and the model's published fuel consumption goes into the calculation.