Standby Generator, Solar and EV Charger Installation in Forked River, NJ | A Charger and 29 Panels

Forked River, NJ · Client since June 2024

Robert from Forked River, NJ has been a Green Sun Energy Services client since June of 2024, and in the sixteen months that followed the house took three trades in a deliberate order.

A 19.5 kW Generac on a managed whole-house switch

Commissioned in October of 2024: a Generac Guardian rated 19.5 kW on natural gas – 22 kW were it running on propane – behind a 200-amp managed whole-house transfer switch with two smart management modules and whole-house surge protection. The house is 2,700 square feet with two refrigerators, a dishwasher, a washer and a gas dryer. Two management modules on a machine this size are what let the switch be a whole-house one honestly: rather than nominating circuits to go without, the modules hold back the largest intermittent loads only for as long as those loads would otherwise overrun the generator. They also left headroom that was about to be wanted.

A ChargePoint on a 60-amp circuit, load-managed

Hardwired in May of 2025 – ChargePoint Home Flex, J1772, on a dedicated 60-amp breaker, 11.5 kW output, roughly 36 miles of range an hour. It carries a load-management module of its own, and that is the detail worth noticing. A charger drawing this much is one of the largest single loads in the house, and on a property with a standby generator it has to be manageable from two directions: the panel’s point of view while the grid is up, and the generator’s while it is not.

29 panels, 12.47 kW and 210 feet of critter guard

In September of 2025, 29 Jinko 430-watt modules went up with Enphase IQ8PLUS microinverters, estimated at 15,856 kilowatt hours in the first year and interconnected by JCP&L in November. The roof needed nothing, so the array went straight on with no tear-off to schedule around. Two hundred and ten feet of six-inch critter guard was fitted around the finished array afterwards. Retro-fitting guard once the panels are up is more awkward than doing it during the install and it is still worth doing: the gap beneath an array is sheltered, dry and about the size a squirrel is looking for, and the wiring up there is the expensive part of the roof.

Critter guard added to the existing array

In August of 2026, Green Sun returned to the Forked River property to fit black PVC-coated critter guard around the solar array installed the previous year. The guard runs the perimeter of the finished panels and closes off the gap between the array and the roof deck.

That gap is the problem. It is sheltered, dry and largely undisturbed, which makes it exactly the kind of space that squirrels and birds move into when given the opportunity. Once animals are established beneath an array, the wiring — the most expensive component up there — is what they reach first. The guard removes access before any of that becomes a repair call.

Four trades, one service, nothing to undo

The generator came first, the charger second, the array third and the critter guard last, and each step was specified knowing what the roof and service panel would eventually be asked to carry. The management modules went onto a house that was going to add a car charger; the charger was given a module of its own so it can be shed while the generator is carrying the house; the array went onto a roof with decades left in it so nothing has to come apart to get underneath; and the guard went on after the array was complete and interconnected, closing the one opening the installation had left. Four trades, one 200-amp service, and not a step that had to be undone to make room for the one after it.