Monessa in Keyport has been a Green Sun Energy Services client since February of 2019. The array went up that April and the standby generator followed in September of the following year.
25 panels across three faces
Twenty-five Hanwha Q.PEAK DUO 325-watt panels, 8.13 kW in total, split three ways: fourteen on the right roof face, eight on the left and three on the front. A SolarEdge SE6000H inverter with an optimizer on every panel, on Ecolibrium mounting. Estimated first-year production is 8,632 kWh and the utility is JCP&L. It was commissioned on 19 April 2019.
Splitting an array three ways has a consequence that is easy to leave out of a proposal, so it was put in writing before the work started: conduit has to run across the roof between the array sections, and then over the gutter to reach the electric meter. There is no arrangement in which three separate groups of panels connect to one inverter invisibly.
That is the honest trade on a house this size. Eight kilowatts on an 800 square foot footprint means using every usable face, and using every usable face means visible conduit. A household that knows this in advance is making a choice; one that discovers it on the day is receiving a surprise.
A 13 kW machine on 100 amps
The generator is a Generac 13 kW, model 7173, rated 13 kW on natural gas and on propane alike, behind a 100-amp service-rated transfer switch matched to the service. It was commissioned on 17 September 2020 and was last serviced on 7 April 2026.
The electrical calculation comes to 17,608 watts, which is a great deal for 800 square feet and is explained by two appliances rather than by the house: an electric dryer and the air conditioning. Both are on the managed list, and between them they take 5,000 watts off the top, leaving 12,608 watts for the machine to hold.
What the panels do not do
There is one misunderstanding about rooftop solar that comes up more than all the others together, and it is worth stating plainly on a page like this one, where a household has both systems.
A standard grid-tied array does not power the house during a blackout. When the utility supply fails, the inverter disconnects and the panels stop producing — in bright sunshine, with the roof full of equipment that is working perfectly. This is not a fault or a limitation somebody failed to mention. It is a safety requirement: an array that kept feeding the wiring would also feed the service drop, and the line crew restoring the street has every right to expect that wire to be dead.
Sixteen months after the array went up, this household added the thing that does work in an outage. The two systems have never overlapped in function and never will — one reduces what is bought from the grid across a year, the other supplies the house when there is no grid to buy from.
Project Facts
- Location
- Keyport, NJ
- Services
- Solar Critter Guard, Solar Panel Installation, Standby Generator Installation, Standby Generator Service
- Client since
- February 2019
Solar
- Panels
- Hanwha Model # Q.PEAK DUO-G5.325
- Panels
- 25
- System size
- 8.13 kW
- Inverter
- SolarEdge SE6000H-US000NNC2
- Mounting system
- Ecolibrium Solar
- Estimated first-year production
- 8,632 kWh
- Electric utility
- JCP&L
- Critter guard fitted
- 228 ft
Standby generator
- Manufacturer
- Generac Model # 7173
- Rated output
- 13 kW LP / 13 kW NG
- Fuel
- Natural Gas
- Home sized for
- 800 sq ft
- Electrical service
- 100 amp
- Transfer switch
- 100 amp
- Load management
- Managed Whole House
Questions from Keyport homeowners
Standby generatorCan Keyport require a generator to sit farther from the house than the manufacturer does?
Yes. Another applicable requirement can result in greater separation than the manufacturer's listed minimum -- equipment may be permitted eighteen inches from a qualifying wall while the local ordinance requires several feet from a property line. Both requirements have to be satisfied; neither cancels the other.
SolarWho receives the certificates on a purchased system?
A homeowner who owns a qualifying registered system can generally own the associated certificate rights, unless those rights have been assigned or sold under another agreement. The purchase contract and the programme registration documents should make that unambiguous.
Standby generatorDoes a generator produce less on natural gas than on propane?
Some models do have a lower rated maximum output on natural gas than on propane -- a current 22 kW machine is rated 22 kW on LP and 21 kW on natural gas. Other models carry their own ratings, so the model-specific specification sheet is what settles it rather than a general rule.