PV Installation

[Belton]

Has anyone priced the installation of a PV system? No design, material, permits etc. just installation. The company I am pricing for wants to use a $/Watt scenerio. I don't have a problem with that scenerio but I am not sure about the price they are offering. This is in the Central East Coast area. I realize there will be variables such as the different roof styles and such, but I need a starting point.
All help appreciated.

Belton

 

[George Stolz]

I'm not seeing the big picture here. Is "the company you're pricing for" an EC or an end user? Why is the installation being priced separately? Why the price per watt sticking point? Do "they" regularly install these systems?

Give us some more.

 

[iwire]

George we get involved in a lot of these deals.

A 'PV Company' finds the lead, makes the sale, arranges for the rebates and incentives, buys the major products. Modules and inverters, maybe the mounting system but they do not have the licensing needed to do the installation so they put that out to bid to electrical contractors like us. The $ per watt for this has been doing nothing but falling. I don't know how low it is now but to make money doing this requires optimum efficiency. We do a lot of prefab work at our shop.

It is tough because when we bid we bid planing to comply with OSHA, we now own more portable roof railing than most roofing contractors but we are competing against the shorts and sneaker companies. :roll:

 

[dmagyar]

Each job would have it's own set of circumstances

Each job would have it's own set of circumstances

I had a call from a HO who aquired all the panels and racking for his home install. I got a call and went over to price it up, ending up passing on it because of a few reasons.

A few months down the road I'm doing a full 5KW install and have found that I would have been way off on anything that I was thinking about. The HO was thinking in the $1/per watt area, when doing it all myself it's alot of work and you've got to know exactly what you've got to do, how you'll do it before tackling the estimate on a per watt charge. I ended up having a roofing company do all the roof mounts to be sure of no roof leaks. That alone could have been $4,500, but didn't turn out as bad because they didn't have to cut any cement tiles (hourly rate of $85/hr.). The distributor and supplier also supplied only the exact amount of stainless hardware, which you know a portion of which ended up somewhere between the rain gutters and somewhere in the grass of the back yard, but you've got to come up with replacements = more cost.
I also think though that you're putting yourself at the end of the food chain doing it like that and that most of the mark up and profit have already been reaped.

I'm curious what they're selling you the material package for per/watt? Who's doing all the permiting and roof load, windload calcs? Drawings for permit and so on? Is there any PG& E or other utility rebate? Are you doing the paper work for that?

P.S. Make sure you've got some type of insurrance from the shipper/supplier/distributor as when my delivery came all of the inverter (over 150 lbs) and mounts and hardware (another 100 lbs.) were in a second pallet stacked on pallet of the panels. The two pallets were piggy-backed) All the weight of the other pallet was setting directly on one very thin piece of cardboard covering the top PV glass panel.

 

[LarryFine]

Sounds a lot like $/sq.ft wiring.

 

[iwire]

Each job would have it's own set of circumstances

Of course, but none the less if you start bidding on large commercial PV projects you will be asked a rough $ per watt cost of installation.

That does not mean your contract will be exactly that number, it is just a guide for budget planning.

 

[tallgirl]

Of course, but none the less if you start bidding on large commercial PV projects you will be asked a rough $ per watt cost of installation.

That does not mean your contract will be exactly that number, it is just a guide for budget planning.

I've had clients tell me I can quote jobs for $7 / watt on battery systems over 3KW and $6 / watt on battery-less systems over 3KW. Those prices have dropped to the mid $5's / watt.

It's pretty amazing how numbers like that just seem to work out.

If someone told me they bought their own panels, I'd guess $3 to $4 per watt for inverters, cabling, racking, etc. The more they buy, the lower that goes. I think "pure labor" is around $1 / watt.

And all those numbers are getting lower and lower and the systems are getting bigger and bigger. I scoped out a 12KW system recently (I have the monitoring and management part) and am getting ready to do a sale (assuming the bid comes in right) for 900KW worth of systems.

Fun stuff.

 

[Belton]

Thanks for the replies,

iwire is correct in the way this thing is going. The company I am working with handles everything but the install. The price being offered (<$1/Watt) seems a little low from what I have been seeing on the solar forums. What I am doing is installing the system and getting the inspection - all fees covered. The sales company will be responsible for all material/engineering/design etc. I don't mind doing it this way, I just want it to be fair market price. Again, I realize there will be varying degrees of difficulty. I was mainly seeing if anyone else has done it this way and what their thoughts are on the matter.

Thanks

 

[Article 90.1]

No two PV systems are alike, so $/watt is just for ballpark numbers. Here in east Tennessee I have to deal with a dozen or so utilities, all of which have their own requirements, from engineering, through inspections, and metering, disconnects. therefore, an identical PV install in one utilities jurisdiction can have a vastly different cost than the neighboring utility.

Other factors to consider, roof material, height, distance to inverter, etc. We just finished a 2kW ground mount system that we had to custom make the ground mount out of structural aluminum, because the roof was earthen and the depth varied from 2'-6' and no additional weight for ballasting was allowed.

Also, PV supply prices can fluctuate based on supply and demand, we do not quote an install before getting an equipment quote directly from our distributor, because of pricing and availability issues.

We use the $/watt as an internal gauge only as a check to see if we may have missed something before presenting the proposal to the customer. We also provide the entire service from design, through engineering, submittals, installation and inspection, then commissioning. We did one system where we connected the metering only, but our concern is that our company name is on the TVA contract right along with the customers, and when the roofer, carpenter, handyman, painter, plumber, or whomever installs the wracking and array is long gone, guess who gets the call for any problems with their work?

TVA currently only allows what they call "option 2" to be used where we have to feed into a separate meter to calculate the generated electricity. In some areas you can back feed a breaker in the existing panel and the existing meter will calculate the difference between usage and generation.

Instead of pricing by the watt I highly recommend reviewing the scope and pricing the same way that you are set up for other service change type of work, etc.

690 is like 680, not every EC does this kind of work, and not every EC should do this kind of work!

I'm with Bob on the OSHA stuff, we now own all sorts of fall protection equipment that we probably should have been using for years.

Good luck with your estimate!

 

[dmagyar]

It's harder to handle a panel on the roof than on the ground

It's harder to handle a panel on the roof than on the ground

Another thing to be aware of, panels are deceptively bulky, expensive when dropped and did I say heavy? Anyone saying placing them on a slopled slipery roof mounted rack is easy, hasn't done it (two man job minimum). P.S. getting them up to the roof can be a job in itself.

Neatest way I've seen for getting panels on the roof was something like a cross between an extension ladder and a vertical conveyor belt. Some German company makes them, I saw one at Semicon West last year.

On a large commercial job placing them on a big expanse of flat roof I would guess to be alot easier.

 

[M4gery]

George we get involved in a lot of these deals.

A 'PV Company' finds the lead, makes the sale, arranges for the rebates and incentives, buys the major products. Modules and inverters, maybe the mounting system but they do not have the licensing needed to do the installation so they put that out to bid to electrical contractors like us. The $ per watt for this has been doing nothing but falling. I don't know how low it is now but to make money doing this requires optimum efficiency. We do a lot of prefab work at our shop.

It is tough because when we bid we bid planing to comply with OSHA, we now own more portable roof railing than most roofing contractors but we are competing against the shorts and sneaker companies. :roll:

This is how it is here too. We have worked as a sub-contractor for 2 different companies, Sun Durance and Sun Edision. The only difference from what you mentioned is that Sun Durance brought in a company to act as a GC and took care of all the railings, ladders, safety issues, etc. We only handled the electrical aspect for them.