• Page Contents
• Photographs of Installations
• A 9.2 kW Solon Array
• A 10 kW Solon Array
• A 5.9 kW Mitsubishi Array
• A 4.5 kW Sharp Array
• A 3.0 kW Sanyo Array on CoolPly
• A 2.3 kW Sanyo Array
• A 1.6 kW Kyocera Array

Photographs of Installations

Starfire Energy can design and install both grid-tied and off-grid solar electric systems. If you live in a home that already is connected to an electric utility grid, it is generally best to stay connected to the grid and install a grid-tied solar electric system. This will let you generate clean electricity and have electricity available 24/7 without the added cost of a battery bank. If your home does not already have access to an utility electricity, an off-grid or "stand-alone" system may be best for you. Although off-grid systems do require a battery bank to supply electricity 24/7, that cost can be less than the cost of extending power lines to your home.

The photographs below show solar electric arrays that Starfire Energy has built using a variety of solar panel types. In addition to roof-mounted systems, we can also build pole-mounted arrays, ground-mounted arrays, or even solar awnings or patio covers.

A 9.2 kW Solon Array

This photo shows a 9.2 kW system made from 5 arrays of eight 230 W Solon solar panels to feed the 5 townhomes. The racking system for this projest is unique in that there are no roofing penetrations. This is a LEED certified green building project, the townhomes are very eco-friendly. For more photos click here or visit www.citydesigninc.com

A 10 kW Solon Array

This photo shows a 10 kW array made from fourty-four 225 W Solon solar panels. The barn was specifically designed to accommodate the solar array. The array is paired with two IG Plus 5.0 Fronious inverters. The solar feed bypasses the electrical panels and taps directly into the power line coming from the utility meter.

A 5.9 kW Mitsubishi Array

This photo shows a 5.94 kW array made from 33 Mitsubishi 180 W solar panels. Twenty-two of the panels are visible on the upper portion of the roof, and another 11 panels are less visible because they are mounted to the lower portion of the roof over the porch. The array faces south, and has no shading at all. This is actually a rarity in residential installations; most home roofs have some amount of shading from trees or other parts of the roof, at least in the early morning or late afternoon. The array is paired with a Fronius inverter with a wireless remote display. The inverter is mounted on the east side of the house, next to the electric meter. The system was designed to generate 100% of the electricity that is used by the home owners each year.

A 4.5 kW Sharp Array

This photo shows a 4.5 kW array made from 20 Sharp 224 W panels. This installation was done at the same time as the roof was being replaced. In this case, the customer used an asphalt shingle with a 50 year lifetime rating. We encourage our customers who are re-roofing to use 50 year roofing products so that the array will not need to be taken down prematurely to allow for reroofing the home. The array is paired with a Fronius inverter that was mounted on the back of the home next to the electric meter and circuite breaker panel. The system was designed to produce 100% of the electricity that the owners use each year.

A 3.0 kW Sanyo Array on CoolPly

This is an unusual solar electric installation because it is on a residential flat roof. Flat roofs have historically been notoriously difficult for installing solar panels because the designer was faced with either using a lot of roof penetrations or using a ballast-mounted system. Adding penetrations to a flat roof isn't desireable because flat roofs are prone to leakage under the best of conditions, and using a ballasted mount (weighting the frames down with bricks) can often exceed the designed load of a residential roof. An excellent new solution to this problem is the CoolPly product developed by Solar FrameWorks, a local Colorado company. The CoolPly mounting system can be used on either TPO or EPDM membrane flat roofs. The frames are extremely light weight, and they attach to the roof by either glue or heat welding, so there are no penetrations to worry about. This photo shows a 3.0 kW array made from Sanyo panels on CoolPly frames. The array is paired with a Fronius inverter that was located in the home's attached garage and equipped with a remote display.

A 2.3 kW Sanyo Array

This is a photo of a 2.0 kW array made from Sanyo 200 W solar panels. The Sanyo panels are "top of the line" in terms of performance, with an efficiency of 17.4% under standard test conditions. They use a novel cell making process, in which a monocrystalline silicon wafer is coated with amorphous silicon to achieve both high performance and a lower temperature derating coefficient (0.3% per degree Celsius, as opposed to 0.5% for standard silicon cells). The lower temperature derating coefficient means that they will produce about 5% more power under "real-world" conditions compared to an array of the same nominal power that uses standard silicon cells.

The array faces southeast, which is a good direction for Colorado's front range due to our tendency to have clouds develop in the summer afternoons. It is paired with a Fronius inverter with a wireless remote display, which allows the inverter output to be read from inside the home.

A 1.6 kW Kyocera Array

This photo shows a 1.6 kW array made from eight 200 W Kyocera solar panels. The Kyocera panels use multicrystalline silicon cells, and have an efficiency of 13% under standard test conditions. The array faces straight south, is tilted 20 degrees from horizontal, and experiences some early morning and late afternoon shade from some trees in the homes front yard and the neighbor's front yard. Some of the trees have been trimmed to minimize this shading. The array was paired with a SMA Sunny Boy 1800 W grid-tied inverter, which was mounted on the back of the home next to the electric meter. The system was designed to produce about 85% of the homes electricity each year, and may produce 100% of their annual electricity usage after the owners complete some energy efficiency improvements. More details about its performance can be seen here on our Solar Electric Systems page.

Contact us at 303-363-7848, we're happy to help you start using clean electricity!