Building a Solar Pergola Timelaps
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- Опубликовано: 7 авг 2021
- Started build this solar-pergola summer 2020 and finished summer 2021.
Each level is 6m x 3,2m totaling just over 38 square meter.
Installed are 18x 550W panels with a total peak power of 9,9kWh. The panels have been connected with Solaredge optimizers and SE17k inverter.
The hot-tub is 1,80m and wood heated, we use wood from trees that fell down during a storm in 2020.
I got help from my son Brenn, my son-in-law Menno, a good friend Jeffery and colleagues Melvin, Maurice and Alan. THANKS GUYS!
If you have any questions feel free to ask, I'm happy to answer.
Very nice project. Looks amazing. I hope you get years of enjoyment from it.
I like your work and nice touch with the hot tub
Thanks dor your comment fish1999, the hot tub was my wife’s requirement 😉
I love the craftsmanship. Well done. I'll be starting my pergola with solar and was trying to decide whether to have a flat roof slats, and set the solar panels on a mounting system to get the pitch. But after seeing your build, i'm going with pitched roof. Thank you. Will be watching again to get the build process.
Thanx Mark,
Good luck with your build!
Beauty!
This looks awesome! 👍
Thanks!
Beautiful work. I'll be you enjoy it.
Thanks! And with summer coming I can’t wait to enjoy both the space and the production!
looks great.
Thanks!
Thanks for sharing. Like 277
That's amazing
Thanks William!
Hi. Is the hot tub under the panels or is it placed outside of the panels? I’m asking because i have a solar pergola and have been wondering if we could put a hot tub underneath but am concerned about heat and steam damage.
VERY nice work--looks great! Love that you connected panels directly to wood rafters and I have plans to do the same for a carport. How did you connect the panels to the rafters?
Thanx! I made 4 brackets for each panel with perforated plates. I cut a slot in them with a angle grinder and then bent them to 90 degrees angles. To protect the aluminum of the PV panels to contact the metal brackets I installed rubber (transparent rubber tube) on the edges of the bracket that interact with the PV panels. Then I placed the brackets against the rafters and slide the slot on the edge of the PV panel and screwed the brackets in to the wood. No screw in to the panel needed.
I am very impressed about the construction, the resulting view, not to mention the overall idea. Amazing results comparing first and last pictures. Congratulations 🎉 I assume you are charging large batteries? Are they inside or do you store them outdoor?
Thanks popa!
I don’t have any batteries connected for a couple of reasons. 1.) in Sweden we can sell overproduction and get payed the current value per kW, that means that sometimes the price for sold electricity is higher than the price for bought electricity.
2.) We have 2 electric cars so our consumption per day is 99% of the time higher than our production, and as we produce during the day (peak price) and charge during the night (low prices) our bill levels out.
3.) I made a “mistake” choosing solar panels. I thought buying the most efficient panels (550wp) was a smart thing to do but it turns out that not all SolarEdge inverters support them and the ones that do do not support battery connections. Only option would be a second dedicated inverter for the batteries but that is not the best option at the moment. Maybe in the future…
Nice work. Did you waterproof the seams where the panels meet? I’m building a solar pergola with 12 bifacial 460w panels. I was hoping to put some sort of gasket between the panels with a sealant like silicon on top of that.
That’s some excellent work. I like that you took your time and paid attention to the details. Did you use 6x6 post’s and 2x8’s for support beams? And are those 2x6 roof rafters, or 2x8’s? What kind of wood did you use?
Thanks Brian! I am not sure about the sizes, I live in Sweden and here all is metric.
The post’s I used are 95x95 millimeters. The main beams on the bottom are 145x45mm and the crossbars are 95x45.
The roof rafters are 145x30.
The wood I used is the cheapest impregnated wood I could find (I ‘m not even sure what it is 😅)
I am an unexperienced DIY-er and just copied the structure of my little wooden house so I figured that must be good, and it has been through some rough storms and snow falls here in Sweden and it is holding up really well.
Just had to tighten all the bolts a bit after the wood dried during the year.
If you live somewhere it freezes make sure your concrete pillars are deeper than the freezing dept for your region.
If you want to know about solar panel matching with Solaredge system let me know, I could prevent you from making the (costly) mistakes I made 😉
Very interesting! I just bought a self-assembly flat-top pergola as a base to build a pent-roof solar pergola like yours. In fact, I am going to put it just next to my house, more like an awning. Could you please advise what would you advise to attach the pent-roof pergola to the wall (I don't have complicated power tools) and how to seal the gap between wall/panels and panel/panel? Thanks a lot!
Hi,
I would love to give you some advice, unfortunately I am not a professional builder myself. Everything I needed to know on how to build this was self though on internet. I can advise you to search for building videos and pictures to inspire you on what would work the best in your situation. That’s how I did it, and it worked out pretty nice.
Good luck!
I wish I had the talent and patience of these guys. Awesome work!
What state is this located in?
Thanks! It was quite some work but most time went into investigation, preparation and preparation but once you have a complete plan in your head, it kind of goes automatically. This is in Sweden.
Very well done and beautiful final product! I'm planning on a solar pergola as well. I have two questions: 1) could you post pictures/video of your cable management for solar panels and optimizers? I'm trying to figure out how to make the underneath side not look like a rat's nest of wires. 2) Do you think bifacial solar panels would be a good idea? My pergola won't be as large as yours but I would like to maximize electric production.
Thanks Chris! I would love to answer your questions. I will post a video with pictures and explanation on how I performed the installation of the electrical side. I am a bit busy at the moment but I will try my best. Regarding bifacial panels, of course those will generate more power but I am not sure if the price compared to the output is worth it. If you have plenty to spend and are only interested in max output “Yes”, if you want value for money I am not sure bifacial is the best option. When I selected my panels I made an excel file and compared multiple panels calculating best value for each kW/square meter output. Ended up with the ones I installed but did not think of matching the optimizers at the time and ended up having to buy one optimizer per panel, so take that into account.
@@ronflores2258 Excellent points to consider. Looking forward to any future videos you make. Thank you!
Looks great. How did you attach the panels to the wood?
Thanks! I installed (perforated) metal plates.
I made a slot of about 5 millimeter (1/4 inch) wide with an angle grinder and bent the plate 90deg. Then installed rubber on the edges of the plate (no metal on metal contact) and then installed the plates with the groove caching the panel and screwing on to the beams with screws thru the holes on the plate. I used 4 plates per panel.
Cheapest solution since the perforated plates are really cheap.
Where do you keep your batteries? Are they beneath the deck or over there in the shed? Really neat project!
Hi Michael,
I don't have any batteries connected for a couple of reasons.
1.) in Sweden we can sell overproduction and get payed the current value per kW
2.) We have 2 electric cars so our consumption is usually higher than our production. Over production is injected into the net and we get payed for it.
3.) I made a "mistake" choosing solar panels. I thought buying the most efficient panels (550wp) was a smart thing to do but it turns out that not all SolarEdge inverters support that size and the ones that do, do not support battery connections. Only option would be a second dedicated inverter for the batteries but that is not the best option at the moment. Maybe if in the future the rules change for feeding overproduction in to the net it will be worth it. At the moment it is not.
Great project! One question though, how did you sealed the panels so no water would slip in between the joints?
Hi Marian, I did not seal in between the oanels… and water does seep through the joints. We can not sit there when it rains. It is a bit of a legal issue, if it can be considered a roof I needed a building permit. Like this it are just solar panels on a structure that need NO building permit.
What was the large gray concrete structure that you covered?
That is the base for the hot-tub.
How long do you think it will take for those panels to pay for themselves?
Hi Darius, that is really hard to say. It depends on many factors. For example, will you only consider the costs of the electrical components? Or is the wood for building the pergola also in the price? And the hottub?
Another thing that can influence the return of investment is the electricity price of the kW you are not buying, the higher the electricity price the quicker you are even.
But what if you are driving electric cars? That is actually our situation, we have 2 electric cars and drive about 500Km per week each. That adds up to 4000km per month. The consumption of an average car is about 7 liter per 100 km so we (would)burn about 280 liter of fuel. With current fuel prices in Europe that would be between €560 and €600 per month, or €6700 and €7200 per year.
The total build (including wood and hottub) cost me about €13800 so I like to think that it will pay itself back in les than 2 years, and that includes an incredible living area!
@@ronflores2258 I like those values. Myself, looking at panels on my roof and its starting to look like it will take 10 years to pay for itself. Which is not bad considering they should last 20 years, but, I'm fearing the roof may need to be replaced or other work will disrupt the payback. Which if so, then, all I did was practically pre-pay my electric bill. I'm jealous of your 2yr, and hope the best for you.
How did you waterproof between panels
Hi,
I did not waterproof it. When it rains you cant actually sit there. This was done on purpose because if it is waterproof it is considered a roof (in Sweden) and then a building permit is required. If I would want to waterproof it, I would probably just seal the seams with silicone or aluminum tape.
How did you direct mount the panels to your slats? I have a similar smaller project and feeling the burn on mounting them. @@ronflores2258
TIMELAPSE it has an E on the end!!
No, this was an actual TIMELAPS, that is almost the same as a timelapse but without an E at the end!!
It is a special feature I built while editing.
😂👍👍👍
Nice. Too much work though. I get tired watching 10 seconds.
It is not tiring if you enjoy doing it 😉