Case study: Residence in Hendersonville, TN

Joe Butler envisions his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, surrounded by 5 or even 10 acres of solar panels. He looks forward to the day when he can sell megawatt-hours of solar electricity to the power grid. But for now, he and his family (daughter, Josie, is pictured above) are enjoying the generation of their home’s new 10kW system which consists of 37 solar panels.

“I love electricity,” Joe says. “I’m a fan of Nikola Tesla, and I want to utilize the renewable resources that are available to us,” he explains.

Before adding solar to his house, Joe conducted extensive research, talked with his electric utility, and attended a LightWave Solar workshop. He even double checked our system design which included a 7.6kW inverter for his 9.9kW system.

“I learned that over-sizing a solar array can increase the inverter’s output and deliver a lower cost per watt system,” Joe explains. “This first project was a way for me get my feet wet with solar, so I really wanted to understand the technology and production,” he says.

Joe expects the solar system to reduce his 4,300 sq. ft. home’s annual electric bills by about 60%. He bought the house about 7 months ago, and plans to make energy efficiency improvements which will increase the solar offset. His monthly electric bills show solar generation and savings, and he tracks real-time solar production on his iPhone with the SolarEdge monitoring ap.

LightWave Solar commissioned Joe’s system on May 14, and we enjoyed working with local utility, Cumberland Electric Membership Corporation (CEMC), to tie his system into the grid.

“CEMC is fast, friendly and currently charges zero fees to their customers who want to add solar panels,” says Kelly Marett, Project Administrator at LightWave Solar. “We appreciate their commitment to their customers to keep costs and red tape to a minimum,” she says.

Joe also gives credit to his installation crew for a job well done.

“My experience with LightWave was great,” Joe says. “Matt, Mitch and the rest of the guys were awesome,” he says.

Someday soon we hope to share how Joe made his megawatt solar dreams come true! In the meantime, you can check out the performance of his 10kW system here.