PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

MadJack · June 2012

Since the cost of shipping PV Panels from the southwest is so friggin expensive, I am looking for;

1) someone who wants to order a PALLET of Panels [for cost savings] and doesn't need them all
or
2) a local dealer in Maine or NH (tax-free NH) so I can pick my PV Panels up in person.

The problem I'm having, is I'm finding all kinds of installers [mostly from Mass], or companies listed in Maine but are actually in Canada or out West.

I am planning to order the rest of my gear here since shipping that heavy stuff is under $150. Also, It seems no one will give a shipping quote on panels until after you order them........uh, no.

p.s. to the moderators on this board, if this post violates t.o.s. please remove it.

oil pan 4 · June 2012

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

I remember Maine quite well.
Starts getting dark about 4 and its not uncommon to have see the sun 3 or 4 times in a month (not by any means sunny days) in winter.
I always thought solar panels and Maine would go together like bread and water. It will work, but better choices are out there.

MadJack · June 2012

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

oil pan 4 wrote: »

I remember Maine quite well.
Starts getting dark about 4 and its not uncommon to have see the sun 3 or 4 times in a month (not by any means sunny days) in winter.
I always thought solar panels and Maine would go together like bread and water. It will work, but better choices are out there.

If you have a better option, I'm listening...

There are MANY off-grid setups here in Maine that work well. Your post does not address my query so I ponder your point!

icarus · June 2012

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

Name one? (unless you have small scale hydro available!). PV is certainly viable in Maine, as long as you understand the limitations.

Tony

peakbagger · June 2012

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

I am up in Northern NH and had 26 210 watts panels shipped up from Florida for $500. This was for a residential delivery with lift gate service. In talking to the driver, the same load would have been $250 if I had picked it up at a local freight terminal. Very few local dealers actually stock panels. If they do, I expect their markups will exceed the delivered cost from a discounter. I ended up paying 91 cents per watt delivered (for evergreen liquidation panels). If you are buying a complete installed system with an expectation of a warranty, then the installer will supply the panels as they are responsible for them. I bought a spare panel in place of a dealer warrantee, as even if the discounter will offer a warantee the cost to ship the ld one back is about what a spare panel costs. If you are building your own system I doubt you will have much luck locally unless you buy someone's overstock. You may want to look around for an energy cooperative, there are a couple of them in NH, most stick to solar thermal but you may find like minded folks who want ot go in for a pallet.

There are a couple of websites that allow you to get freight quotes. You need the weight of the box (including packaging), the size and the originating zip code and the delivery zipcode. That will give you a good idea on the shipping cost. Plan on some extra for crating. A reputable dealer should be able to give you a cost for crating.

I will be selling my former 960 watt array one of these days and plan to list it as cash in hand, pick up only to avoid the freight hassle as they are small 65 watt panels and I have 20 of them.

AltE store is based in Mass somewhere but I am not sure if they just drop ship from elsewhere.

Revision Energy has offices in Me and NH and does a lot of installs, not sure if they will sell the panels as they make their money on the installs.

By the way, I was generating about 80% of my power with 660 and 965 watt grid tied arrays in Northern NH (I dont use much) and expect to be generating over my prior usage with my new 2100 watt array and my older 660 watt array. I dont have gas or propane in the house, but do have solar thermal for hot water and wood & oil heat. PV does work up north with grid tie as we have lots of sun hours per day in the summer which offsets winter. As for off grid, its more of a challenge. The other thing is do a pole mount, roof mounted PV just doesnt work as well as the panel angle is inevitably the wrong angle and in the winter, you really need a steep angle to keep the snow from being a problem. Easy to do with a pole mount but real difficult with roof mount.

BB. · June 2012

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

From PV Watts (hours of sun per day, average) for Caribou NH (extreme north, inland), fixed mounting, pointed at latitude:

Month Solar Radiation (kWh/m 2/day)
1 3.36
2 4.34
3 5.23
4 5.75
5 4.99
6 5.09
7 5.15
8 4.99
9 4.26
10 3.45
11 2.38
12 2.73
Year 4.31

Same but with 2-axis tracking:

Month Solar Radiation (kWh/m 2/day)
1 4.08
2 5.30
3 6.48
4 7.64
5 7.13
6 7.66
7 7.10
8 6.74
9 5.43
10 4.11
11 2.73
12 3.29
Year 5.64

Does not look too bad... (seen worse with marine layer effects)

-Bill

vtmaps · June 2012

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

peakbagger wrote: »

The other thing is do a pole mount, roof mounted PV just doesnt work as well as the panel angle is inevitably the wrong angle and in the winter, you really need a steep angle to keep the snow from being a problem. Easy to do with a pole mount but real difficult with roof mount.

I agree. get a pole mount. One more thing... get a pole mount that lets you go to vertical. My pole mount doesn't go all the way to vertical and it makes me sad in the winter. --vtMaps

Vic · June 2012

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

Hi vt,

Well, as a potential customer, you could make an order contingent on getting an acceptable Freight quote BEFORE placing the order, at least you should be able to expect a 'not-to-exceed' quote. You might mention that you are willing to wait an extra week or so to allow them to find a good deal on shipping. Might be a good idea to write a Purchase Order for the PVs.

With the way that many PV modules are packaged from the manufacturers, a good freight company with a history of paying claims IS important.

An order for PVs about one year ago was damaged in transit. This shipment was PU at Terminal. Apparent damage was noted before I signed the receipt, and noted on my copy of the waybill. This was via FedEx National (now a part of FX Motor Freight IIRC). FX contacted me two days later, and paid the claim in less than two weeks (I bought back the damaged PVs). Personally, I'd like to use FX when I can in the future. Believe that there are on-line reviews of freight carriers.

Agree with others here, you will pay for the freight one way or the other. BUT, extra PVs on the same pallet ride almost free, and even a second pallet in the same shipment if often shipped at a very good rate, in my limited experience.

In sharing orders, there are the obvious warranty claim issues, and if there is damage in transit, there are the concerns about sharing the good, bad, replacements, and the damaged PVs -- one needs a reasonable partner in the shared order ... All of this is obvious.

As an aside, if the BOS is a bit heavy/bulky, I've had much better luck asking for all of these items be palletized, and also shipped Motor Freight. Got tired watching UPS throw MY inverters off the end of the delivery truck. Time and time again, they'd slide them to the end of the truck, and push these 145 Lb inverters off the gate onto the tarmac. All survived, but on items like these, motor freight is gentler, and things get less beaten up in handling (unless the dreaded forks find the payload). YMMV and so on.

Have Fun, Vic

westbranch · June 2012

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

be aware that there are 2 types of 'palletized' shipping.
One where the goods are strapped on and
the other where they just sit on the pallet relying on the weight of the item to hold it in place...

Tell them you want the order strapped on to the pallet... even if you have to pay for it.

Yes the forklift operators are a menace to society sometimes.

halfcrazy · June 2012

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

Welcome to Off grid living in Maine. I have been off grid for the better part of 10 years and loving it. I work out of the house now and do use a bit more power than before but we still rarely run the generator. We have 3kw of PV running through a Classic 150, a Bergey XL1 running through a Classic250 and a Lister 6/1 running through a Classic 200. We have had to run the generator twice in the last 4 weeks but it has been brutally rainy here.

Where in Maine are you located? If you ever want to play with virtually anything Outback or MidNite related give a shout, Anybody is always welcome to "Hemlock Haven" for the grand tour of our ever changing power system

Ryan

rollandelliott · June 2012

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

freightquote.com is a good way to determine freight rates.
If you have a trailer you can pickup at terminal and save the residential lift gate fees like others have mentioned.
freight should be $200 to $500 depending on what you order.

MadJack · June 2012

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

Thanks to all for the reply's...

JAS33 · January 2015

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

vtmaps wrote: »

I agree. get a pole mount. One more thing... get a pole mount that lets you go to vertical. My pole mount doesn't go all the way to vertical and it makes me sad in the winter. --vtMaps

The only manufacturer that I am aware of that lets you go vertical with a pole mount is MT Solar. www.mtsolar.us Fully adjustable tilt with a hand crank. Pretty sweet for snow shed. Crank it verticle, then crank it back where you want it.

JAS33 · January 2015

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

vtmaps wrote: »

I agree. get a pole mount. One more thing... get a pole mount that lets you go to vertical. My pole mount doesn't go all the way to vertical and it makes me sad in the winter. --vtMaps

MT Solar pole mounts will let you go the whole range from horizontal to vertical. There is a hand crank feature that lets you do this. (I tried posting this once before and it disappeared, so sorry if it shows up twice!)

Cariboocoot · January 2015

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

JAS33 wrote: »

MT Solar pole mounts will let you go the whole range from horizontal to vertical. There is a hand crank feature that lets you do this. (I tried posting this once before and it disappeared, so sorry if it shows up twice!)

You've been posting it with a link. The link is no good. We have been unable to correct the fault.

BB. · January 2015

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

JAS's link redirects to:

http://www.polemount.solar/

For me.

-Bill

Cariboocoot · January 2015

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

BB. wrote: »

JAS's link redirects to:

http://www.polemount.solar/

For me.

-Bill

Tries to for me, then doesn't work.
Hmm. Incompatible with Canadian ISP perhaps? Or some connection problem with my service specifically.

Sometimes it's best just to put the company name up and let everyone try for themselves.

BB. · January 2015

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

I will post their phone number:
844-MT-SOLAR (687-6527)

But we know how those US numbers sometimes work for our friends to the north. :roll:

The tilt mechanism is a very simple ACME threaded tube with a universal joint and crank pointing towards the ground, and the threaded rod is attached to the panel frame above the pivot. Actually a very cool method to make hand crank (tilts to 90 degrees).

Not sure how it will "weather" (cannot determine any shielding of bearings/threads is present from drawing)--But it appears to be very simple to maintain (using a ladder to get to the hardware--if pivot is mounted that high).

-Bill

Cariboocoot · January 2015

Re: PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

I will restore the posts with links so others can try their luck.

PV Panel Dealers Maine/NewHampshire

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