The Great Solar Dissapointment

Got everything installed.

Well, almost everything.

You may notice when you click on the above picture with the inverters, boxes and meter (notice I said meter in the singular sense?), that there’s only one meter.

Shouldn’t there be only one meter?

That’s what I thought. Apparently PECO in their infinite power requires a total of three meters when you get a solar system installed in PA. We don’t actually get a single meter that spins both ways. We still have the original meter that measures our consumption from the grid, but now have two extra meters to record our own production. The meter you see is ours. It comes with the system. It records kwH produced. The meter that’s missing is PECO’s. It does the same thing ours does. It’s just theirs.

Apparently the system needs an inspection. I’m not completely sure by whom. It could be one of the many levels of sub-contracting we’ve gone through. It could be the state, PECO, all three or more?

Once the inspection is done, PECO will come out and put their meter in. Once their meter is installed, my installer (the guys here today) will come back and turn it on.

All that could two to three weeks.

I would have figured with a 7 month lead time, all these people could have had this better coordinated. If it only takes them six hours to install, you should have plenty of time and availability for the inspectors to show up that afternoon or even the next day.

So it’s a waiting game now, and not the only one I’m currently playing.

– b