Yesterday (Tue) was a washout for weather, but today the morning frost gave way to temps in the upper 40's with cloudy skies and the crew installed 70 panels to complete the 525 panel array. There are still connections to be made with combiner boxes and working the wires carrying the clean energy toward the inverter, but that will come after the Thanksgiving Holiday.
You will note in the below video, at the beginning, you see a good sized area of the roof without panels. Yes, the system can be expanded even further as our business grows. We chose to size the system to match our consumption, since if we generated more than we consume, the electric utility only pays a wholesale rate for that electricity, and thus the "extra" panels do not have a feasible return on investment.
Where there are no PV panels, you can see the roof material is quite reflective. It is "Galvalume Plus" metal used in the standing seam roof. It reflects a significant amount of the radiant energy, and thus reduces the cooling load on the building (for which there are tax credits if you are considering a similar course of action). For our purposes, it also reflects back onto the panel. About 15% of the panels surface area is translucent. Of that light that passes through and hits the roof, 60% of it is reflected back based on the emissivity of the metal. Of that reflected energy hitting the back of the solar cells within the panel, there is a certain amount of electricity generating "bonus". These PV panels are a newer model, and are somewhat a "proof of concept" for their efficiency given the roof material.
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