Off the wall idea: questions about starting a solar farm and the costs involved.

Just a note: this may go nowhere. I may just learn some stuff with you guys' help, and do nothing with that knowledge. Or maybe I'll do something really cool, who knows.

Some of you know I like to sell surplus as a side gig. Well, a very big pile of solar panels and inverters has presented itself and if I do buy them it will elevate the side gig to a pretty big deal. However, a completely bonkers thought jumped into my head: what if, instead of just piling them in a warehouse and reselling them, I bought a piece of property and installed them and sold the power they generate? That of course is a simple way of talking about doing a very expensive and complicated thing.

But ideas are tricky, and some stick with you and pick at your brain. I've been mulling this over for a couple days and can't discard it and move past it. So, I'd like to find out what's involved in becoming a commercial scale power generator. In the 3 megawatt range. I saw a lot of info online referring to solar farms costing in the $1/watt range to build, which would mean $3,000,000 and is way out of my league. However, what if you already had the solar panels and inverters and land? Wouldn't that be the vast majority of the costs? I'm coming up with, in addition to the panels and inverters:

-Racking to hold panels
-Wiring to connect panels and connect to grid
-Engineering
-Permitting
-Installation
-Legal - agreements with regional transmission organization
-Wiring to connect to grid and utility charges for that connection

I just have no way to figure out what those last couple will cost. The other items I can suss out with some keyboard warrioring and have come up with some best guesses. But the other stuff? NO CLUE. Is there a solar consultant out there that could talk me out of this with an hour of his time? I'm assuming there are financing sources for projects like this, but who are they and would they be okay with used equipment?

The land I found is 15 acres directly in the path of high tension lines coming from a major power substation just over a mile away from the land. It's in farm country, which I know is where they are putting a lot of solar farms, but is not actually farm land itself so might not raise neighbor's ire. In Ohio I don't think you need approval for power siting in the 3 megawatt range.

I see "wholesale pricing" of $.05/kwh and 4.1 hours of solar energy per day in the target area, which would put the power generated at close to $250k/year. But when I check the applicable RTO (regtional transmission organization, apparently the people I would sell the power to?) website it looks like the actual energy portion of that $.05/kwh is only around $.02/kwh. Is that possible? Seems too cheap. Nobody would spend $3,000,000 on a project that would gross $100,000 a year. So maybe I'm reading that info wrong. Which is again why I'm here

And while I understand that I have to sell the power to my local RTO, what are the mechanics of that? Where do I connect - at that substation near the target land or do I have to worry about whether that substation has capacity and whether I'll get permission to connect?

Suddenly the idea of leasing 5,000sf of warehouse space and receiving, processing, and reselling 300 pallets of solar panels seems simple.

No knowledge here but there are a E36 M3load of solar farms in eastern NC

In reply to dculberson (Forum Supporter) :

Every state is different. Here in Minnesota they buy surplus energy at last year's  price.  The energy company makes whatever their annual price increase is. Plus the rules as far as renewable energy are pretty cut and dried. You have a fundamental right to put up wind or solar as it doesn't need "approval". Well it needs approval but the local  government isn't allowed to prevent you.  
I didn't get into Wisconsin as much but they used slightly different formula for payment, similar but slightly different.  Same rules about where and who. 
Iowa is similar to Minnesota  I've got the paperwork for each state. If you're serious. 

At a minimum you will need one transformer to step up the voltage and may need two depending on the voltage on the lines.  A 3 mva transformer would run you 60k plus installallation which is what you would need for 3 megawatts.  I sell lots of transformers for solar farms and wind farms.  If this government rebates weren't there you wouldn't see any being farms being built.  The projects come and go with the tax credits/rebates.  The inverters you have probably aren't meant for solar farm type installations.  The solar farms I have worked with have a 3 mva transformer direct coupled to each inverter.  You will also need a switching and controlling system if you are going to tie into the grid with that level of power.  Lots of regulations and red tape.  

There are some recent rule changes in the way inverters have to work for commercial solar thanks to some poor decisions stacking up in California and the resulting avoidable blackout. Upshot is that I am 100% certain that the inverters you are looking at cannot be hooked up to the grid in a new installation. They may grandfather in someone who has them, but I don't think they can even repair them without upgrading. Small rooftop behind the meter installation might be able to use them, but you'll have to buy new. 

Check if your state does net metering. If it doesn't you'll get paid sometime like thd wholesale rate plus a little something for renewable incentives as long as they last. Typically in my area that's between $2-60/MWhr.

Just another idea would be convert the power into another form and sell that instead of going through the highly regulated grid connection.   Obviously it will less efficient, but if your costs are low can still be profitable.  

In reply to oldopelguy (Forum Supporter) :

Good info. These inverters are from a 2017 install in California so if the rules changed since then they'll not work. Net metering is done here but only up to 120% of your usage. Beyond that they won't even hook you to the grid for net metering. 
 

@nimblemotorsports: I'm not sure I get it. Can you give me an example?

Maybe stay off-grid, but find a perfect location for a Tesla/EV charging lot?

You'd obviously need to invest quite a bit in battery tech at that point though. 

One thing to bear in mind- if you are talking a whole solar farm as opposed to a home installation, you are going to be a small utility supplier of power.  Which means the idea of using residential solar rules probably isn't applicable..

BTW, I know of a board who would probably be a good place to sell them if you want- your situation happens pretty often, even for new parts.  Recently a person got a store that went our of business, so all the panels and inverters were brand new- and they sold them for a great price.  And there's a person here in MI that seems to be doing the same thing.

I know i would be interested...

does the warranty go with the panels or the original purchaser ?

and is that company still in business ?

If those inverters came out of CA than guaranteed they can't be used for a large new install. The problem is that most inverters were designed to protect themselves by tripping off if grid voltage or frequency dropped beyond a certain amount, and that setpoint was way too sensitive.  This meant that a fault that caused a relatively minor fluctuation turned into a major event after a few significant solar arrays tripped off when the grid needed their power the most. 

The rules were changed to require those inverters to ride through significantly bigger fluctuations than they were designed for, and neither the hardware nor the software is really meant for it.  You might be able to slip in under small solar rules if you split it up into sub 1MW units, but at that size you might be better off partnering directly with high load retail customers and doing offset installations. Local shop offsets its use and goes green kinda stuff.

Inverter tech is the worst kind of wild west business too. Essentially someone comes up with a design and has a company in China build it for them. The company in China then builds 10x the contract amount and sells the extras out the back door.  Someone buys most of them up, hacks together some software, starts an inverter company, then sells them until they run out. Typically at that point the inverter company goes out of business, and the players all show up in a different new inverter company selling the next product a couple months later. Support following the sale is pure myth in the industry. 

Cells are better in that they are generally getting cheaper and more efficient, but there really isn't much to fail aside from physical damage to the units.

I'm sorta in the market for @50KW worth of solar, I have just been waiting for a sweet deal to pull the trigger. 

If you want some technical deep dive into regulatory and event considerations, each of the 3 papers in the results below are straight from the top and designed for executives to read. NERC is the ultimate regulatory body for North America; they are the ones who write the rules. 

GRM solar panel group buy?  I have been looking at solar for my home It's looking like I am about a $5000 out of pocket install with a 6-8 year payback. I'm on the fence.   If super cheap solar panels showed up I would be off the fence.  Also my RV needs 2-3 panels on it's roof..

In reply to dculberson (Forum Supporter) :

Maybe a bad example, but use the electricity to make hydrogen and sell that.   Or Alcohol.  Making Aluminum or Glass requires lots of energy, but clearly need to find something cheap to make without big capital expense.  Some kind of crop maybe?    I had a similiar problem with my solar boat project, because it can't be connected to the grid, so when at anchor I am getting tons of power out of the panels and no use for it, so the idea is to use it to make something else, in the case of the boat, the ideal is to make a fuel that can be stored and used later.  Hyrogen works but unsafe.  

I bought a "boatload" of surplus panels back when they were funding all those solar companies that went out of business.  These panels are thin-film and light as needed for a boat, but not efficient.

Cheap enough that it make the project feasible.  Still have them, and yet another pile of "junk" i have to keep moving around.  As my wife has no interest in ocean cruising, that boat project is dead.

These are the panels I have, just raw panels.

Research the tie into the grid and permitting and associated fees. Then sell your panels. 

nocones said:

GRM solar panel group buy?  I have been looking at solar for my home It's looking like I am about a $5000 out of pocket install with a 6-8 year payback. I'm on the fence.   If super cheap solar panels showed up I would be off the fence.  Also my RV needs 2-3 panels on it's roof..

I'd be down, though I haven't yet closed on my house or figured out the best placement for my solar will be. Hopefully I'll soon have time and space to experiment!

If you want to consider selling to residential buyers, I'm in. 

Mining bitcoin?

Ok, with input here and research elsewhere it looks like even independent of the panels in facing a 7 figure project to install and hook up a 3 megawatt system. That's well beyond my resources and I'm not keen on financing it. 
 

I'll let you guys know how the panel purchase goes, if it does go.

Yeah, I'll buy some panels for my neighbor's roof - he doesn't have an overhanging tree. I think this is best thought of as a big discount group buy.

As a rule of thumb for energy projects, you have three legs to the stool; land, interconnect, and offtake.

Land - Somewhere to put the facility, sounds like you have that covered. 15 acres sounds adequate for 3MW, depending on module power class. Once you have land, local permitting varies, but can (and does) kill projects.

Interconnect - Somewhere to put the power. For a project this size, distribution (up to 35kV) is appropriate. Higher transmission level voltages are not feasible (cost) at this size. The process isn't quick, and isn't cheap. Figure the cost of a few starter homes for a ballpark.

Offtake - Someone to buy the power. Generally speaking, the utility will have to buy the power as long as it's offered at or below market rate. Facilities this size simply don't achieve the economies of scale needed to play in the market based on energy prices alone. The general idea is to find an offtake that values the project beyond the pure energy it produces. This can be RECs (renewable energy credits, think carbon offsets), regulatory requirements (renewable portfolio standards), or corporate offtakes (renewable energy targets). 

Once you've gotten those three, then you can start to worry about engineering & construction. Generally the $/W numbers you see in the headlines are for much larger (100+MW) projects and don't include development & interconnection costs. 

From a technical standpoint, inverters come in two flavors, grid forming, and grid following. Grid forming is a traditional off-grid inverter, and does not need a grid to operate. Grid following is what the vast majority of inverters installed are. They need a grid to be present to start up and produce energy. This is a safety feature, when the grid goes down, the inverters shut off, ensuring they don't backfeed utility lines that may have linemen performing repairs. The flip side is these inverters cannot be operated in a stand-alone state, but can be paired with grid-forming inverters in a micro-grid environment.

Is the equipment new or used? If you have some info on the inverters & modules I can give you an idea on what application they would be appropriate for.

In reply to Fupdiggity (Forum Supporter) :

Thank you for all the good info! The equipment is used, they're from 2017. Inverters are Solis "40K-US" grid-tie inverters and the panels are "Q.PLUS L-64 335" panels.

@All: Unfortunately the panels ended up outside my comfort zone, cost-wise. They were still a good deal, but the need to scramble and find space and the logistics of dealing with it I had to pull the plug. I'll keep in mind that there's demand here for cheap panels. It was a fascinating exercise and I'm in a better position to jump the next time there's an opportunity.