Going solar at home with Maxeon
- Katie Burgess
- 6 hours ago
- 4 min read
We only moved into our new house in June and wanted to go solar but bumped it up the list of projects to get in before the end of the year when the 30% Federal Tax Credits are expiring. There are also State Tax incentives we can take advantage of in Hawaii. Head to our Solar Tax Credits page to see if you can take advantage of going solar on your boat, but you have to be quick as it expires at the end of 2025.
Our system was designed by Katie who has been helping homeowners, and business owners, go solar in Hawaii for close to 18 years. We previously lived off-grid in Hawaii for about 12 years with a relatively small SunPower system. We had 9x320W SunPower panels (2,880W or 2.8kW), a small lead acid battery bank and a Honda 2000 generator as a backup for rainy days!
Living off-grid on Big Island with a small SunPower system
What better choice to go solar on our new house than with Maxeon, high efficiency 'all black' 415W panels. With 14x415W-R Maxeon panels (5,810Watts = 5.81kW) we would have a system twice as large. We would also have more sun hours on the West side, and a much larger battery bank to store that power. Hopefully we don't change our power usage habits from living off grid and on the boat.
Big mahalo to Kimo and his crew at Kure Energy for a quick & tidy install
14x 415W-R Maxeon panels going up on the roof
Key components to our system
Solar panels
14x415W-R Maxeon panels (5,810Watts = 5.81kW)
These are the same Maxeon 415W solar panels we have available in our store. They have a very nice aesthetic with a black frame and black backsheet, with the black solar cells (no silver lines with Maxeon) giving it that "all black" look. Fortunately, we have a standing seam metal roof that the rails can attach to so there are no roof penetrations (holes!) so that's a win also.
Gateway
The Tesla Gateway is the brain of your solar system, acting as a smart energy manager that monitors, controls, and protects your solar, battery, and home energy flow, enabling seamless backup power, intelligent energy usage, and real-time monitoring via the Tesla app. It detects outages, disconnects from the grid to keep your home powered by solar/battery, manages when to charge/discharge the Powerwall, and provides critical data on your energy consumption and production.
Battery
Tesla Powerwall 3 - capacity13,500 Watts = 13.5kW
The new Tesla Powerwall 3 is a DC-coupled home battery system, I think of it as an inverter/charger (similar to Victron) but with battery all in one too. It has MPPT controllers that take the DC solar power and charge the DC battery and it also inverts it into 110V AC to power the home and also send back to the grid if needed.
All our equipment is on the shaded wall of the house
1- Utility meter
2- Gateway
3- Main panel
4- Powerwall 3
Living behind the grid
The idea is that at the end of the solar day you have a fully charged battery and it then powers the home during the night. The next morning when the solar panels kick in they then power the home and top up the battery too. Sounds like living off grid, but we are still connected. Hopefully you don't need to pull from the grid but it's always there if needed. In fact, any excess solar power created in the day when the battery is full and the home is being powered can be sold back to the grid. On Hawaii Island with Hawaiian Electric this is called Smart Renewable Energy Export The current export rate between 9am-5pm is 10.6cents per kWh, FYI if you needed to buy power at this time it would cost you 22cents per kWh!
Here's a screengrab from our Tesla App taken on Day 1 after install at 1242pm showing 4.8kW of solar being produced. The home is only using 0.1kW and so the remaining 4.7kW is going to the Tesla Powerwall battery. The batteries are shipped out and installed at around a 20% charge so it was pretty low and this would have been its' first full charge.
It will be interesting to monitor the app and see our usage over time, see what the fridge/freezer use and the electric oven/stovetop. Also to see how much we are exporting and what our battery % is in the morning. Much like being on the boat you change the way you use power, or learn how to conserve it better, power as many devices in the daytime (laundry in the day not after dark) and try to use as little as possible overnight.
First few weeks
Here's a screengrab from our Tesla app showing our 'Impact' and this week we have averaged 96% self powered at home, up from 78% in our first week. Awesome! Part of this is the battery getting topped up and us getting used to the system. Also at this time we do not have permission to export from the power company here, so I've been told that our system could be throttling back. Once we get permission to export our solar panels will perform to their maximum and the Tesla Powerwall once 100% full will send any excess solar power generated to the grid.
In summary it looks like we are pretty well sized, in a week's time it will be the shortest day so our performance can in theory only get better, keep you updated!
Have any questions about going solar on your home be sure to chat with Katie.