Solar panels for residential self-consumption

The standard contractual deadline for installing solar panels is up to 90 days from the signing of the contract to the completion of the installation on your roof. This margin covers all phases of the executive project, not just the visible on-site part.

Phases included in the 90 days:

• Technical study and project: visit, sizing and preparation of the engineering project.
• Administrative processing: request for municipal licence, ICIO, notice of works and other permits required by the town council.
• Purchase and logistics of materials: order of panels, inverter, structure and components according to the approved project.
• Installation execution: the visible part of the process. On site, the installation is completed in 1 to 3 working days for most residential projects.

The 90 days is the maximum contractual margin that allows us to absorb possible external delays (responses from the town council, material manufacturing timelines, etc.). In many cases the process is completed sooner.

Note: the subsequent legalisation (registration with the electricity distributor, RITSIC, RAC) is an additional phase that depends on external bodies and is not included in this contractual deadline.

If your doubt is between installing 10 or 12 panels at home, we will always recommend installing 12 panels, and not precisely because we make a living by installing 2 extra panels.

The fact is that the marginal cost of adding 2 more panels now is minimal compared to the cost of adding them once the installation has been completed and registered, since we would have to travel back, disconnect the roof wiring and reconnect it with the two additional panels, modify the project, carry out a new registration, etc.

We are increasingly heading towards an electrification of demand with the arrival of the electric vehicle, heat pumps, etc., and therefore it is logical to think that in the future your electricity consumption will increase.

We recommend installing two more panels.

Using the appropriate drill bit, we drill through the highest part of the tile until reaching the structural part of the roof underneath — whether tongue-and-groove or concrete. It is on this structural part where the screws that support the aluminium structure and the solar panels are anchored. The tiles are therefore only pierced by the fixing screws, which include a flat rubber gasket that is tightened with a nut over the hole, providing the necessary watertightness to prevent any possible leak.

In addition, since all the holes are located underneath the modules — which act as a protective cover — and water never runs over the highest part of the tiles, the anchoring points will not even get wet.

Current regulations require solar installations to stop working when they do not detect mains voltage for safety reasons.

Imagine that the electricity company wants to carry out maintenance work on the distribution network and cuts off the power supply to the entire street. If the solar installations were to continue to operate, they could cause electricity to flow back into the grid, which would endanger the workers who are working.

Sí, hi ha solucions de backup que permeten que la instal·lació solar continuï funcionant fins i tot quan es produeix un tall de llum. Aquestes solucions combinen l'ús de bateries amb un sistema de backup que assegura que la teva instal·lació fotovoltaica pugui operar de manera autònoma, desconnectant-se de la xarxa elèctrica de forma segura.

Instal·lar un sistema de backup et dona la tranquil·litat de mantenir serveis essencials com la nevera, la il·luminació o el router funcionant durant un tall de subministrament. Avui dia les bateries són cada cop més accessibles i, a més, es poden dimensionar perquè s'adaptin a les teves necessitats reals d'energia.

Tot i que la inversió inicial és més gran, tenir un backup ofereix una major independència energètica i seguretat davant d'imprevistos. La nostra recomanació és valorar aquesta opció especialment si vius en zones on els talls de llum, encara que siguin puntuals, et poden causar inconvenients. Nosaltres podem assessorar-te per dissenyar un sistema a mida, assegurant el millor equilibri entre cost i benefici.

The best maintenance that your solar installation can have is to have a good monitoring system that allows you to know that your solar installation is producing correctly at all times.

The only maintenance task that may be advisable is to try to clean the solar panels from time to time (mud and bird droppings). In any case, only clean the panels if access is safe enough.

Generally, rainwater already cleans the panels since a 5° inclination of the panels is more than enough for the water to remove dirt from the solar modules. Residential installations typically have between 10° and 15°.

Rather than paying in advance for a maintenance service that will eat up part of the annual savings, we recommend keeping a good track of production and, if necessary, hiring our after-sales service.

We are currently preparing a premium monitoring solution that will allow us to carefully monitor production and set a few alarms that will alert us of any anomaly.

If your solar installation is up to 15 kW, in most cases you will not have to apply for a connection permit.

Important: the permit is always requested from the distribution company, which in Catalonia and the Balearic Islands is Endesa Distribución (e-Distribución / i-DE). It is a technical procedure, not a commercial one: even if you have your electricity contracted with another retailer (Som Energia, Holaluz, Naturgy, etc.), the connection procedures always go through the distribution company.

However, if your installation is not located on urbanised land with the basic amenities and services required by planning regulations, it will be necessary to request a connection study from the distribution company, which has a cost of €100 + VAT.

In addition, in these cases it will also be necessary to arrange a technical access contract with the distribution company, which regulates the technical conditions for connection to the distribution grid. This is not an economic contract.