Solar energy: the smart route to lower electricity bills for housing co-operatives

You can easily check the solar conditions on your roof by looking up your address on our solkart.no.

South-facing roof surfaces give the highest annual output, peaking around the middle of the day. East- and west-facing surfaces produce more earlier and later in the day respectively, with slightly lower annual output. It is worth considering where the sun sits in the sky when your electricity use is at its highest.

In principle you can have panels on several roof surfaces. Technical requirements do place certain limits on the number of panels per surface. The more surfaces you cover, the more expensive it can become, as more inverters may be needed.

Installing or altering a solar system on an existing building, within a single dwelling unit or fire compartment, counts as a simple installation and is exempt from the permit requirement under the Planning and Building Act, pbl. § 20-1 bokstav f. If the system crosses fire compartments or dwelling units, sits in a conservation area, or is close to the shoreline or a railway line, permission may be required after all. You need to check this with your local council before installation.

Every solar system must be registered with the grid company. We take care of that process; all we need from you is your meter number. Once the grid company has completed the registration you become a plus customer and are paid for the surplus electricity you sell to the grid.

Once you have confirmed the quote, your order is automatically placed in the queue for your area. Your salesperson can give you an estimate of the current waiting time locally. You will receive an email with the expected installation date one to three months before work starts.

The goods are shipped by a logistics company, which will contact you about delivery to your address. Please answer any questions from them promptly, so that delivery can be made as soon as possible after they get in touch. Goods are normally dispatched up to 14 days before the project starts.

If the goods are marked “damage registered”, that is a routine note from the supplier and something we will follow up. In most cases only the packaging is damaged and the goods themselves are unaffected. If you can see that the goods are extensively damaged, please contact us as soon as possible on 45 72 87 80.

In some places an external scaffolding company puts the scaffolding up a few days in advance. Elsewhere the installers secure the work themselves, in which case it happens on the first day of installation. Scaffolding has to be anchored, normally to the wall of the building.

Solcellespesialisten has its own installers who fit the panels. They are experienced in solar installation and have a solid background in both electrical and structural work. All our installers are permanent employees, which secures a consistently high technical standard.

As a rule we have our own installers for connecting the solar system to the grid, and they usually come once the roof work is finished. You will receive a separate email with the connection date.

Solar panels are essentially self-cleaning. An annual check is still sensible: a visual inspection from the ground, plus a look at whether cables are secured and protected. If the panels are unusually dirty even after rain, you can rinse them down gently. Avoid brushes and clearing snow, as both can scratch the panels and void the warranty.

An inverter converts the direct current (DC) from the solar panels into the alternating current (AC) that the grid uses. It is an electrical component measuring roughly 70 x 50 cm. Cables run from the inverter both to the solar array and to the fuse box, which may be inside the building. An inverter can make some noise while producing, and its placement is subject to several fire-safety requirements. Our installers will help you find the best position when they fit the panels.

Solcellespesialisten supplies panels at different power ratings, mainly two types: 370 Wp and 400 Wp. The manufacturer varies, as we work with a range of suppliers to make sure we always have panels in stock to deliver to customers. The main brands we supply are Jasolar, Hyundai, Longi and Tongwei.

Panel size varies between manufacturers and generally increases with the panel’s output. The panels we use are typically around 1.7 m x 1.1 m.

The panels can take a great deal of snow. In areas with heavy snowfall we fit an extra rail beneath the panels so they do not break under the snow load. The project manager assesses this before installation.

The panels withstand a lot of wind. Where the building regulations for the area specify more than 28 m/s, a project manager assesses what can be done to reduce the wind load.

A turnkey system from us includes everything: grid notification, engineering and design, mounting, protection, commissioning, AC connection and final documentation.

Your electricity supplier is obliged to buy the surplus in accordance with the agreement you have with them.

No. Electricity from the panels always goes first to whatever is drawing power in the building. If the panels produce more than the building uses, the surplus is exported to the grid automatically.

Solar panels always produce something, as long as they are not covered and sunlight falls on the surface of the panel. In winter there is generally little sun, and snow will cover the panels. Around 90% of the panels’ annual output falls between March and October.

All our inverters come with production monitoring in the form of a mobile app. The electrician who commissions the system sets this up and shows you how to use the app.

With an inverter connected to the grid, a power cut causes the inverter to stop supplying electricity. Nor will your own consumption be covered by the panels while the grid is down.

Kilowatt-peak (kWp) is the rated output of each solar panel under standard test conditions (STC). STC sets requirements for temperature, irradiance and angle that are only met occasionally in Norway. Output over the rest of the year is a percentage of the stated kWp. Kilowatt-hours (kWh) are a measure of energy, given by power multiplied by time. A solar panel producing at 1 kW for one hour has produced 1 kWh of electrical energy.

DC stands for direct current, AC for alternating current. Solar panels produce DC. The electricity in buildings and on the grid is always AC, so an inverter is needed to convert DC into AC.