Alternative Solar Mounting; POWERHOUSE

Many sites we visit to make a PV assessment have the house roof either facing the wrong way or is too shallow of a roof pitch. When the roof of the house or outbuilding is out of the running, ground mounting is a common solution. It can be a top of pole mount or a linear structure. In any event, factory made ground mounts are always much more expensive than roof mounting.
We recently made a prototype composed of some 230 watt panels and is specially designed garden/storage shed. The shed was built by Yoder Buildings a couple miles up the road. They are Mennonites who started their business a few years ago and do quality construction.
We took their basic saltbox design and made the back roof longer and steeper to accommodate the PV modules at a good compromise angle. The unit shown is the smallest at 12ft x 12ft and has a PV rating of 1380 watts STC. We have several other sizes up to 36 feet long and rated at 4140 watts STC. These are gridtie ready with only the final connection to be made at the customer's site. The building themselves are of good value and high quality and cost just a bit more than a good ground mounting system. The benefit is that you get a great building to use for other purposes.
The Solar Powerhouse can also be configured as an offgrid structure for camps or rural locations. The extra gear such as charge controller, batteries and inverter will run the price up though.

Solar is Growing in West Virginia

Most people think solar won't work well in West Virginia. The fact of the matter is that WV has better solar irradiance than the Great Lakes states, New England, and even Germany which is the most PV developed country in the world.
If you go to the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) and look at their OpenPV site, you can click on any state and see the statistics gathered over many years. If you click on West Virginia, you'll see the counties that are beginning to grow in PV. There is a concentration in the eastern panhandle (DC burbs) and the Greenbrier County area.
The mountains of WV do produce more clouds, but at the same time, a higher elevation provides somewhat higher energy due to the fact that there is less atmosphere above you. Southeastern WV can provide about 5.5 peak sun-hours in the summer and 2.7 in the winter. The annual average is around 4.3 sun-hours. A sun-hour is a standard measurement of power and includes all the cloudy days and seasonal sun angle for a particular site.
You can also access cost per watt installed by selecting a state and county and viewing the cost statistics in the surrounding graphs. Greenbrier County averages $6.01/watt compared to over $7 for the state and national installations. That dollar can make a big difference on the bottom line of your installation.