What you’ll build
A ground-mount solar array on driven and leveled racking, wired to a battery bank through a charge controller, feeding an inverter and a small distribution panel. By Friday afternoon it is commissioned, tested under load, and carrying real circuits on the property. It stays there. It will still be making power when you come back next year.
You do the work. Eight people cannot all get their hands on one array unless the week is built around that, so it is: every participant sets racking, lands a conductor, torques a lug, and programs the controller.
Day by day
Day 1 — Loads before panels
Morning skill. Arrival at 13:00, site safety, then DC fundamentals: volts, amps, watts, watt-hours, and why a system is sized from the load backward and never from the panel forward. How to run a load audit.
Afternoon build. Walk the site. Put a meter on real equipment and measure a real load profile: what runs, for how long, and what it draws at startup versus running.
Evening. Why most off-grid systems fail. Undersized banks, optimistic sun-hour numbers, ignored surge loads, and wire that was chosen by what was on the shelf.
Day 2 — Array and racking
Morning skill. Array sizing from the load audit. Orientation and tilt at 46° north, shading analysis across the season, and the engineering behind ground-mount racking: post depth, frost, wind and snow load.
Afternoon build. Set and level the ground-mount racking (IronRidge). String lines, plumb posts, square rails. Racking that is out by a half inch on Tuesday is a fight on Wednesday.
Evening. Reading a spec sheet. Voc, Isc, temperature coefficients, and why the coldest morning of the year sets your string length.
Day 3 — Panels and DC wiring
Morning skill. Panel mounting, series versus parallel strings, wire gauge and voltage drop calculation, grounding and bonding.
Afternoon build. Mount the panels. Run, support, and terminate the DC conductors. Everyone makes MC4 terminations and everyone has theirs pull-tested.
Evening. Lightning, surge protection, and what the code wants from a DC system and why.
Day 4 — Batteries
Morning skill. LiFePO4 versus lead-acid: usable capacity, cycle life, cost per delivered kilowatt-hour. What a BMS does and does not protect you from. Charge profiles. What temperature does to a battery in a Zone 4b winter.
Afternoon build. Build and wire the battery bank. Busbars, fusing, disconnects, torque specs. Set the charge controller for the bank you built.
Evening. Generator integration, and the maintenance schedule that keeps the system alive in year five.
Day 5 — Inverter, commissioning, faults
Morning skill. Inverters, transfer switching, and monitoring. What to log and what to ignore.
Afternoon build. Commission the system and test it under load. Then troubleshoot a fault that has been deliberately introduced, in order, with a meter, the way you will have to at home when nobody is there to ask.
Departure, 15:00. You leave with your own system sized.
What you’ll be able to do afterward
- Size an array and battery bank from a measured load.
- Calculate voltage drop and select wire for a run.
- Build a code-legal DC distribution.
- Terminate MC4 connectors and lugs properly.
- Commission a charge controller.
- Diagnose a dead system in order, with a meter, instead of guessing.
Tools and materials you’ll use
- IronRidge ground-mount racking and the driving, leveling, and layout tools that go with it
- Solar modules, PV wire, MC4 connectors and the correct crimp tool
- LiFePO4 battery modules, busbars, class-T fusing, DC disconnects
- MPPT charge controller, inverter, and a distribution panel
- Digital multimeter, DC clamp meter, torque wrench and torque screwdriver
- Hydraulic lug crimper, cable cutters, heat shrink
The exact bill of materials, with part numbers and what each line cost, is sent to registered participants before the session and published in the Build Log after it.
The paperwork
- When a permit and a licensed electrician are required, and when they are not.
- How off-grid differs from grid-tied in the eyes of the code and the utility.
- Interconnection basics, for those who will stay tied to the grid.
- The federal residential clean energy credit: what qualifies and what to keep for your records.
- What an electrical inspector actually looks at.
Rules change. Anything regulatory taught in the session is date-stamped and you are told where to verify it for your own county.
What you take home
- A completed load audit and sizing worksheet for your own property.
- A materials list with current pricing.
- A wiring diagram for your system.
Who this is for / who it isn’t
For: people with land, a cabin, a shop, or a plan for one, who want to build a system themselves or know enough to hire it out without being taken. No electrical experience needed.
Not for: anyone looking for a rooftop grid-tied install on a suburban house; that is a different job with a different permit path, and a local installer is the right call. Also not for licensed electricians looking for continuing-education credit. We don’t offer it.
Prerequisites and physical demands
No prerequisites. You will be on your feet outdoors most of the day, kneeling at racking, lifting one end of a solar module (about 50 lb, always a two-person carry), and working in full sun. If you can do a day of yard work, you can do this week.
Instructor
Matt Vorst. See Instructors.