Likewise, I'm a software engineer who installed my own system. But I did have help from by brother and friend who have some experience in the industry. The biggest hurdle for me was drawing up the plans and getting them accepted by my local building/electrical department. People who do this for a living obviously have experience which makes things a lot easier.HighDesertDriver said:Software engineers have the logical and procedural talents to undertake a job like this. Friends and hired talent can always tutor you in the mechanical aspects. Besides, four or more hands will work more efficiently than two. . .
Doing it yourself does show you how inefficient a lot of the process is. Installing a PV system isn't rocket science and it really should be turned into something as simple as plug-and-play. Standard permit docs. Plug your specific requirements into a wizard and out comes recommended parts and a complete parts list. Click a button and those parts are purchased and delivered to your door. The USA has a long ways to go in this regard, Germany on the other hand has this down and as a result their cost to install solar is much lower than ours.
I'm happy I did the install myself, but now that I'm thinking of adding more PV to my roof, I'm not looking forward to the red-tape to get it done.