Hancock Park, CA · December 2020 · LADWP / LADBS

Hancock Park: the house that could not go dark.

Nineteen modules, an inverter with a car charger built in, and a two-hour slot in the middle of a working day.

Written by the Cali Energy project team · California contractor license 1032379 · Updated September 2026

Connecting a solar system means shutting the house's power off for part of a day, and the shutdown takes the internet with it. On a property where somebody works from home that is a scheduling constraint rather than a technical one, and it has to be settled before the crew is booked. On this Hancock Park project the household could not lose power or connectivity between half past nine and noon, or after half past three; Cali Energy agreed the window first and installed inside it.

At a glance

System

19 modules, 360 W each — 6.84 kW

Inverter

SolarEdge SE7600H-US with an integrated EV charger

Sub-panel

125 A

Constraint

No outage 9:30–12:00 or after 15:30

Intake to inspection card

Ten days

Utility / AHJ

LADWP / LADBS

The story

The confirmation for this project contained a sentence that decided the whole day: the household could not be without electricity or internet between half past nine and noon, or after half past three.

That is not a technical constraint and it is not a difficult one. It is simply a constraint that has to exist before the crew is booked rather than after they have arrived, and on a great many projects nobody asks.

Here is why it comes up at all. Connecting a solar system to a house means working in live service equipment, and that means the power goes off for part of the day. How long depends on the scope: adding a breaker into an existing panel is short, changing service equipment is most of a day. Either way there is a window during which the house has no electricity.

The part people do not think about until it happens is the internet. No power means no router, and no router means no calls, no video, no card machine, nothing. For a household where somebody is at a desk all day, the outage is not an inconvenience about lights. It is the working day.

So the right order is: establish the window, then book the crew. Not book the crew, arrive, and discover that the only workable slot is ninety minutes long and the job needs three hours. On this project the window was stated in writing on the Monday and the array went on the Tuesday, inside it.

The other interesting thing about this house was the equipment. The inverter had a car charger built into it rather than a separate charging station wired as its own circuit.

That is a real choice and it turns on space rather than on preference. A separate charger needs its own breaker, its own conductors and its own room in the panel. On a house running off a 125 amp sub-panel, room in the panel is the scarce thing — often scarcer than roof area or budget. An inverter that carries the charger inside it connects once and takes one position rather than two.

What you give up is independence: the charger and the inverter are now one piece of equipment with one warranty and one failure. For a household adding solar and car charging at the same moment, on a panel with little room left, the combined unit is usually the better answer. For a household that already has a charger it works, or that expects to change cars and chargers on a different cycle from the solar, it usually is not.

The rest was quick. The file opened on the eleventh of December with a proposed date of the fifteenth. Site photographs and the confirmation — including the window — came back on the fourteenth. The array went on the fifteenth and the inspection card was issued on the twenty-first.

Ten days, in the middle of December, on a house nobody could switch off.

Cali Energy designed and installed this 6.84 kW array in Hancock Park, Los Angeles.

How it ran

Ten days from intake to the inspection card, on a property where the usable part of the day was about three hours wide.

What we did

• Established the outage window before booking the crew.
• Installed inside a working day that was about three hours wide.
• Specified an inverter with the car charger built in to save panel positions.
• Carried the project to an inspection card ten days after intake.

System specifications

Is your project like this one?

• Somebody works from home and cannot lose power or internet.
• You run a business, a clinic or a studio out of the property.
• You are adding solar and car charging at the same time.
• Your panel has almost no room left for another breaker.

Cali Energy in Hancock Park

Frequently asked questions

Will my power be off while solar is installed?

For part of the day, yes. Connecting the system means working in live service equipment, so there is a window with no electricity. Adding a breaker into an existing panel is short; changing service equipment is most of a day. The scope decides the length, and the scope is known before the crew is booked.

Does the outage affect the internet too?

Yes, and this is the part people do not anticipate. No power means no router — no calls, no video, no card terminal. For a household with somebody at a desk all day the outage is not about lights, it is about the working day, which is why the window should be agreed in writing rather than discovered on the morning.

How do you install solar on a house that cannot lose power?

By settling the window first and booking the crew into it, instead of booking the crew and negotiating on the day. On this Hancock Park project the household could not be without power between half past nine and noon or after half past three, and the array went on inside what was left.

Should the EV charger be built into the inverter or separate?

It depends on room in the panel rather than on preference. A separate charger needs its own breaker, conductors and position; an inverter with the charger inside takes one position instead of two, which matters on a smaller panel. The trade is that they become one piece of equipment with one warranty and one failure.

Does Cali Energy install solar in Hancock Park, Los Angeles?

Yes. Hancock Park projects are permitted through LADBS and interconnected through LADWP. The houses are large and older, and a good number have somebody working inside them all day — which makes the outage window part of the design conversation rather than a detail for the morning of the install.

What this would look like on your roof

Related

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• The charger went on the wall before the car arrived Glendale, CA · hip roof · split array, EV charger wired three years early Solar
• Monitoring that does not need your Wi-Fi Fairfax, Los Angeles · 7.4 kW · reporting that survives a new router Solar
• What an installer certifies El Sereno, Los Angeles · 4.44 kW · the line around somebody else's wiring Solar

This timeline reflects this property and this permitting path. Updated September 2026.