North Hollywood, CA · September – December 2025 · LADWP / LADBS

One point seven kilowatts. Worth doing?

A new two-storey accessory dwelling unit built where a garage used to stand, and the smallest array in our North Hollywood file on top of it. Whether that is a good idea is a question with three inputs, and kilowatts is not one of them.

Nobody can answer that from the kilowatts, including us. Whether a small array pays depends on three numbers that are specific to you: what it costs installed, what the dwelling actually consumes across a year, and which electricity rate you are on. What can be said is which reasons for a small array are good ones and which are not, and which figures to make somebody show you.

At a glance

Recorded by the utility

1.69 kW

Building

New two-storey ADU on a former garage footprint

Usable roof faces

One

Microinverters

Enphase IQ7A, one per module

Filing to permission

Seven weeks

Fixed costs

Same plans, permit, fee and inspection as a large array

Roof

Composition shingle

Utility / AHJ

LADWP / LADBS

The story

Start with the number. One point six nine kilowatts. That is the smallest array in our North Hollywood file by some distance, and the honest first reaction to it is: why bother.

Here is the context. The building is new — a two-storey accessory dwelling unit built on the footprint of a detached garage demolished the same spring. The roof on it is the size of a garage roof, because that is what it replaced, and it has one usable face.

So the array is not small because the budget was small. It is small because the roof is small and there is no second face to use. Sizing a system to a roof that does not exist is how people end up with a proposal they cannot build.

Now the question in the title. Whether 1.69 kilowatts pays on your building depends on three numbers: what the system costs installed, what the dwelling actually uses over a year, and which rate that usage is billed on. Change any one of them and the answer flips. Anybody who answers it from the kilowatts alone is selling you something.

What can be said without arithmetic is narrower and still useful. A system this size will not run a household; the load of a one- or two-occupant accessory dwelling is a different and much smaller thing, and that is the load this array was drawn against. And because every module has its own microinverter, extending it later is an electrical question rather than a redesign, if a roof face ever becomes available.

The paperwork does not scale down, which is the part people are not warned about. This array went through the same standard plans, the same solar permit, the same interconnection request with the same fee, and the same inspection as a thirty-module system. Most of the fixed cost of a solar project is fixed.

The calendar was short. First conversation at the start of September, interconnection filed and fee paid on the twenty-third of October, system installed five days later, and permission to operate on the eleventh of December. Seven weeks from filing.

So the questions to put to whoever is quoting you. Show me the roof plan, not the kilowatts — is this the size my roof has room for? Show me a year of the dwelling's own consumption, not a household average. Tell me which rate it is billed on. And show me the installed price against those, so the payback is arithmetic rather than a feeling. If a quote cannot survive those four questions, the problem is not that the array is small.

How it ran

Seven weeks from filing. The building took most of the year.

What we did

• Sized the array to the roof that was actually being built rather than to a target figure.
• Planned the layout while the roof was still underlayment.
• Installed one Enphase IQ7A microinverter per module, so the array can be added to later.
• Filed the interconnection and paid the fee the same day.
• Took the project from filing to permission to operate in seven weeks.

System specifications

Is your project like this one?

• You are putting solar on an ADU and the numbers look small.
• You have been told your roof is too small to be worth quoting.
• You want to know why a small system is not proportionally cheaper.
• You are building and want the array planned before the shingle goes on.
• You may want to add modules later if the roof allows it.

Cali Energy in North Hollywood

Frequently asked questions

Is a 1.7 kilowatt solar system worth installing?

It depends on three numbers and none of them is the system size: the installed price, the dwelling's measured annual consumption, and the rate it is billed on. A small array on a small dwelling can pay perfectly well and can also be a poor buy; the kilowatt figure does not tell you which. Ask for those three and do the arithmetic.

What transfers from a project like this to mine?

The shape of it rather than the verdict. The roof had one usable face, so the array was sized to the roof and not to a target. The fixed costs did not shrink with the array. And a microinverter per module leaves the door open to extending later. Whether the arithmetic lands the same way on your building depends on your price, your consumption and your rate.

Why is such a small system not much cheaper?

Because the standard plans, the solar permit, the interconnection request and its fee, and the inspection are the same as on a much larger array. The modules and the roof time scale down; the paperwork does not.

Can I add to it later?

Each module has its own microinverter, so extending is an electrical question rather than a redesign — but it still depends on whether the roof has space left. Any addition needs its own permit and an updated interconnection.

When should solar be designed on a new ADU?

Before the covering goes on. Here the layout was planned while the roof was still underlayment, which is also the window for running conduit without opening finished work.

How long did it take?

Seven weeks from the interconnection filing to permission to operate, with the system installed five days after filing. The building itself took most of the year.

What this would look like on your roof

Related

• The homes were finished. The utility's system said address not found North Hollywood, CA · 2.59 kW each · two ADUs, two interconnections Solar
• The work request opened on one street and closed on another North Hollywood, CA · 3.2 kW · corner lot, two addresses Solar
• Seven modules, and a permit file that barely got smaller Northridge, CA · 3.01 kW DC · smallest in the file Solar
• Seven hundred square feet. Two kilowatts Winnetka, CA · 1.95 kW AC-CEC · detached ADU Solar

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