Do it yourself

	My favorite DIY kit consists of PV panels plus for each panel a big black kind-of-sandbox-like recycled plastic support box. The purpose of the support box is to mount the panel in the desired position, direction and inclination on any flat roof or on the balcony of a flat apartment. Installation is actually quite easy. The support box is not heavy because the plastic of the walls is rather thin. In the box goes some heavy stuff (bricks, pebbles, rubble) to avoid getting blown off the roof in a storm. I installed two of such DIY boxes-with PV panels on the flat roof of one of my home's two lofts. To fill the boxes with quite some ballast stuff to make them storm-resistant, I went on a acquisition foray in the neighborhood, looking for houses being renovated and specifically, containers in front of these houses filled with construction rubble. To go to a fancy building materials-market to buy new concrete tiles of the handy type seen on typical Dutch sidewalks, oh, no, that was not part of my renewable strategy!
	For the sake of the photo opportunity I placed one of the support boxes in my garden and fitted the PV panel loosely on it. After taking this picture the separate parts were hauled up the loft for the final montage session. The ballast (70 kg per box; my hometown Leiden is located close to the seashore, and it can be pretty windy here) was hauled up as well and dumped in the support box. The DC cables were attached to the panels, and the panels bolted to the support box. The cables were drawn into the house via well protected small holes in the roof whereas the inverter was placed inside my house (I prefer this over PV panels with inverters glued directly to their backs because when something goes wrong, most of the time it will be the inverter, and one does not need to climb onto the windy roof when the inverter is inside your home).
	Mounting took about one hour and here is the result: support box, panel, cables. The cables (DC) are inside a protecting PVC tube (yellow) with a roof tile placed upside-down for extra protection.

Competing DIY sets use metal support or frames to mount the PV panels on. Other systems use metal hooks to mount the panels on tiled roofs.

A PV system consists of the PV panels and one or several inverters. This website features a separate page on inverters. There are many types and manufacturers of these electronic devices.

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