Non-inuitive aspects of getting Solar

What I didn't expect before I got solar panels on my house:

1. The wattage on the Solar Panel does not directly correspond to the actual output. 
1. Your actual maximum generation will be determined by your inverter.
2. The output of the solar panel is not constant and on cloudy days the production can swing by over 8x over 15-30 minutes.
   
2. The size of the inverter is likely going to be less than the combined CEC number for all your panels and that's probably ok. Losing some high production days to 'clipping' may be better because the higher wattage panel will increase production around that point.
3. NREL has a lot of useful tools. pvwatts and SAM
4.  If you get snow, you want to look into snowguards for the solar panels
5. The orientation of the panel for the snowguards may (or may not) matter - look at how your panel handles shading.
6. Solar without batteries currently doesn't provide you any power in the case the utility grid goes out.
7. When the power goes out and you are running off the grid, too much production from solar can be as bad as too little. 
8. The Tesla powerwall, when off grid and needing to curtail the production of the inverters will adjust the frequency of the electrical system. This adjustment may trip your UPS and make it go active.
9. The Tesla powerwall system (i.e. the  Tesla Gateway) does not guarantee fast switching so you'll still need a UPS for anything electrically sensitive.
10. If you have Time of Use (TOU) rates be sure to know when your peak rate buy-back time is. Conventional wisdom is to have your panels facing south for the greatest production but it may be more cost effective to have westerly facing panels since TOU rates tend to be higher in the late afternoon and evening.