I have no idea what the 600 volt stuff is about. Perhaps large commercial rooftop arrays are wired up that high in order to minimize connecting wire size. I’ve never seen residential voltages higher than ~120. It does make sense to wire panels in series in order to ship higher voltage/lower amperage watts and minimize wire size.

You’d need to check with your building department and figure out their requirements. They might require that you run the wire in conduit (not a hard job) and you might need to hire a licensed electrician to check your panel wiring and do the final hookup to your house.

If you do set up your own system remember that it’s likely to be putting out power for 30, 40, a bunch more years. Don’t build your rack out of something that will rot away.

And make your rack adjustable so that you can go out about four times each year and tilt the panels toward the Sun as it rises and falls in the sky.

Here’s a company that seems to have a good reputation and great prices –

http://www.sunelec.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=1

They’ve got grid-tied systems for under $2/watt. That does not include racks, but they will help you design your rack and they sell parts at good prices.

anyway, will have to keep track of you all in case we do.

A solar installation company should have a qualified roofer and a electrician on staff or on call. They should own the tools of the trade such as scaffolding, or rent it for unusual conditions. They should carry insurance. This is the sort of stuff any contractor deals with.

Germany isn’t burning down houses and they install for much better prices.

Installation costs are not trivial unless you want a cowboy industry and people standing out in the street at two in the morning watching their house burn down or water pouiring through the roof. In the UK the solar PV trade is one of the most highly regulated and regulation is a significant cost.

Were it so straightforward as simplifying roof fastenings we would all be happy but sadly it isn’t.

Panels and racks are already largely ‘plug and play’. Labor costs are a modest part of the overall cost.

Probably the place we need to concentrate is on permitting and paperwork fees. That seems to be one place that Germany has really outdone us.

In fact, the last bottleneck that is hindering the wide adoption of solar energy is the exorbitant price of installation. If these solar PV can be made into easier plug and play modules that can be installed by people of average skills, prices of installation would come down as an example. Manufacturing is no longer the profit center for solar PV, it is how to effectively lower the cost of installation.