Your Solar PV Readings - Discussions

celerity

free_juice? wrote: »

The webbox merely relays the inverter's internal data. Does your Sunny Boy report the same as you get from the inverter’s LCD? (Tap it sharply to get it to spring into life.) I expect it does, in which case it’s the inverter tolerances which vary.

It feels much better to be paid more FIT than the inverter says I am due. I think I might feel cheated if it was the other way around.

I'm almost certain the Sunny Beam reports exactly what the Sunny Boy does, but I'm too lazy to go into the loft and check this minute .

The discrepancy between your meter and the inverter could possibly be a fault with the meter itself? The only reason I say that is that if there was a bug with the inverter software's totalling algorithms, I'd expect that to have been picked up pretty quickly.

Either way, I agree it's better to have the effect of a meter running "fast" .

/\dam

square-eyes

I have been using Explorer with my Sunny Boy 2500HF for a few weeks. I may have found a bug and want someone to confirm whether it is my system or the software. I am using it on a PC, Windows 7 64bit.
If you select the events tab and try to set a range of dates to display with the From and Until selection boxes, I only get one date in both boxes even though I select different dates. I sent a bug report to SMA but their automated reply was in German.

scfnet

Does anyone have a SMA webbox and use the XML data feeds from it?

The second is the data itself. The zip files have a filename which is the date of the last xml file in the zip file in format YYYY-MM-DD_HHmmss.zip and the same is true for the xml files. The times here are in 24 hour format. However inside the zip file the timestamp is in 12 hour format with no indicator of the AM / PM.

E.g.

File 2011-06-12_051500.xml

<WebBox>
    <Info>
        <Created>2011-06-12T05:15:00</Created> 
        <Culture>en</Culture> 
        <UtcOffset>0</UtcOffset> 
    </Info>
    <CurrentPublic>
        <Key>SN: 2100437728 (SN: 2100437728):2100437728:Total yield</Key> 
        <Mean>39.271</Mean> 
        <Base>1</Base> 
        <Period>300</Period> 
        <Timestamp>2011-06-12T05:15:00</Timestamp> 
    </CurrentPublic>
</Webbox>

File 2011-06-12_213000.xml

<WebBox>
    <Info>
        <Created>2011-06-12T09:30:00</Created> 
        <Culture>en</Culture> 
        <UtcOffset>0</UtcOffset> 
    </Info>
    <CurrentPublic>
        <Key>Sunny WebBox:155002330:Total yield</Key> 
        <Mean>47.211</Mean> 
        <Base>1</Base> 
        <Period>300</Period> 
        <Timestamp>2011-06-12T09:30:00</Timestamp> 
    </CurrentPublic>
</Webbox>

Has any one seen this before? I have looked at all the settings but can't find anything relevant.

I have a ticket open with SMA (Germany) since last monday but they have not responded yet apart from the automated "we are looking at it".

Thanks

Alastair

free_juice?

scfnet wrote: »

Does anyone have a SMA webbox?

Yes

scfnet wrote: »

and use the XML data feeds from it?

No. But I use a script which extracts the CSV data and automatically produces the graphs which are uploaded to my solar data site.

Moist_von_Lipwig

scfnet wrote: »

Does anyone have a SMA webbox and use the XML data feeds from it?

The second is the data itself. The zip files have a filename which is the date of the last xml file in the zip file in format YYYY-MM-DD_HHmmss.zip and the same is true for the xml files. The times here are in 24 hour format. However inside the zip file the timestamp is in 12 hour format with no indicator of the AM / PM.

E.g.

File 2011-06-12_051500.xml

<WebBox>
    <Info>
        <Created>2011-06-12T05:15:00</Created> 
        <Culture>en</Culture> 
        <UtcOffset>0</UtcOffset> 
    </Info>
    <CurrentPublic>
        <Key>SN: 2100437728 (SN: 2100437728):2100437728:Total yield</Key> 
        <Mean>39.271</Mean> 
        <Base>1</Base> 
        <Period>300</Period> 
        <Timestamp>2011-06-12T05:15:00</Timestamp> 
    </CurrentPublic>
</Webbox>

File 2011-06-12_213000.xml

<WebBox>
    <Info>
        <Created>2011-06-12T09:30:00</Created> 
        <Culture>en</Culture> 
        <UtcOffset>0</UtcOffset> 
    </Info>
    <CurrentPublic>
        <Key>Sunny WebBox:155002330:Total yield</Key> 
        <Mean>47.211</Mean> 
        <Base>1</Base> 
        <Period>300</Period> 
        <Timestamp>2011-06-12T09:30:00</Timestamp> 
    </CurrentPublic>
</Webbox>

Has any one seen this before? I have looked at all the settings but can't find anything relevant.

I have a ticket open with SMA (Germany) since last monday but they have not responded yet apart from the automated "we are looking at it".

Thanks

Alastair

You could examine the filename in the first part of your code. If the hour in the filenames timestamp is greater than 12, you know you'll have to either add 12 to the hour in the data timestamp, or set a flag to indicate that it is PM when you come to parse the data.

norfolk.enchance_2

Stoozey,

In what format do you input your postcode on this site? I cannot get it to accept mine and would to try this site out. Sorry I cannote use the quote feature as a newbie.

Cheers

Ross.

Edit, Now fixed and information added to site.

square-eyes

I am just about to submit my first set of readings to Scottish Power. I have been told that I will only get payment from the date they accepted my registration with them and not from the date of installation. There was about a 6 week delay getting the FIT certificate back to me so I could fill-in the Scottish Power documents. I think that means I will forego 6 weeks worth of FIT payments. Is this the same with all power companies? I was told the delay getting my certificate was because they are registering over 1000 systems a week so they have a backlog.

keith_r59

square-eyes wrote: »

I am just about to submit my first set of readings to Scottish Power. I have been told that I will only get payment from the date they accepted my registration with them and not from the date of installation. There was about a 6 week delay getting the FIT certificate back to me so I could fill-in the Scottish Power documents. I think that means I will forego 6 weeks worth of FIT payments. Is this the same with all power companies? I was told the delay getting my certificate was because they are registering over 1000 systems a week so they have a backlog.

I'm a little bit confused, was the delay caused by your installer not providing you with the MCS certificate for six weeks or by Scottish Power not processing your application for six weeks?

In any case, the six weeks you missed at the beginning will be recovered at the end as you will still receive 25 years of FIT payments overall.

zeupater

square-eyes wrote: »

I am just about to submit my first set of readings to Scottish Power. I have been told that I will only get payment from the date they accepted my registration with them and not from the date of installation. There was about a 6 week delay getting the FIT certificate back to me so I could fill-in the Scottish Power documents. I think that means I will forego 6 weeks worth of FIT payments. Is this the same with all power companies? I was told the delay getting my certificate was because they are registering over 1000 systems a week so they have a backlog.

Hi

What was the Total Generation meter reading which you put on the FiT application form .... unless they have asked for an update in order to process the form they will have no other figure to work from and would probably not bother getting involved in estimating a couple of days of difference ..... just check the payment when it's made to see what they've done ...

HTH
Z

energysavingexp

i got my first payment from the day it was installed at 1kw i put on the form