Renewables: "talking 'bout my generation"

Martyn1981

EricMears wrote: »

No!

But if I could perhaps I'd have seen a lot more today. My 898Wh no doubt seems huge to you but I'd have earnt more than 44p/day if I'd left the money in the bank.

Yeah but, no but - don't forget the fun factor, after all no bank is going to make the effort to irritate you at 10.52pm on a Monday night!

Quick question, will your generation fall off now for the winter with such shallow panels? My 'extreme' east / west panels are very summery, with an 8:1 generation ratio of June to December.

Mart.

EricMears

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Quick question, will your generation fall off now for the winter with such shallow panels? My 'extreme' east / west panels are very summery, with an 8:1 generation ratio of June to December.

Mart.

I'd have to consult the actual Excel spreadsheets to be certain but a quick look with the Sunny Explorer 'History' graphs (which alas occasionally combine two days to give an apparent bumper day) shows that there were 7 days last December when we magaged >4kWh and 7 when there was < 1kWh (and the rest somewhere in between of course) 77.6 kWh for month of Dec was an average of 2.5kWh/d which just about broke even with the ISA test.

John_Pierpoint

1.75 kWh :Serous fog until noon and the drizzle ever since.

Oscargrouch wrote: »

Just looked at the Power One Monitor; showed that I had clocked up 9.2kWh so far today.:j Checked the GM = 0.4kWh oh well, what a piece of 'junk' that is....:(

I think I have an explanation for the Auror screen gizmo that we both have:

Today at 08:00 both gizmo and generation meter reported zero generation.

By 08:30 the gizmo was reporting 9 watts and the generation meter was reporting nothing.

By 09:30 the gizmo was reporting 87 |Watts and the generation meter was reporting something - but I would have died on my feet waiting for the red light to flash.

The gizmo is monitoring the performance of the two strings of panels, NOT the performance of the inverter.

The inverter is of Californian pedigree, out there the sun tends to turn on after dawn and turn off on the approach of sunset, Overnight there is a watch battery powering the monitoring of the panels, ready to turn on the main inverter. The turn on voltage is considerably higher than the turn off voltage. The objective is to turn on once a day and turn off once a day to avoid "cycling" and thus burning out the relays.

So with our coming and going of daily gloom there will be extended periods when the panels are generating but the inverter is not.

Oscargrouch

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

I think I have an explanation for the Auror screen gizmo that we both have:

Take your point; but the inverter & Gizmo are not consistently wrong. Today Inverter is showing an Output of 4w at 09:00 as is gizmo. Both are showing 0 for kW to the grid, as is the generation meter.

Think I will trade gizmo in for a Wattson Solar Plus - far more Anorak style information both ways.:rotfl:

grahamc2003

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

1.75 kWh :Serous fog until noon and the drizzle ever since.





The turn on voltage is considerably higher than the turn off voltage. The objective is to turn on once a day and turn off once a day to avoid "cycling" and thus burning out the relays.

.

The turn on voltage will be more or less the panel's open circuit voltage - as soon as the relays are thrown, the voltage will drop considerably due to the inverter load (which will then vary as it tracks for the maximum power (i.e. the max of the product of the current and voltage). Hence the turn off voltage must be considerably less than the turn on voltage, just from the intrinsics.

Afaiu, the turn off voltage is set as a compromise of between getting some power, and the life of the inverter. At low powers, the inverter will be very inefficient anyhow. The cycling aspect is a good reason not to mess with the turn on voltage - setting that lower (in an attempt to squeeze out more power) will result in more cycling on marginal days (which seems to be everyday recently!).

California may have a lot of sunshine (also fog in San Fransisco), but it doesn't have the FIT I don't think, but if it does, it probably isn't anywhere near a buck a kWh!

Martyn1981

grahamc2003 wrote: »

California may have a lot of sunshine (also fog in San Fransisco), but it doesn't have the FIT I don't think, but if it does, it probably isn't anywhere near a buck a kWh!

The USA were actually the first to launch a FIT (though under a different name) nearly 35 years ago.

PV FITs in California looks to be around 6p/kWh. This article is very interesting, suggesting compulsory 'PV ready' roofs from 2014 onwards. Can't remember who I was chatting with some time back (maybe Raider or RogerBlack) but we were pondering how simple it might be to install brackets on all new build roofs during construction. PV installation would then only require a PV team who's van could tow a trailer with a cherry picker.

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/california--new-roofs-must-be-solar-ready-from-2014_100007010/#axzz2A75I7s00

Looks like the 2010's will be the renewables decade. No going back now!

Mart.

jackieblack

Martyn1981 wrote: »

The USA were actually the first to launch a FIT (though under a different name) nearly 35 years.

PV FITs in California looks to be around 6p/kWh. This article is very interesting, suggesting compulsory 'PV ready' roofs from 2014 onwards. Can't remember who I was chatting with some time back (maybe Raider or RogerBlack) but we were pondering how simple it might be to install brackets on all new build roofs during construction. PV installation would then only require a PV team who's van could tow a trailer with a cherry picker.

http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/california--new-roofs-must-be-solar-ready-from-2014_100007010/#axzz2A75I7s00

Looks like the 2010's will be the renewables decade. No going back now!

Mart.

I can't remember exactly where in California we were, but remember seeing quite a few homes roofed with photovoltaic roof tiles - not flat ones but like normal curvy roof tiles, they looked great!

Oscargrouch

:rotfl::rotfl:Ok, I will be the first; flat-lining all day to give 0.6kWh or 600Wh which ever sits best. Am I bothered..:mad::mad:

Oscargrouch

Oscargrouch wrote: »

Long Range is looking at good weather this week - into the first two weeks in November.

:EasterBun :idea: 'Eat my Words' comes to mind:o

shafeeq

hi

0.42kwh yesterday and 0.52kwh today