Renewables: "talking 'bout my generation"

Oscargrouch

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

It would be interesting to know how much power was consumed by the inverter trying to lock onto that level of generation?

From the 'horses mouth' so to speak: The Aurora inverters do not use any AC power, they start up using DC power as soon as the PV produce enough for start up. The reason the gen meter light stays on red, is that no Watts are being produced (initially). Until at least one W is produced the red light stays on, on the GM. After this, the light goes on to register 10 watt per flash. Hence 10 flashes = 100w. (I am not going to stand there and count) On this basis, yesterday, my GM light flashed 10 times - all day. As of writing this, Inverter continues to try and wake up, but cannot manage it as input is too low, as is the Sun, it does not realise that the panels are covered with snow! (both messages come up on the screen, but not anything about 'snow') If the above is true of other makes of Inverter; is not known. End of Anorak report..:D

edwink

Your post was very useful Oscar. Thanks for that!!!

We have generated every day although not a lot. I have found a way of getting the snow off the panels without touching them. I light the stove in the kitchen (chimney stack goes through the centre of the house). The heat around the chimney melts the snow on our top six panels. The lower 4 panels are on an extension roof. We have 6 skylight windows along the length of this roof and the panels are just above the guttering. So we open all six of the skylights by an inch or so and within a couple of hours the snow has melted on these panels too. I found this out by mistake by opening one of the windows as it was so hot in the kitchen and later we noticed that the snow had cleared from 2 of the panels. Also we light the stove in the living room which heats the hot water tank that is in the loft below the upper six panels. This stove also heats 10 radiators. So house nice and warm, with fresh air too, lots of hotwater, no gas bill and enough leccy for the inverter. Can't be bad!!!

Edwink x :T

John_Pierpoint

Oscargrouch wrote: »

From the 'horses mouth' so to speak: The Aurora inverters do not use any AC power, they start up using DC power as soon as the PV produce enough for start up. The reason the gen meter light stays on red, is that no Watts are being produced (initially). Until at least one W is produced the red light stays on, on the GM. After this, the light goes on to register 10 watt per flash. Hence 10 flashes = 100w. (I am not going to stand there and count) On this basis, yesterday, my GM light flashed 10 times - all day. As of writing this, Inverter continues to try and wake up, but cannot manage it as input is too low, as is the Sun, it does not realise that the panels are covered with snow! (both messages come up on the screen, but not anything about 'snow') If the above is true of other makes of Inverter; is not known. End of Anorak report..:D

On my meters, I pretty well certain it is one red flash per watt, ie 17 flashes per minute is about the extra you get from turning on a 1 kW kettle.

shafeeq

Another FAT zero. doing I get a record for most zeros

Martyn1981

Lots of zero's on various systems. Decided to 'Meerkat it' out the Velux this afternoon and clear the 2.4 system, as the other 2 were clear and ticking away. Haven't missed much 1.8kWh over the last 4 days. Oh well, at least it looks pretty out!

Mart.

tunnel

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Lots of zero's on various systems. Decided to 'Meerkat it' out the Velux this afternoon and clear the 2.4 system, as the other 2 were clear and ticking away. Haven't missed much 1.8kWh over the last 4 days. Oh well, at least it looks pretty out!

Mart.

Looking at the forecast for Cardiff for the next 24hrs mate you'd better get ready for a few more zero's:eek:

John_Pierpoint

0.08 kWh over two days - following light snow over night.
Sun forecast tomorrow.
Then more of the same greyness with snow showers for the rest of the week?
:mad:

legoman62

After clearing the snow from my panels, a massive 0.49kWh today
The [STRIKE]dream[/STRIKE] nightmare continues:D

phsci

My 3.8 kWp array consists of two rows of 10 panels arranged in portrait fashion, each row connected as a separate string into a 3.7 kW inverter. Today, the snow had accumulated at the bottom of the lower string, having slumped from the upper string and the upper part of the lower string, obscuring less than 20% of the lower string. At about 2.45 this afternoon I got out the ladders and dislodged the accumulated snow, and just about doubled the output. The <20% shading had sabotaged all the (albeit meagre) production from my lower string. See this graph (the y axis is in watts):

k66

0.531 kWh today, they looked cute with snow on them but better without.