Solar Panels - practicality and time to return on investment?

JKenH

jimjames said:

Exiled_Tyke said:

Hexane said:

Yes solar panels can generate sufficient electricity for electric vehicle charging. But there will still be times, when generation is low for example, when part or all of your vehicle charging comes in from the grid, with solar generation merely supplementing it. This is seamless, you don't need to worry about it at the time - unless you want to fine tune things with something like a Zappi charger.

I reckon it's easy for people to understand that summer is sunnier than winter but those who've no experience of PV systems often don't realise how big that difference is.  Where I am the sun gets to 60 degrees above the horizon in summer but peaks at 13 degrees mid-winter.  The arc of sun mid June is about 270 degrees but mid winter around 90 degrees.  For me this translates to about 20kWh of PV generation during the best days of the year and an average of 1 kWh per day during December and January. And there are plenty of days with no generation at all.      

These are the raw numbers for our solar. Very similar to you with 20kWh on best and slightly more in December than you with average of just around 3kWh. When you consider difference in consumption between the times of the year it's even more significant.

http://solar-panels-review.321web.co.uk/index.php/yearly-comparison-of-solar-pv

Great stats, thanks.

Exiled_Tyke

jimjames said:

Exiled_Tyke said:

Hexane said:

Yes solar panels can generate sufficient electricity for electric vehicle charging. But there will still be times, when generation is low for example, when part or all of your vehicle charging comes in from the grid, with solar generation merely supplementing it. This is seamless, you don't need to worry about it at the time - unless you want to fine tune things with something like a Zappi charger.

I reckon it's easy for people to understand that summer is sunnier than winter but those who've no experience of PV systems often don't realise how big that difference is.  Where I am the sun gets to 60 degrees above the horizon in summer but peaks at 13 degrees mid-winter.  The arc of sun mid June is about 270 degrees but mid winter around 90 degrees.  For me this translates to about 20kWh of PV generation during the best days of the year and an average of 1 kWh per day during December and January. And there are plenty of days with no generation at all.      

These are the raw numbers for our solar. Very similar to you with 20kWh on best and slightly more in December than you with average of just around 3kWh. When you consider difference in consumption between the times of the year it's even more significant.

http://solar-panels-review.321web.co.uk/index.php/yearly-comparison-of-solar-pv

I've got more panels facing west than south and some of those aren't at  a great pitch so slightly over perform in summer and under in winter.  Hence the very poor Dec.