Solar Panels - 6.5 months in

charles_b_2

Yeah, HACS 2.0 ....
Did you look here:  https://github.com/BJReplay/ha-solcast-solar

Qyburn

charles_b_2 said:

Yeah, HACS 2.0 ....
Did you look here:  https://github.com/BJReplay/ha-solcast-solar

Got that now, thanks. I have an automation relying on the "remaining today" estimate, just changed that to use Solcast instead and will see how that works. Their live data looks reasonable.

jimjames

In terms of numbers we've got virtually south facing panels, maybe slight SSW. The maximum multiple we've achieved in 12 years is just over 7x so unless your panels are super efficient I don't think you'll get to 8x.

Nick_Dr1

Peak multiple for us this year is 6.6 on a south facing roof. I seem to remember that multiples of peak are called "O's".
A good achievement is 5 O's and this was known as a Hawaii in deference to the popular TV series of the stone age!

Exiled_Tyke

Nick_Dr1 said:

Peak multiple for us this year is 6.6 on a south facing roof. I seem to remember that multiples of peak are called "O's".
A good achievement is 5 O's and this was known as a Hawaii in deference to the popular TV series of the stone age!

On the 15 March 2013 on page 277 of the 'Renewables 'Talking 'bout my generation'' thread  Martyn1981  created the 'O' or 'Oscar' in honour of  Oscargrouch  who suggested that kWh/kWp would be a good way of comparing performance of different sized systems.  It has remained the measure of choice for forumites on these boards. 

Nick_Dr1

Exiled_Tyke said:

Nick_Dr1 said:

Peak multiple for us this year is 6.6 on a south facing roof. I seem to remember that multiples of peak are called "O's".
A good achievement is 5 O's and this was known as a Hawaii in deference to the popular TV series of the stone age!

On the 15 March 2013 on page 277 of the 'Renewables 'Talking 'bout my generation'' thread  Martyn1981  created the 'O' or 'Oscar' in honour of  Oscargrouch  who suggested that kWh/kWp would be a good way of comparing performance of different sized systems.  It has remained the measure of choice for forumites on these boards. 

Good to know where it came from. Its a usefully simple measure of performance

LateStarter

jimjames said:

In terms of numbers we've got virtually south facing panels, maybe slight SSW. The maximum multiple we've achieved in 12 years is just over 7x so unless your panels are super efficient I don't think you'll get to 8x.

That's really good to know; I had no idea what a "good" ratio was.

NedS

LateStarter said:

jimjames said:

In terms of numbers we've got virtually south facing panels, maybe slight SSW. The maximum multiple we've achieved in 12 years is just over 7x so unless your panels are super efficient I don't think you'll get to 8x.

That's really good to know; I had no idea what a "good" ratio was.

On 26th June, very close to the longest day, I achieved 7.15 O's on a near perfect day - sunny, not too warm. This is on a near perfect roof orientation and slope with brand new panels. I have a 3.645kWp array on a 3kW inverter, so will have lost a little due to clipping, which may increase the theoretical max to ~7.5x, but an oversized array and clipping is not uncommon.

Anything 5x and above is a decent day - 6x is very good/excellent and 7x is exceptional and only likely to be achieved a couple times a year, around the longest day on an optimal roof set up.

I'm not sure how bi-facial panels are rated, so you may be able to get higher ratio's from them if there is a lot of reflected irritation to the rear of the panel boosting the output above the nominally rated kWp value, but for a conventional panel, 7x is as good as it gets.

LateStarter

I've had a play with PVGIS, and here's the estimates and actuals:

Month	PGVIS estimate	Actual
April	543	622
May	602	709
June	605	814
July	615	721
August	540	671
September	452	451
October	296	240+

With a third of this month to go, I may get past the October estimate, so I'm pretty pleased with the system overall. Now I need to let it go until about March, I suppose.