Members Daily Readings with graphs

[danesol]

Location:- North West
Azimuth:- Facing nearly direct South with 30degree pitch...
Environment:- Total shade on both sides - morning due to buildings, early evening due to adjacent trees
Generation cycle:- Fully kicks in fully at 9.30'sh and in full shade at 4pm, due to the trees
System:- 12 x Sanyo 240HiTs / SMA 3000HF ( 2.88kw)

Date:- 25 March 2012
Weather:- Slightly misty
Max Temp:- 21deg
Peak - just over 2.4KWp
Most generated between 10am & 3pm

Total generated - 13.52kwh

 

[MorganPVI]

25/03/12	19.9
24/03/12	18.4
23/03/12	16.8
22/03/12	13.8
21/03/12	13.4
20/03/12	15.5
19/03/12	20
18/03/12	10.3
17/03/12	6.9

[TD="width: 86"]26/03/12[/TD]
[TD="width: 86"]20.8[/TD]

South, 3.76kwp Sharp 235w, Dielh 3800 inverter

 

[Scobo]

2.88kw system, SSW facing, full sun all day, 15.5kwh generated.

 

[danesol]

Date:- 27 March 2012
Day yield:- 14.21 kWh

 

[series530]

Take a look here at any time

33AFGR 3.500kW

Bear in mind that my system is SSW, on a steep roof and suffers a fair bit of shading.

 

[GaryM]

Here's mine GaryM 4kWp 4.000kW

Manchester area, 4kWp (16 x JA Solar 250W mono's), Fronius IG TL 3.6, south facing, 28 degrees, no shading.

 

[Gary K]

3.84 kw system, Norwich. fraction East of south
Almost 180kwh in last 9 days
here

 

[finchy]

Very good post, hopefully all this positive chat about generated power will make the customers sitting fence pull their figures out.

 

[FB.]

Hopefully my signature now contains all you need to know about my system.
:rockon:
.

 

[Mozzerr]

Location:- North Shropshire
Azimuth:- 10 degrees East of due South with 30degree pitch
Environment:- No shade
System:- 16 x Suntellite 250 Black. SMA 4000TF ( 4.0Kw )

Date:- 27 March 2012
Weather:- Slightly hazy all day
Max Temp:- 18 degrees

Today's Graph

 

[Oliver Par]

Location: West Wales
Facing: South
Roof angle: 37 degrees
System: 3.5kW 14 panels

27/03/12 17.94
26/03/12 18.00 (2962 W max)
25/03/12 17.52

All three days, sunny and bright, but hazy in the distance. Quite honestly I was a little disappointed with yesterdays reading as I thought it was clear

 

[firemanowl]

Not had anything to do with solar but what would you class as good performance?

 

[FB.]

Not had anything to do with solar but what would you class as good performance?

That's very dependent on the location, the facing, the roof angle, the panel type, any shading issues and even how two different installers interpret the shading penalty for the SAP calculations and how they lay out the panels to optimise the bypass diodes when shading occurs.
Nowadays, most systems should be outperforming an accurately-estimated SAP by 5-15%, so I'd say:

Adequate performance would be meeting the SAP target or slightly exceeding it by up to 5% on a cumulative basis.

Satisfactory performance would be generating 5-15% more than the SAP target on a cumulative basis.

Good performance would be generating 15-25% more than SAP target on a cumulative basis.

Very good performance would be more than 25% above SAP target on a cumulative basis.

Note that I say "cumulative basis" meaning "all generation since the system was installed" because from day-to-day, or week-to-week, or even month-to-month, the weather can be very variable. But over many months it tends to average-out.

As a very rough guide, each kW of panels, with a typical unshaded 30-45 degree roof, in Central England, would be expected to generate about the following kWh per year, per kW of panels, to meet the SAP target, based on their facing:

675kWh for East or West
775kWh for East-South-East or West-South-West
825kWh for SouthEast or SouthWest
875kWh for South-South-East or South-South-West
900kWh for South

So a 4kWp system, facing South, will have a SAP target around 3600kWh.
Therefore,
"adequate" would be 3400-3800kWh per year
"satisfactory" would be 3800-4100kWh,
"good" would be 4100-4500kWh
"very good" would be more than 4500kWh

 

[FB.]

Hopefully my signature now contains all you need to know about my system.
:rockon:
.

Hopefully there's enough resolution and not too many typo's in the attached table, which suggests DAILY expected generation, which I just put together for when people ask "what should I be generating?"
I take no responsibility for any errors or omissions in the table, or for any use to which it may be put, but to the best of my knowledge and ability, it is approximately correct to SAP equivalent generation statistics.

Just multiply the system size (kWp) by the number given under the appropriate roof pitch/compass facing.

Light shading might lose 10%.
Moderate shading might lose 25%
Heavy shading might lose 50%.

Shading effect can be difficult to predict, with some inverter/panel combinations coping better or worse than others.
An East-facing system might not be troubled by shading after lunchtime. A West-facing system might not be troubled by morning shading.
Peak output will generally be when the sun shines directly at the panels; early morning for East-facing, mid-morning for SE-facing, lunchtime for South-facing, mid-afternoon for SW-facing, late afternoon for West-facing.


My 3.75kWp system, facing SE, 40' pitch, no shading, would be expected to be generating 2.0kWh per kW of installed capacity in March or 2.8 in April, so as today is close to the borderline between March April, if we split the difference between 2.0 and 2.8 - and call it 2.4.
Multiply the 2.4kW with my system size (kWp) of 3.75 to give an estimate of about 9kWh per day at this time of year.
This could be more than halved to below 4.5kWh of generation on cloudy days at this time of year, or more than doubled to over 18kWh of generation on sunny days.

 

[Scobo]

Not quite as good today but still pretty decent.
Some light cloud late afternoon.
13kwh generated.

 

[danesol]

Date:- 28 March 2012
Location North West
Weather:- Hazy high up
Total Generated:- 13.6kwhr

 

[Scobo]

Danesol, you have the same size system as me.
Whats the max watts yours has ever put out ?
The reason I ask is that our inverter is lower specced than yours and wondered if that makes a difference.
Ours went up to 2819 watts a few weeks ago but seems to be maxing around 2200 watts lately probably due to the warmer weather.

 

[danesol]

Danesol, you have the same size system as me.
Whats the max watts yours has ever put out ?
The reason I ask is that our inverter is lower specced than yours and wondered if that makes a difference.
Ours went up to 2819 watts a few weeks ago but seems to be maxing around 2200 watts lately probably due to the warmer weather.

Hi there, same here too, did go as high as 2.8'sh but at the moment is hovering around the 2.4 / 2.5 region around midday - hoping to see close to 3 or above in the coming months....

Comparing our graphs, it would appear yours makes more over the full day as mine tends to maximise when out of shade...............

 

[Scobo]

Hi there, same here too, did go as high as 2.8'sh but at the moment is hovering around the 2.4 / 2.5 region around midday - hoping to see close to 3 or above in the coming months....

Yeah, we were told our system should hit about 3kw.
It'll be interesting to see if your higher specced inverter makes much difference In the summer.
I have a couple of small panels on our garage roof I use to charge a leisure battery.
They don't reach max output until around mid May.

 

[danesol]

Date:- 29 March 2012
Location North West
Weather:- Clear skies but some cloud
Total Generated:- 13.994kwhr




Date:- 30 March 2012
Location North West
Weather:- Heavy Cloud all day
Total Generated:- 2.913kwhr




Talk about chalk & cheese - lol

 

[GaryM]

Same here, pesky North West!

Yesterday - 29th March
Pretty clear all day, 22.87kWh generated
Peak of 3.16kW at 13:50



To this, today - 30th March
Cloudy all day, 5.09kWh generated
Peak of 1.02kW at 14:15



Record to date was the 26th March
Clear all day, 23.47kWh generated
Peak of 3.17kW at 13:45

 

[Scobo]

Our live output from an Owl energy monitor on PVoutput.org ....

Scobo 2.880kW | Live Output

Its showing as consumption as I'm having trouble getting PVbeancounter to upload data from the Owl as generation.
Any advice on this welcome.

 

[pwboston]

My monthly estimate was 286 kw, ts coming to the end of march and ive done 407.7kw. So its been very productive this month

 

[mbuckhurst]

Has anyone got the problem I'm potentially going to have in July/August, my house is super efficient, so consumes around 11kWh in the winter dropping to 8 in the summer, last week on 4 occasions my panels generated 15kWh, so in other words took the electricity meter (old mechanical one) back to around 5 days earlier. So when the panels are working at their optimum in July/August its a very real possibility that we'll be generating enough to consume no electricity at all and possibly the meter will be lower than a month earlier. What happens when you submit a meter reading that's lower or would you simply not tell them and wait until the autumn or winter.

Even more worrying is the system is rated to deliver about 3000, and we consume no more than 3600 annually, so if it exceeds expectations too much, we'll effectively consume nothing.

mike

 

[provr6]

If you give them a reading less than the previous one, they will likely change your meter to a newer one. Timing your readings so it dosen't look like its going backwards is an option, but potentially fraudulent. Even if you do it that way, your readings will go up so slow they will likely want to do an inspection and change the meter at some point in the future most likely.

 

[GaryM]

Has anyone got the problem I'm potentially going to have in July/August, my house is super efficient, so consumes around 11kWh in the winter dropping to 8 in the summer, last week on 4 occasions my panels generated 15kWh, so in other words took the electricity meter (old mechanical one) back to around 5 days earlier. So when the panels are working at their optimum in July/August its a very real possibility that we'll be generating enough to consume no electricity at all and possibly the meter will be lower than a month earlier. What happens when you submit a meter reading that's lower or would you simply not tell them and wait until the autumn or winter.

Even more worrying is the system is rated to deliver about 3000, and we consume no more than 3600 annually, so if it exceeds expectations too much, we'll effectively consume nothing.

mike

If I was in your position then I'd stop using my shower off the combi boiler and start using my electric one. I'd also have a few heaters to balance figures out.
A patio heater would also be good for the upcoming months......

 

[Earthstore]

You are supposed to tell your enrgy provider, as you have made changes to your system by adding a PV system, so as pointed out it is fraud and you could be prosecuted, as far as I am aware that has not happened yet, but you do not want to be the first do you.

Of course, when you notice it is up to you, and if your energy consumption should rise a little so you do not have a negative reading then it may not show up.

I hope this helps.

 

[GaryM]

March was a great month for generation, especially the latter end.
PVGIS estimated figures for March in my area (Manchester M46) were 262kWh, my generation figures ended up at 385kWh so much higher than anticipated at +47%

Best day was 26th March with 23.47kWh
Worst day was 9th March with 1.8kWh
Daily average - 12.423kWh
Generation per kWp - 96.25kWh

 

[FB.]

My system and summary for March:

3.75kWp (15x250W) Kinve KV250-60M, Power One Aurora PVI-3600-UK (indoor model).
Cambridgeshire, facing between East-South-East and South-East, roof slope 40 degrees, no shading.
Usual time of peak generation in ideal conditions: 9-11am.


Target for March: 236kWh
Actual generation for March: 293kWh (+24%)

Best day: 18.4kWh on 26th March
Peaking around 90% of capacity (3.25kW) mid-morning on the best days.

Worst day: 1.6kWh on 04th March

Daily average: 9.4kWh

 

[Scobo]

Not going to be worth mentioning today.
Thick cloud and snow here in Fife all morning.

 

[danesol]

Not going to be worth mentioning today.
Thick cloud and snow here in Fife all morning.

You may be in for a surprise then as snow or fog didnt seem to effect mine really........... but think dirty clouds will

 

[Scobo]

You may be in for a surprise then as snow or fog didnt seem to effect mine really........... but think dirty clouds will

Not sure about that.
Our inverter didn't fire up until 8.20am this morning and we've only made 1.8kwh so far !

 

[FB.]

Not a bad day here, in Cambridgeshire.

Peaked briefly at 95% of capacity around 10.30am (3.4kW output).
Generated 13.4kWh (target 9.5). Sunny spells turning cloudy later.
Total generation since installation: 17% above SAP target.

 

[Scobo]

Ended up with 6.5kwh for the day thanks to some late afternoon sun.
Hardly a cloud in the sky tonight so might be a better day tomorrow.

 

[danesol]

Well started the month of well with nearly 15kwh total generation, but for the following two days, we've had sub 5kwhr both days, if that wasnt bad enough we now have the threat of snow due !!

 

[mbuckhurst]

If I was in your position then I'd stop using my shower off the combi boiler and start using my electric one. I'd also have a few heaters to balance figures out.
A patio heater would also be good for the upcoming months......

Thanks everyone for the answers, unfortunately as we also have solar thermal panels we don't heat water for showers in the summer and in fact you could make cups of coffee out of the water coming from the tank, it's practically impossible to use the energy sensibly and maybe patio heaters are the best idea.... oh well we'll just have to see what happens.

mike

 

[finchy]

I spoke to a customer earlier he told me his 3 and 6 month readings. Just looked it up against his SAP estimate it's looking at 50% up ! I'm going to get the sunny beam download to check.....

Has anyone else had this level of difference vs SAP 2009 !?!

30 degree
South
No shading
Sanyo hit 250 x 7
SMA 1700

Customer reading :
Oct -Dec 290kwh
Jan -Mar 390kwh

Estimate :
Oct -Dec 200kwh
Jan -Mar 254kwh

 

[Scobo]

Haven't had a SAP estimate but were dead on target according to the PV-SOL estimate we got although we only had our system installed end of February.