diy solar

diy solar

December PV starting off crappy again.

Man this thread speaks my language after installing my first array last year. December and January were awful. This month has been amazing, but the weekend starts a downturn.

I have another 8.5kW of panels arriving this week, I am really looking at what I can do to pick up more morning sun right now.However, I am sure that any east facing panels are not as useful as my standard south facing overall.
 
timselectric said:
February is starting off better. I've been gaining a little capacity each day.
Tomorrow, my system should reach 100% SOC. This will be the first time it has accomplished this without assistance, since November.
I'm not counting on it, but February is going better than expected.
So far......
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And of course, mother nature brings clouds today. lol
 
jarred125 said:
Man this thread speaks my language after installing my first array last year. December and January were awful. This month has been amazing, but the weekend starts a downturn.

I have another 8.5kW of panels arriving this week, I am really looking at what I can do to pick up more morning sun right now.However, I am sure that any east facing panels are not as useful as my standard south facing overall.
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Panel azimuth depends on a few factors. If you have a large array and maxing out the at noon, changing azimuth on other arrays may help with maxing out the SCC's for longer periods.

If you are like me and have more SCC capacity then panels, I would suggest due south azimuth for peak production. Arrays off due south will not put out full capacity, however changing array tilt may help.

If shading is an issue during certain times of the day, it might be beneficial to change azimuth to minimize shading losses.
 
February has been pretty good so far. 99.4Kwh of loads powered and battery charged 63.6Kwh- total 163Kwh. From 8.4Kw of panels.
 
Best day ever for me, filled my Delta 2 max from empty to full with three Hyundai 300W panels. Need to get more cables to add a fourth and that should get me pretty close to the 500W per input max. Next step, six of the 300Ws into a mobile 36V 100Ah bank.

Screenshot_20240206_160756_Gallery.jpg
 
February has been good in eastern iowa, 3 powerpros full before 1 pm. See how long I can stay off grid using 60% of my batteries. Want to add some solar fence to boost cloudy days. Anyone using vertical bifacials?
 
James Getman said:
February has been good in eastern iowa, 3 powerpros full before 1 pm. See how long I can stay off grid using 60% of my batteries. Want to add some solar fence to boost cloudy days. Anyone using vertical bifacials?
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@shadowmaker has vertical covered.
Thread 'My 44kW vertical and bifacial set in Finland.' https://diysolarforum.com/threads/my-44kw-vertical-and-bifacial-set-in-finland.51584/

Edit to add some recent good discussion on vertical starts here.
Post in thread 'My 44kW vertical and bifacial set in Finland.' https://diysolarforum.com/threads/my-44kw-vertical-and-bifacial-set-in-finland.51584/post-997436
 
James Getman said:
February has been good in eastern iowa, 3 powerpros full before 1 pm. See how long I can stay off grid using 60% of my batteries. Want to add some solar fence to boost cloudy days. Anyone using vertical bifacials?
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Thought about mounting vertical on the south wall of the shop and storage shed above the overhead doors.

Noticed the roof overhang might shade panels and it would require RSD.

Maybe someday if I run out of locations for tilting ground mounts. I doubt it will occur.

I tilted panels to 53° today from 65°, it's been 47 days since winter solstice. I thought under peak sun I was losing a slight amount of PV yield.
 
This week was fantastic. Today was about 14kWh lower than yesterday though, tomorrow we won't make much. I did receive my new panels .. 16 535W bifacial. Sadly one is totally shattered and useless, but hey, still .. 15 panels.
 
jarred125 said:
This week was fantastic. Today was about 14kWh lower than yesterday though, tomorrow we won't make much. I did receive my new panels .. 16 535W bifacial. Sadly one is totally shattered and useless, but hey, still .. 15 panels.
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This is my biggest fear 😨... broken panels why freight company why!
 
Got just under 3kwh today, had clouds later in the day, plus battery wasn't as low this morning, so not as much to charge. Today was actually our lowest production for the month.. We're just under 40KWh for the month, or just under 5K/day. We got some rain due this weekend so that'll eat into production, but, later next week is supposed to be decent weather. This might end up being our first 100KWh month if the weather cooperates.

Since the sun is coming up over the hills around 8am, I'm getting a bit of power (~90W) then, and by 8:50 or so the array gets up to real operational voltage (>350V) and power (>1KW). Barring any clouds, it stays around those voltages until 5pm. And each new day means that window expands by a couple minutes.
 
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trdstarlet said:
This is my biggest fear 😨... broken panels why freight company why!
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Not the freight company in this case ... whoever packaged this was not good at it. It was dangerous to actually unpack because it was so unstable.

Edit: I reached out to the company I purchased from and they were very quick to refund me. I honestly ordered a couple extra just in case of this.

Of course though the weather is going to turn bad for a few days. I will have to wait to get my new ground mounts installed. :(
 
jarred125 said:
Not the freight company in this case ... whoever packaged this was not good at it. It was dangerous to actually unpack because it was so unstable.

Edit: I reached out to the company I purchased from and they were very quick to refund me. I honestly ordered a couple extra just in case of this.

Of course though the weather is going to turn bad for a few days. I will have to wait to get my new ground mounts installed. :(
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Yes that is usually the best and smart thing to do! Luckily I have sourced all my PV locally... but i did have issues with the 18Kpv, batteries and server rack delivery.
 
I hadn't turned off my heat pump since Sunday morning, we were in West Virginia on Friday and Saturday picking up the gasification wood boiler so no one was home. Weatherman said mostly cloudy today so I turned off the heat pump before daylight this morning. When the sun came up, the heat pump was turned back on as it was bright clear sky. I ran the heat pump most of last week. Weatherman has been off by about 180 all winter.

Propane truck came today, I had prepaid on 1000 gallons and took delivery today. Normally house uses 800 gallon a year, we usually top off in August during summer fill. House took 394 gallons since August and that includes the water heater and stove. I have a pair of 500 gallon tanks for the house, I knew when I switched tanks it was just over 350 gallons.

I did a little math as to how much wood it would take for a winter a little colder than this combined with using heat pumps when temps are above 5 to 10F and we have sun. It will take less than 3 cords of wood for the really cold and sunless periods over winter.

I'm adding another heat pump in the kitchen this year and more panels and batteries. We will never be able to heat off solar but we can sure get it down to very little.
 
Zwy said:
I hadn't turned off my heat pump since Sunday morning, we were in West Virginia on Friday and Saturday picking up the gasification wood boiler so no one was home. Weatherman said mostly cloudy today so I turned off the heat pump before daylight this morning. When the sun came up, the heat pump was turned back on as it was bright clear sky. I ran the heat pump most of last week. Weatherman has been off by about 180 all winter.

Propane truck came today, I had prepaid on 1000 gallons and took delivery today. Normally house uses 800 gallon a year, we usually top off in August during summer fill. House took 394 gallons since August and that includes the water heater and stove. I have a pair of 500 gallon tanks for the house, I knew when I switched tanks it was just over 350 gallons.

I did a little math as to how much wood it would take for a winter a little colder than this combined with using heat pumps when temps are above 5 to 10F and we have sun. It will take less than 3 cords of wood for the really cold and sunless periods over winter.

I'm adding another heat pump in the kitchen this year and more panels and batteries. We will never be able to heat off solar but we can sure get it down to very little.
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I installed three mini split units last year replacing our central system. House is warmer/cooler and for much less. Bonus is solar has no issues powering it.
 
jarred125 said:
I installed three mini split units last year replacing our central system. House is warmer/cooler and for much less. Bonus is solar has no issues powering it.
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It gets -20°F for several weeks most winters. It did it this year but sun shines on those days but it hard to overcome the cold, usually I run electric resistance as a heating dump load then. The last 2 weeks of December and first 2 weeks of January we had 3 days with any sun. That was tough and those 2 reasons are why we couldn't make it thru on just solar.

On days of good sun and expected to get over 70% charge, the heat pump is on, many days electric resistance heaters too and the house is over 76°F. The heating dump loads sure make for a nice temp in the house.
 
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