Bad days for Solar Production.

[Zwy]

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?

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.

 

[timselectric]

Finally made it to 100% without assistance from the grid.
First time since November. Things are looking up.
It was a beautiful day.

 

[jarred125]

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.

 

[trdstarlet]

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.

This is my biggest fear ... broken panels why freight company why!

 

[Subdood]

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.

 

[jarred125]

This is my biggest fear ... broken panels why freight company why!

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.

 

[trdstarlet]

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.

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.

 

[Zwy]

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.

 

[jarred125]

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.

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.

 

[Zwy]

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.

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.

 

[B-Mod]

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.

Past few days it has been sunny and I have been home sick, so I got the house to 80, basement to 82, shut off before 4pm, and it is still close to 70 degrees the next morning to start the process again. I love free heat.

 

[B-Mod]

I am liking February, so far.

 

[millsan1]

Feb has been good for me. I haven't drawn from the grid since Saturday and batteries are at 90% at 8PM. Tomorrow is t supposed to be great, but I am pretty confident we will go until Saturday before we need grid.

 

[PreppenWolf]

We had out first 100% sunny day in probably 5 weeks. 41.8kWh today from our 15kWh array. 10% better than last year due to our new panel positions. February would be amazing if it weren't cloudy 90% of the time.

 

[jarred125]

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.

Yeah totally understand that, we couldn’t make it either this winter on just solar. Winter was quite bad for sun.

 

[GXMnow]

Today was my best PV Solar production of 2024 yet!

And we had a 4.6 Earthquake about 30 miles away. I was at work and the building wiggled pretty good. I was working inside our screening room which is actually isolated and floats on pads for sound deadening. The people in the regular office space felt it a lot harder.

My 4.8 KW Enphase system produced 18.9 KWH for 3.94 sun hours
MY 2 KW Victron DC system produced 7.6 KWHs for 3.8 sun hours
That is 26.5 KWHs of total production.

That is tracking pretty close. The battery ran low enough that the DC system didn't have to go into Absorb or float, but it was right there. The voltage peaked just shy at 57.48 volts reported in the Victron app, absorb is set to 57.6 volts. The Schneider app is still reporting a bit higher voltage, showing a peak of 57.77 volts before the sun dropped enough that the battery began discharging again. Most likely it is going to top out the battery tomorrow and drop to float mode. In past years, I will exceed this by another 60% in May when the sum is right in line with my panel angle.

 

[shadowmaker]

Got 190kWh yesterday out of my 44kWp which seems to be max at this time of year (-27C morning, -15C afternoon, snow on the ground). All time best so far has been 334kWh from start of April last year, so things should go up pretty fast from here. PVWatts predicts almost 2,8MWh this month, which seems awfully high when you are still used to 2-5kWh daily yields in December.

 

[AZ Solar Junkie]

Finally - with the days slowly getting longer, the sun rising higher in the sky, and some creative rearrangement of my backyard panels - even transplanting a small palm tree - as of three days ago I'm no longer needing to supplement the solar with any grid power at all. Woo-hoo!

 

[Brucey]

Let me throw my hat in the ring. Apologies to anyone I may outproduce

 

[AZ Solar Junkie]

Let me throw my hat in the ring. Apologies to anyone I may outproduce

View attachment 195289

lol - had to look at it twice - thought it read 10kWh at first

 

[timselectric]

I've been lucky. Running autonomously since the beginning of February.
I'm back, yeah baby.

 

[42OhmsPA]

Nearly halfway through February and I've done better than December thanks to adding 720W of panels and the Victron.

 

[Q-Dog]

We added a couple more panels right around the solstice, so every few days I can tell my wife we just had our best solar day ever. We had a beautiful clear and cool day today so in a few minutes I'll probably be able to say it again.

 

[Brucey]

We added a couple more panels right around the solstice, so every few days I can tell my wife we just had our best solar day ever. We had a beautiful clear and cool day today so in a few minutes I'll probably be able to say it again.

Did you see sig solar has free shipping on 10 or more panels? When I bought my 10 Hyundai 300W they only had the $150 shipping promo. So can potentially put the savings towards some 400W bifacial talesuns at $108, very similar Voc, just more amps.

Talesun 400W Bifacial Solar Panel (Black) | Up to 500W of Bifacial Gain | TP7G54M(H)

Signature Solar provides solar panels, off-grid solar systems, grid-tie, and hybrid systems. Quality solar inverters, bifacial solar panels, complete solar kits, solar batteries. Featuring brands such as EG4 Electronics with their solar battery, LifePower4 and EG4 LLifePower4 and EG4 LL

signaturesolar.com

 

[42OhmsPA]

If you're looking for a pallet and don't mind silver frames it might be worth seeing if Inxeption will quote one.

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