Devising a solution short overcast winter days

[12VoltInstalls]

No room or desire for a pallet.

Buy a pallet

I’d be inclined to buy a pallet and sell all but four or six panels for 10% over your total investment each for the lot, and 15- or 20% over cost for onesey twosies, each.

build asteep angled rack on the rock next to cabin facing the sun. I dont think that I want to roof mount any more panels. It is too steep to stand on and required a custom built scaffolding

I’d vertical mount them at northern latitudes. The “loss” at this time of year from not having tilt is negligible and pretty much guarantees no snow buildup.
On a sunny winter day one of my 400W arrays can put out 350-375W+ in vertical mounting. Low temps raise output, and no snow is worth the bit of potential harvest reduction.

system made 0.8kw with an array rated at 1960kw so about 7.35%

In round numbers, 10% is typical ratio for easy figuring. So that’s basically normal.

long summer months could produce easily 42kw a day which I could never store or use.

That is the net result of overpaneling at higher latitudes for sure. While I’m ‘struggling’ this month, as usual, in May I’ll often if not always be fully charged by 8am.

 

[MTM98290]

I’d be inclined to buy a pallet and sell all but four or six panels for 10% over your total investment each for the lot, and 15- or 20% over cost for onesey twosies, each.

I’d vertical mount them at northern latitudes. The “loss” at this time of year from not having tilt is negligible and pretty much guarantees no snow buildup.
On a sunny winter day one of my 400W arrays can put out 350-375W+ in vertical mounting. Low temps raise output, and no snow is worth the bit of potential harvest reduction.

In round numbers, 10% is typical ratio for easy figuring. So that’s basically normal.

That is the net result of overpaneling at higher latitudes for sure. While I’m ‘struggling’ this month, as usual, in May I’ll often if not always be fully charged by 8am.

Do panels sell well on offerup or craigslist? I would not ship them, I would want to sell them quick. As I read it diy systems have no warrantee and most solar in my area seems to be grid tied systems installed by big dollar solar contractors.

 

[12VoltInstalls]

Do panels sell well on offerup or craigslist? I would not ship them, I would want to sell them quick. As I read it diy systems have no warrantee and most solar in my area seems to be grid tied systems installed by big dollar solar contractors.

Well I spent a couple of months trying to be the first reply to buy panels.

Eventually I was first or second on an ad for brand new 315W unused extras; he had a bunch but I couldn’t drive down for a couple of days. By the time I got there I bought the last six instead of the eight I had wanted. (Six panels only have two ganged-string possibilities, while 2,4,8,12,16,24etc weave together better)

I was fortunate to buy them for ~40cents/watt, however.

So here in Vermont/Massachusetts/New York they do sell well on socmedia ad platforms.

You should be able to get a pretty good discount on a bound pallet, and your picking them up is a real cost. So you sell them over your cost but maybe in the range of what the supplier sells onesie twosies. Of course if they’ll sell broken pallet you might not want to buy a full bound pallet if it doesn’t make financial sense to you.

 

[HighDesertOffgrid]

Buy a pallet

Winter production on a short solstice day at my setup is about 3% of array nameplate.

Ouch! Is that with the array angle optimized for winter?

 

[Checkthisout]

Ouch! Is that with the array angle optimized for winter?

Ha ha. When in doubt, panel your way out.

 

[HighDesertOffgrid]

Ha ha. When in doubt, panel your way out.

Well, it works for me. But I have acres of unobstructed desert and Santan Solar on speed dial.

 

[12VoltInstalls]

Ouch! Is that with the array angle optimized for winter?

Had to’ve been some clouds involved, too

 

[MTM98290]

I found a good price on a new generator that should make the Growatt happy. It is A Westinghouse igen4500DFC. It is quiet and efficient, although not big enough to charge while consuming power, but efficient use of fuel is a much larger conceen to me than having the ability to charge while using full power.

I am a little confused by floating neutral. The way I read it that just means that the frame of the generator is not bonded to neutral. The generator will be in place of the grid so I have no need for a transfer switch. The way I read it that should allow the ground to be provided through the grounded 120V AC breaker panel in the house.

The Growatt is unmodified so it should have neutral-ground bonding as I read it. The output of the inverter to the AC panel is grounded into a busbar where the groundwire to the rod is attached.

Is this all proper? It seems to me that this all works and only provides 1 point to ground, but maybe I am missing something.

 

[Phil.g00]

I have also considered using a DC generator as a solution.
This is what I may try when I get around to it.
A 96V DC generator through an MPPT. I think that way, the DC voltage can vary, and the MPPT can fine-tune the voltage to the desired charging stage.
I haven't shopped around particularly, other than knowing 96V dc generators exist.