Finally, the start of my 25kw Ground Mount grid-tie system

[live4soccer7]

It is crazy how much the heat decreases efficiency.

 

[Sanwizard]

It is crazy how much the heat decreases efficiency.

I would love to get some REC panels, but it seems nobody carries them, and the installers who do use them charge way too much. They seem to handle heat the best though.

 

[live4soccer7]

June's numbers:

Projected 6.28MWh
Produced: 7.53MWh

19.9.% over projection

 

[wattmatters]

19.9.% over projection

Killing it.

It's Winter here but June was pretty decent relative to prior years, with 26% more output that the average of the previous fours years.

 

[live4soccer7]

@wattmatters That's awesome!

 

[pilotdrh]

So at least 1 situation where "over" is good. ?

 

[live4soccer7]

hahaha

 

[wattmatters]

Here's a long term view of our daily grid PV production showing when Summer and Winter Solstices occur:

 

[AntronX]

Here's a long term view of our daily grid PV production showing when Summer and Winter Solstices occur:

Very few days of less than 15 kWh daily production. Nice.

 

[wattmatters]

Very few days of less than 15 kWh daily production. Nice.

The charting kind of hides the fine detail.

Of the 1694 days, 142 (8.4%) had production of less than 15 kWh.

Here's the frequency distribution:

 

[live4soccer7]

Wow. I definitely missed some posts. great charts and info!

July numbers are in:

Projected: 7.86MWh
Actual: 8.75MWh
Over produced by: 11.3%

I adjusted some things on PVwatts to hopefully give an even more accurate representation of production through the year. Once I have a full year of data I'll post of the entire year month by month. The projected numbers will be slightly different than shown previously due to the adjustments I made.

 

[wattmatters]

July numbers are in:

Projected: 7.86MWh

Nice. Your system is going really well. Being an unshaded field array makes it far more predictable than mine as I have variable shading impacts from trees.

Your July production was 6.39 kWh per kW of PV.

July for us was pretty decent compared with the previous four years, although 2021 was our best July. It's Winter here of course.

PV PRODUCTION kWh
Jul                GRID   OFF-GRID   TOTAL
2019              711.3              711.3
2020              569.6              569.6
2021              890.2              890.2
2022              761.8    111.3     873.1     
2023              827.9    144.6     972.5
.
Grid = 11 kW PV
Off-grid = 2.2 kW PV

Can see how variable the weather can be year to year and its effect on production. July 2021 was nearly 50% more output than 2020!

Pylon Observer predicts our grid PV should generate 837.6 kWh in July, with another 148.6 kWh of potential output lost to shading (based on the modelled trees). Here's production on our best July day (37.5 kWh) showing the way shading impacts the array's generation curve:

 

[live4soccer7]

I think I came across pylon when I was going my property, but I didnt 'have the premium sub. I get hit with some tree shading in the winter on the last 1/3 of the day or so.

Thus far I'm happy. It's running well. I haven't cleaned the panels once nor had to do anything else. This fall I will go re-torque everything on the racking. It's performing as expected, so that's really all I'm after with the month to month numbers. Really just a couple months really would tell me that.

 

[wattmatters]

I haven't cleaned the panels once nor had to do anything else.

Haven't cleaned ours since installation in October 2018. They could use a wipe, more for aesthetics than production.

 

[Sanwizard]

Haven't cleaned ours since installation in October 2018. They could use a wipe, more for aesthetics than production.

Interesting. I just moved to South Carolina, and found that EVERYTHING turns green every year from all the pollen. The panels get a good coating, as do the cars and porches. Its a must to clean everything off, and its a pain.

I am longing for a ground mount, but the wife is totally against it due to asthetics and loss of yard.

 

[wattmatters]

I just moved to South Carolina, and found that EVERYTHING turns green every year from all the pollen.

I'm northern NSW Australia, close enough to halfway between Sydney and Brisbane. We get pretty regular rainfall that does the panel washing for us. Just need to keep an eye on lichen growth. I need a long handled washer brush to reach the top row. Fortunately my roof is pretty safe to walk around as the pitch of the roof over the wide eaves is shallow.

 

[live4soccer7]

@wattmatters I like the setup! looks great. It looks like a good solar day too on that day.

We get a season of pollen here too. We don't get much rain in the summer here. It usually rains a couple times. I'm pretty much just counting on that to clean the panels. It's just not worth the time otherwise and hosing them down with well/tap water may do more harm than good by leaving hard water spots all over them.

 

[Rollann Cerry]

I appreciate the reply and will definitely take a look at PVwatts. Since it is grid tied, I don't think it really matters what time of day the power is generated and the most generated power overall is what would be important. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Agree， The most generated power overall is more important

 

[live4soccer7]

It's been a crazy last couple weeks. I almost lost my home and the solar field from wildfire. So many of the homes on our lake, friends and family, were lost. The fire burned right up to my property and stopped. I attribute this to three things, the adjoining property just mowed their grass/field/weeds, I have pretty much all dead space (no trees, lawn, gravel), and sheer luck. next to the solar field I do have tall grass/field that I have cut every year except this year due to running out of time and then getting too dry to risk cutting it and starting a fire. If my home would have gone it had an easy path through about 100 homes.

As if the fire wasn't enough we were here defending our properties from looters for the next 10 days. They were by land and by boat/water. It was ridiculous.

I took the family to safety when we were forced to evacuate. Technically they can't force you, but still. I would not have wanted them anywhere near this place during the fire. I came back as soon as I knew I could "sneak back in" to assist with hotspots around the property and to protect against looters. This was the following morning. We had to evac around 4pm the evening before.

I have a day where production wasn't recorded for whatever reason, so maybe 200kW/h not accounted for. I under produced according to projections in August, by a fair amount actually. I'll get some numbers up soon.

 

[wattmatters]

Holy crap. Glad you and your family are safe. Sorry to hear about all the homes lost. That's awful. Looters on top, ugh.

I wondered why no August report.

Reminds me of our horrendous 2019/20 fire season. We were on evac watch for a long time, emergency kit packed and ready to go. So much devastation. Fortunately it stopped a few km from here, a weather/wind change saved us.

I have a day where production wasn't recorded for whatever reason, so maybe 200kW/h not accounted for. I under produced according to projections in August, by a fair amount actually. I'll get some numbers up soon.

Power outages? In any case, not that important all things considered.

Bit concerned for this Summer as it has been fairly dry Winter here.