Power Production This Time of Year!

[MattMan119]

Looks like we really take a hit on solar production in the winter months even down here is Florida..

Was getting 60kwh-70kwh a day in on Home System .. Now getting 25-30kwh (~34-42% of prior)
Was getting 20-26kwh a day in RV system .. Now getting 11-12kwh (~46-55%)

Is this a normal year? Something that has a bit of a impact, as does usage, that is way down as A/C usage is way lower in winter months.

 

[LordGarak]

You got it good down in Florida. Up here in Atlantic Canada we see like 1/6th the kWh this time of year compared to June. That is if we get sun. Back in November we had 3 weeks of grey skies and rain. My 3900watt array wasn't producing much more than 1kWh a day. Every two days we needed to run the generator to charge the battery bank back up.

 

[timselectric]

Pretty standard.
Winter production sucks.

 

[wildbillpdx]

I live in Oregon and we've had lots of rain and clouds. Production is low, but I use grid to recharge the batteries. Seems cheaper than gas and a generator.

 

[45North]

Welcome to the winter solstice. Best you can do is tip your panels a little steeper. Latitude plus 15 deg for winter.
Things should slowly get better in the new year. Don't forget to clear the snow off.

 

[jorby]

I live on the Oregon coast. On Dec 9th. it was a "perfect" day for me with 58kwh. Most of the winter will be really sucky, but this shows what could happen this time of year except for the rain etc. The blue line is solar input.

 

[Solar Guppy]

The hours of daylight are shorter, the winter solstice is Dec 21st, which for our hemisphere is the shortest ( daylight ) of the year.

Sun Angle also changes, but that would depend on the angle one has chosen to mount that panels at.

Shortest: December 21st

Sunrise: 7:18am
Sunset: 5:40pm

Total daylight: 10:22

Longest: June 21st

Total daylight: 14:56

Sunrise: 6:35am
Sunset: 8:31pm

 

[jorby]

I live in Oregon and we've had lots of rain and clouds. Production is low, but I use grid to recharge the batteries. Seems cheaper than gas and a generator.

View attachment 263210

View attachment 263211

I like that 195kwh peak in July!

 

[timselectric]

Sun angle does the most damage for me. Because the sun spends most of the shorter days behind the hill to my south.

 

[ricardocello]

Neighbor’s toothpick trees to my south. Only get about 2 hours of unobstructed sun. Not much I can do.

 

[green mountain boys]

Neighbor’s toothpick trees to my south. Only get about 2 hours of unobstructed sun. Not much I can do.

Ask your neighbor if he needs some firewood? Offer to cut em down and process the wood for him. Win/Win!

 

[J.H.]

There’s only two things we needs to have truly excellent solar production year round, 24/7..

1) Buy into a condo complex that is in a polar SSO ( sun- synchronous orbit) and live in space ….

2) Have access in the complex’s community area to a Transporter to make 10 second trips back to earth when/where you wish ( shopping, errands, visits etc…)

Simple as that ….

J.

 

[MattMan119]

Going to try and hook up 6 extra panels in the grass just to keep the grid usage off … I hate using it now, but not sure if I can avoid it when I’m here full time.

So today I connected 3 of the 6 … it’s a start, should get the other three tomorrow.

 

[Brucey]

$15 each, if only I lived within driving range....

 

[MattMan119]

$15 each, if only I lived within driving range....

I should have got 100 of them .. lol

 

[Mattb4]

Just a few more days till Solar New years! No more watching the daily average production dwindle and instead it will slowly increase.

Celebrations for Solar New years involve not staying up late burning precious battery capacity. Resolutions for the coming year usually involve planning for more PV and more batteries. A few plan on getting more lean in terms of loads. That type of resolution always fades quickly once the Spring bounty of production makes for energy surpluses.

 

[DavidAmon]

Even commercial solar with tracking systems suffer this time of year. My 180 MW plant maxes at about 120 MW per hour this time of year in Arkansas. It is strange though as in January we are closest to the sun and have the coolest temperatures so we should get the most solar power, but due to the tilt of the earth that production is curtailed. Additional tilt to the south may help, but also we loose energy as the distance the suns energy travels through the atmosphere is increased causing less of the light to get to the panels.

 

[Farm Boy]

This is a good reason not to have your grid line cut at the head of your lane to get out of the monthly fee.

 

[SunDave]

I live in Oregon and we've had lots of rain and clouds. Production is low, but I use grid to recharge the batteries. Seems cheaper than gas and a generator.

Hi WildBill,
Just an FYI, there are conversion losses with charging from grid, then using. It may be more economical to use the grid directly, and keep your battery at a set percentage of charge in case of power loss. Depending on your inverter setup, you should still be able to use PV directly to power loads when you do get some sun.

May be worth considering as a winter mode. Converting from AC to DC, then back to AC has some serious losses. I ran the way you did for a while, but then found that it was more efficient to set a battery % to not go below, and use grid directly for the times the battery does hit that threshold.

 

[EPicTony]

I live in Oregon and we've had lots of rain and clouds. Production is low, but I use grid to recharge the batteries. Seems cheaper than gas and a generator.

Why not just run off the grid ? That's what I do. There are inefficiencies using the grid to charge the batteries. I only use solar to charge my batteries. If there is a grid down, I have 2 generators that I can use to charge up the batteries if needed.

 

[MattMan119]

Just a few more days till Solar New years! No more watching the daily average production dwindle and instead it will slowly increase.

Celebrations for Solar New years involve not staying up late burning precious battery capacity. Resolutions for the coming year usually involve planning for more PV and more batteries. A few plan on getting more lean in terms of loads. That type of resolution always fades quickly once the Spring bounty of production makes for energy surpluses.

Yes, looking forward to watch it go up each day .. I added 6x250w panels to see what could be done about this .. and it is helping a lot ..


Not sure it will be enough, but if not, i will deal with it then .. also have extra 15kwh battery size increase, this should help with them off days in the winter..

This is a good reason not to have your grid line cut at the head of your lane to get out of the monthly fee.

Got to figure out away to deal, when the zombie apocalypse hits that kind of talk will not help you be prepared

 

[SparkyJJO]

Pretty standard.
Winter production sucks.

Yup.
Makes me a sad panda.

 

[timselectric]

Each year, the plan is to do better next year.

 

[42OhmsPA]

Hardly any feast and lots of famine this time of year...

Unfortunately SA doesn't capture my grid usage from the rectifier....

 

[timselectric]

Unfortunately SA doesn't capture my grid usage from the rectifier....

I keep thinking that I should switch to a spare Growatt for grid charging, so that Solar Assistant can track it. But then I remember that the end goal is to never use the grid. So, it would be a waste of time to implement it. lol