When can you expect to see the optimum performance from the solar pv.
We have a small system, just 3kwh installed since late November.
The max I have seen it get up to is about 1.7kwh in terms of monitoring.
It has generated almost 7kwh today but has never gone beyond 1.45kwh at any stage.
They are perched on the roof with no obstruction in full sun.
Hey up mate. The highest production is a factor of a couple of things.
If you panels are facing exactly due south, then they will generate max output at "solar noon". Solar noon of course isn't at 12pm, as we're a bit further west than London, so in Lmk (being 9 degrees west) solar noon is about 36 minutes later so in about 12:36. If your panels are facing a little further west (say 195 degrees) then the time would be a little later in the day, which you can see from your chart above. So I'd suspect from the chart that you panels are orientated that way.
As the sun climbs higher and higher in the sky as the seasons change towards summer, your panels will generate more and more as we get towards June - after that then they'll slowly start to produce less and less until December and the whole cycle starts again.
The changes per day in output are quite small this time of year, you have to compare week by week at best, but by mid March you'll be probably 2.2-2.3Kw or so
Great post. I imagine the angle (pitch) of the roof can impact a little on output as well.
Thanks for the update. Much appreciated as always :)
The panels are South West facing at 35 degrees.
Absolutely. And that's why you see those solar tracker moving the panels around to face the sun like this jobbie changing the pitch angle from day to day as well as east to west. If you've got 15 mins or so this gives a decent intro.
How Solar Trackers Work - YouTube
Great for professional solar farms, for us though the cost in the gimbles etc and the fact that most of us bolt ours onto the roof it's a non-runner, and that's ok. Our fixed panels on the roof get like 60-70% of the max power thats there.....it's worth the drop in efficiency for a simpler system. We don't have the problems of gusts catching the panels and behaving like a "sail" on the roof etc.
Over 10kWh today. Not bad for the first half of January! Saw 2.3kW at around midday. Down to 10W now, sunset is already kicking in
Good day again today, 11.72kWh. Slight interruption at lunchtime when ESB Networks arrived to install the smart meter 😏. Presumably they take a final meter reading on the old meter? The new one is still at 0.0 a few hours later 😀
Another good day also. I guess this is exceptional weather for January.
Cracking day; 11.9kWh
15.4kw today
Obviously not as good as all you lads but highest day this month with 4.8kWh. Shading and angle of my south west panels really limits my winter generation 😕
Beaten badly again. 4.3Kwh off a 5.3 Kwp (E/W spit) in Dublin. I reckon another month/6 weeks of hurting
....and then I'll have my day. Oh yes - I'll have my day! Just you wait ! LOL !!
Tipped over 20 kWh today...💪 tbh most of it went back to line the pockets of Mr. ESB 😪 I had all my washing done yesterday..
Good start to the month overall though.
gonna have to ignore this thread for a few months...
10.5kWh today it is good start of the month
is like solar top trumps😂 although bif has us all beat.
Best day with us so far with all generated being consumed by the Eddi and Zappi over the last couple of days which equates to 160km of free driving so happy out.
😂. It is irrationally satisfying (beyond the monetary concerns involved) to fill the car with solar energy.
20.7 kWh here in galway today.
Cracking week but tomorrow sadly not looking as good
Dublin is reporting (according to the Met Eireann site) that tomorrow will be fractionary better than today. We'll see, but sounds promising.
That is for sure. Looking forward to our first leccy bill since installation, not be something I'd normally think 😄
Bit of a swing from the highs of yesterday and the rest of the week not looking much better.
The highs and lows of PV in Ireland!
Decent day today despite the clouds, 10.9 kw.
Yeha, not a bad old day considered.
Tomorrow (Monday) and tuesday looking good according to the forecast.
Good day for the PV.
Expecting good production today due to clear skies and sub-zero temperatures.
Perfect generation curve so far, and already generating in excess of 1kW.
Looking like a good day indeed, tipping 2kW at 10:30 so glad the car is plugged in.
A few peaks and troughs yesterday but about the third best day of the month so far.
Just catching up on this thread. Like the rest of you E/W installs this is the time of the year my production is hurting. Got 3.7kWh today so highest for the year so far. But thanks to the DIY 10kWh battery and night time charging my grid import for the first 16 days is 61 day/349 night.
@bullit_dodger Convention is to take the angle of incidence as 0 when the sum is directly overhead the panels so you'd be taking cos not sine. But yeah the increase in theorectical production is only about 1% per day at this time of the year.
Let me get a pet peeve out of the way. kWh is amount of energy produced (in a day/hour/year) and kW is the instantaneous production. So if your panels give you 1kW for an hour you have produced 1kWh.
Just about done for the day, drops off quickly for the last 30mins as there is a small hill which cuts off that last bit of productions but still the best day so far.
Finished out the day with 13.1 kWh.
If that was aimed at me, I know the difference. My panels were generating over 1,000W at the time. I hadn't generated 1kWh at that stage.
