Having run out of ideas to use up excess solar, I decided to bake some sunshine cupcakes 😁
13 kWh so far today from my 2.4kwp south facing array in Kildare. Clouds have rolled in now though and the peak has passed so the record of 15kWh might be safe for now.
haha, yeah pretty sweet day out alright. Cheers for the reply.
Have you made enough for everyone in the class? :P
You'll have to hurry before the kids and missus eat them all 😂
Such a beautiful start then the clouds rolled in. Interesting to see the impact of the drop in temperature with production jumping by 1.2kw with the few breaks in the cloud above the max in the clear sky and hot panels.
Yeah, I was thinking the same tnegun as I also experienced this too and concluded that it was panel temperature that was the negative factor. Some months back I wrote a function whereby I can look at the maximum value in every 5 minute "timeslice" over the past 4 days and then compare todays chart to that for the same period.
No prizes for guessing which is today's (it's the red one). You can see that within the last 4 days there has been as much as 1.4-1.5kw in difference in production for the same period. Early morning today until about 9am there was no difference as I guess the panels hadn't heated up much from the generally weaker sun. But by 11am we started to see how much is had done previously at that timeslice.
Still pretty nice red curve all the same until 4:30pm or so.
In my opinion it’s silly to not get a bigger inverter in this situation. The difference in price between what you have now and the next step up would be negligible in the overall cost of the system. Usually jumping up by 1 kWh will cost 100-150 euro extra. That’s my opinion on it; why wouldn’t you spend that extra to get the most out of your panels.
it’s an odd inverter capacity. They are usually in whole numbers. What manufacturer is this?
If it was a new purchase, I'd agree, but in an existing installation I wouldn't think the math is there. Probably "lost" maybe 1Kwhr today .... maybe. Take a lot of days at €0.25/Kwhr to make that €100-150 back no? Then there is the installation cost of a spark, trouble in arranging.
Not sure I'd bother personally.
But going the full hog in it and getting an upgrade to something like a 6Kwp in panels along with 5kw inverter - yeah that would be a different story I think.
60 degrees internal temperature at 3pm.
Wow that's a hot invertor..
It was a new install. He said it was his first day of production after the install.
Clouds rolled in just after 4pm.
The record of 55.9kwh remains unbroken.
It was very close though
As does my record of 36Kwh. Managed only 34Kwh for a finish - and I have 3x extra panels (1.2Kwp) more today than when I set that record.
17.6 kWh today. Quality day until half 3 when clouds appeared.
Record from April not broken. I thought not possible in the heat to beat it but was on track before clouds wrecked the buzz.
38.4 today vs record of 38.5, so close but clouds came in at 4!
I see comment re hot inverter above - what temp should it be aiming to run at?
Mineis similar these days 60-65 degrees after working hard on hours of 6+ kW incoming
Same here.. Mine's sitting at 62C at the moment charging the battery all morning.. being trying to use up power with Dishwasher, Immersion and Washing machine so I don't start clipping, but I'll be at 100% before noon. Will see what the temps are like after the battery is full and the clipping kicks in
60.6 C here. It’s been running at 5.9kwh for 2 hours. It’s not clipping though; cos I still have 10% free in the battery. Looks like the panels are just limited due to the temperature they are running at currently.
looks like it’s going to be a very good day if the clouds don’t pay a visit later on. 21.5 kWh generated so far at 12:00.
Now that clipping has set in, back down to 59 C. Fairly warm in the attic, so I'd say that's it's operating temperature now. Also, starting to cloud over here in Cavan 😏
Here's my temp since midnight.. i do have to fans drawing up air from over the inverter that kick in when the internal temp goes above 36.. and off below 32 via home assistant automation.. i might adjust them up a bit
Just on the temps. I'd encourage you to check the data sheet for your specific inverter, but most of them have an operating range of -20C to +60C (or there abouts). That's the ambient air temp outside of the inverter. Internally inside the inverter you might get to 70-75C, but generally (generally!) electronics are good for 80C without issue. It does depend a little of course which is why you should check your datasheet.
Also, most of them with delimit themselves from what I read once the temps start to get too hot.
My string inverter is a low 33C. Mounted on the wall outside the house. It's outdoor rated. And that's running at 80% of the available kWp installed so would be a lot hotter I assume without the outside air to cool it. No wind to cool stuff in an attic.
But I'd agree with Bullit that many can run to a high temp. They will delimit / derate (ie drop output) if they overheat. My Huawei at least does, I double checked a while back.
I'd put a fan on it though if was running at 60C for a lot of the day. No point stressing the unit when a cheap fan will help. Not something you need asap but worth getting at some point for the sunnier months.
Would that be what is happening here. One is an over voltage, but the rest of the dips there is no alarm for.
Inverter says operating temp it 55C.
Not a cloud in the sky all day. Perfect curve yesterday. Got this kind of thing the odd day last year too.
What type of fan are you using? I might look into doing something like this. My invertor is over 45 degrees today.
Hi, you're right, it's a 2.5kWp inverter Solis (producing 2.71kWp). On the day, they saw that 2 extra panels would fit so I went with that. At the time, it never occurred to me about bumping up the inverter.
Best day of the year yesterday. Doesn’t look like we’re going to beat it today even though I was sure we would….
5.6kWh system split between E and W facing in North Wicklow.
How many panels do you have and what capacity are they? I’m guessing you have 8 x 420W panels?
Im wondering now is the clipping in your graph due to the output of the panels being reduced as they are hot; or as a limitation of the inverter.
it’s not a perfectly flat line; so I think it could be the panel output rather than the inverter. Do you have a graph from today?
But the inverter is outputting more than it’s max; which prob isn’t ideal.
The price jump between the 3kwh and 5kWh solid hybrid is just 208 euro fyi… I know this isn’t what your looking for but just to give an indication.
I documented on my install thread here
But in reality, how often do you see clipping, and how much is being clipped.
So if you lose 2kWh per day x about 30 days per year, a bigger inverter might be under utilized, and the larger inverter could have cost you a few 100's
