I don't know about anyone else, but this has been a great month. First off, it seems we've had weekend after weekend with the two major holidays falling in the middle of the week. For us, I had Xmas eve and Xmas off work, in addition to New Year's Eve and New Year's Day off. Then of course the weekend in-between, before, and now after coming up. I could absolutely get used to working only Mon, Thurs, Fridays.
One of the things I do each weekend, is check on our Solar Production (actually more often because it's cool for me to see the data charts).
As just a quick review, we installed a 32 panel system rated at 13kWh, and 4 Enphase Battery Backups rated at 5kWh each (20 kWh total battery). For more technical details, see my Previous Post Here.
I just thought I'd share how we've done now that we've got 6 months of production reports. First, the annual (6 months) report summary.
Overall, looks like we produced about $923 worth of electricity from our Solar Panels in the 6 months of use. We produced 7.1 MWh of energy for the 6 months, and exported 2.5 MWh back to the grid.
The environmental impact is apparently equal to a CO2 Reduction of 5.1 tons, a planting of 85 trees, or charging of 610 Thousand phones.
For us, a key consideration in our purchase was also investing in the battery backups vs. buying a propane generator for the frequent power outages here due to Hurricanes and Tropical Storms. You can see how the battery backups performed for us during Hurricane Milton in this Previous Post.
Here are the monthly breakdowns from mid-July (install) thru December.
This system has micro-inverters on each panel, so that if one panel goes down or is blocked by shade/clouds, the other panels keep producing. Here you can see that each panel in the Array performed pretty consistently, averaging from 219-224 kWh production. The plan is to wait for the tax rebates this year, then invest in another 8-12 more panels for even more savings and ability to produce more than we use for eventual rebate from the power company. Not sure if that will get us there, but will get much closer.
Looking forward to the next full year report!
The environmental impact effect is quite astonishing! 85 trees! Nice!
Thanks, it is satisfying to see for sure. Definitely an added benefit. I can only imagine how this will improve the planet as the technology improves even more over the next decade and even more people adopt it. What a difference it could have made if available a century ago!
I'd be totally fine if we moved to a four day work week. Even if they moved to year round school to accomplish it. The kids wouldn't like it, but I am there year round anyway, so it isn't a big deal to me.
Lolled when I saw this...I have a post on the same thing for today.
Heh, looks like @solominer did a monthly solar update too! Great minds think alike!
They sure do!
I've only just started work since before Xmas as my office shuts down. We were away for a few days and something tripped on the solar so it did nothing until I reset it. I need to report that.
Solar was not great for us in December due to lack of sun, but it has turned cold today with clear skies. I guess in Florida you have a better chance of sun. We were only getting about 5 hours of possible generation on the shortest days, but that will improve over the next few months.
Shine on!
!BEER
Sounds like an undersize breaker maybe? We're still getting about 8 hours of productive sun here on sunny days. Consumption through the roof yesterday with family visiting, but still produced about half of what was used.
The breaker ought to be right and they have looked at it before. It was fine for the last 6 months.
Our usual consumption is likely to be less than yours as we don't have a/c. We have gas heating that we definitely need today. Maybe some day we will get a heat pump.
That is a really cool system using micro inverters to deal with shading.
I've looked at the more detailed array production during cloudy days, and can actually see the production difference on some panels vs. others as the clouds roll across.
Nice! I am getting ready to invest in some older panels from Santan Solar to use for an offgrid setup. Getting 24 panels (only $480 for the lot) to use for various things around the farm. First thing will be building a solar wall in front of this old non-working garage door to the manufacturing side of the building. Going to set up a couple of lipo 100ah batteries in parallel with a PSW inverter. Will be using it to charge all my tool batteries and to run computers mining Monero. The rest of the panel I will use for the greenhouse and other little projects that require power.
It's a whole thing getting it approved to be grid tied and the cooperative we get our power from is all weird about it. Can't use the used panels for instance...
The idea was too offset my power usage from computers, miners, and 3D printers anyway, so I'll just go full offgrid with my stuff.
Most power companies have pretty strict rules and registration required. Part of it for safety I suppose so their guys don't get hit with unexpected power streams during outages and break/fix. I suppose other is them just trying to keep control. Buy a few new panels for hookup and approvals, and likely easy to add the older panels to it later if desired to bump the production up. The Solar company we bought ours through did all the Power company and HOA approvals for us, so almost transparent from my side, and very glad they did it instead of me.
Luckily I don't have to ask permission from anyone to do off-grid setups. I am on a good bit of private property. The business admin for the power coop basically told me how to get around everything. I lived on 12V for 4 years while living in a van and had time to figure out and plan this now that my roots are set, lol. I will use all the power so I am not even concerned, lol.
Edit: yeah, they say it's for 'efficiency' for the grid, but no, it's all about control. Plus I wouldn't get back much of anything as far as credits, so I might as well just use it all and mine some clean, free, crypto, lol.
I don't have a solar plant, the cost is like 20-30k€ so not sure how much you can really save over the years on bills, even with 1k you need 30 years
Hello, you seem to be missing the point. Not saying it's for everyone. For me, it's not just about saving money, it was about finding the most cost effective solution for providing emergency backup power. And I'm not talking just short term capital cost, I'm looking at complete long-term ROI vs. buying propane or gas powered generators that require on-going maintenance, gas feeding (if available), replacing every 5-10 years, vs 20-40 year lifespan of solar, and also add long term value to the home in addition to offsetting the annual electric bill and powering my electric vehicle (There's an extra $200 or so per month right there). Not to mention the even greater future savings when electric bills and gas costs increase even more over the years and my Solar just keeps producing at a greater offset. We also live in a very good area for Solar production, so again a plus over the other choices. Not for everyone, but certainly right for me and maybe others.
Oh yes you have some more issues too, backup power which here is never needed since it never interrupt, and you have an electric car I guess? Here only few people have it... So both points out of my sight
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