October 18, 20232 yr Still 2 months till summer solstice, JA Solar panels producing at 86% efficiency at 10am
October 18, 20232 yr Mine at 10:30, heating up the 3 Kw Geyser and charging battery at very low amperage, on days like today I reduce the charging current to 12 Amps, plenty time to charge the battery, just over 85% efficiency, I have to admit, nice sunny day.
October 18, 20232 yr Author 8 minutes ago, Antonio de Sa said: Mine at 10:30, heating up the 3 Kw Geyser and charging battery at very low amperage, on days like today I reduce the charging current to 12 Amps, plenty time to charge the battery, just over 85% efficiency, I have to admit, nice sunny day. How are your panels oriented? I see many solar installs with east/west performing very well. Having a longer production curve throughout the day.
October 18, 20232 yr @WannabeSolarSparky Mine are 12 X 410 W CSun panels, facing true North. 2 X 5 Kw 5000 ES Growatt inverters in parallel. 1 X 5 Kw 100 amp/hour LBSA battery. Depending on the house load I get average 16 KW of power per day, even in winter. Max, I have seen was 20 Kw when wife decided to do some baking during the day, but usually by 12 noon my system goes in to idle mode. see bellow today by 11:30 big loads done and dusted.
October 18, 20232 yr Author East/West panels, Afternoon view, and the advantage of cooking before solar starts going away. Solar pushing to the stove on the non-essentials side.
October 18, 20232 yr Author My east/west panels must be slightly off pointing ever so slightly north/west afternoons always produce a bit more and for a bit longer 🤪
October 18, 20232 yr 1 hour ago, WannabeSolarSparky said: My east/west panels must be slightly off pointing ever so slightly north/west afternoons always produce a bit more and for a bit longer 🤪 Are you not located in CT? If so 12:00 is not your true mid-day, rather around 12:45. Maybe your sunrise is also affected by the H-Holland mountains on the Eastern horizon? Just a guess.
October 18, 20232 yr Author 3 hours ago, GreenFields said: Are you not located in CT? If so 12:00 is not your true mid-day, rather around 12:45. Maybe your sunrise is also affected by the H-Holland mountains on the Eastern horizon? Just a guess. Yes, Parklands Cpt. I usually take my solar midday at the time the east/west panels production peaks intersect, currently at about 12:22
October 18, 20232 yr Author 3 hours ago, GreenFields said: Maybe your sunrise is also affected by the H-Holland mountains No, in my case neighbor has a tree almost inline with the rising sun until about 8am 🙃
October 26, 20232 yr Author hit 90% today on the east string Although it is cloudy so will check Saturday when it's supposed to be full sun in cpt. Edited October 26, 20232 yr by WannabeSolarSparky
October 26, 20232 yr 20 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said: hit 90% today Although it is cloudy so will check Saturday when it's supposed to be full sun in cpt. Good for you. It reminds me of someone who took me up when I mentioned 80% PVw of string. He has 4 inverters and a nice open unshaded roof stating in years he has never seen more than 66% which is strange as he is using Canadian. Also never a shortage of loads at the business premises.
October 26, 20232 yr Author 5 minutes ago, Scorp007 said: He has 4 inverters and a nice open unshaded roof stating in years he has never seen more than 66% which is strange as he is using Canadian. Also never a shortage of loads at the business premises. Yeah, agreed, that does not sound right, especially being canadian panels, they pretty good just like the JA solar ones. Maybe bad angles/orientation, or bad wiring setup. Or dodgy mppt's My panels are at 35° angle and oriented east and west and produce pretty well all year round. Edited October 26, 20232 yr by WannabeSolarSparky
October 26, 20232 yr 38 minutes ago, WannabeSolarSparky said: Yeah, agreed, that does not sound right, especially being canadian panels, they pretty good just like the JA solar ones. Maybe bad angles/orientation, or bad wiring setup. Or dodgy mppt's My panels are at 35° angle and oriented east and west and produce pretty well all year round. My main string is a test site. 4 makes, poly and mono in series and bought over time and after each one added I got the same increase per panel than when I had only one make from 1 batch.
October 26, 20232 yr 9 minutes ago, Scorp007 said: My main string is a test site. 4 makes, poly and mono in series and bought over time and after each one added I got the same increase per panel than when I had only one make from 1 batch. This mount so far, had a few days with cloud edge, 6 X Csun 440 W panels per string. Prety good average, could be more as we seldom go over 3.5 Kw house consumption during day time.
October 28, 20232 yr Author 95% ( 2053 of 2160 )on the east panels at 9:30am Still some scattered clouds about which may be pushing the watts up a bit. Today was supposed to be clear, so will try again tomorrow and see if we have a cloud free day.
November 12, 20232 yr Author New early morning record on my east facing panels - 2011 watts - 93% of rated output at 10am
November 12, 20232 yr Author Some cloud edge effect pushing it even higher tp 97% I remember when I had these panels on my north facing ground mount they were producing over 2500 watts from their 2160 watt capacity.
November 12, 20232 yr Author I was confused that the panels were not producing what I expected, just to remember I had limited the battery charging to 20amps per battery. That resulted in the panels output being clipped. Changed my battery charge limits from 20amps to 30amps per battery, now getting much closer to rated output. Edited November 12, 20232 yr by WannabeSolarSparky
November 12, 20232 yr Hardly ever seeing 100% from panels, but look at the following graph... this was yesterday and every electron possible was being used... some cloud here and there, but not too much luckily... (33k2Wh for the day in total produced) PV1 produced 14.4kWh for the day (9 X 280W panels looking north @around 45° tilt, I think) PV2 produced 18.7kWh for the day (8 X 280W panels either looking East at 45° elevation or more, at mid day at 90° elevation... looking straight up, or looking West at a 45° elevation or more) The north facing panels are seeing more shade early morning, as the sun comes further south of east, time too look at relocating these and also putting them on a north-south swivel to maximise production... Same graph for 2nd September, with no extension lead to the neighbour (Eishkom M.I.A.) between just after 0600 until just after 0800 as well as between just after 1400 until just after 1600... there also was some cloud cover here and there... (26k6Wh for the day in total produced) Edited November 12, 20232 yr by Kalahari Meerkat
November 12, 20232 yr @WannabeSolarSparky forgot to specify, these are JA Solar 280W panels... in use since mid 2020...
November 12, 20232 yr Author 9 minutes ago, Kalahari Meerkat said: Hardly ever seeing 100% from panels, but look at the following graph... this was yesterday and every electron possible was being used... some cloud here and there, but not too much luckily... (33k2Wh for the day in total produced) That is what everyone's graphs should look like If your system is correctly specced to match your loads then this should be what they all look like, in an ideal world.
November 12, 20232 yr Just now, WannabeSolarSparky said: If your system is correctly specced to match your loads then this should be what they all look like, in an ideal world. Yes, well, quite a few kW's are going to the neighbour, since he has a grid connection still with a spinning wheel meter, but this *will* come to an end, he will cut the cord as well, since having this link for when it is cloudy has proven a waste of time... see my weather log entry for the 3d... 2023-11-03 Mostly clear initially, then cloudy by 13:40 and thunder & lightning with some rain by 14:15 a total of 4.5mm in the rain gauge by next morning... (rolling blackout from 14:06 to 16:05 then Eksdom shat itself from 16:47 until next morning 09:36 ) without enough battery capacity, of course, things stopped working around 03:00 or so, Saturday morning (BMS shut itself off... why did the inverter which should have shut itself down at 15%, or was it 10% not precede this? Fscking SunkenSynk, not the best, but between most of the bad options, not the worst either, I supposed...) Anyway Solar as seen below and also the grid Frequency to demo the Eishkom effect...
November 12, 20232 yr Author 9 minutes ago, Kalahari Meerkat said: since he has a grid connection still with a spinning wheel meter Nice .... That definitely explains your awesome looking graphs 🙃 should be saving him a good few bucks 🥰 when the sun shines 🤣 and eskom co-operates 🤪 Edited November 12, 20232 yr by WannabeSolarSparky
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