I am based in Hillcrest near Durban and with the constant rain we are getting PV output hasnt been great.

I would love to hear from others in my area how they are doing.

1 hour ago, Nicholas Strachan said:

I am based in Hillcrest near Durban and with the constant rain we are getting PV output hasnt been great.

I would love to hear from others in my area how they are doing.

Cannot help looking back but from Sunday it seems you will have 5 good days followed by 1 average day and another 5 good days. 

Looking at long range forecasts it seems the next up to 3 weeks could have quite a bit of cloudy days with rain. 

On 2024/01/18 at 1:27 PM, Nicholas Strachan said:

I am based in Hillcrest near Durban and with the constant rain we are getting PV output hasnt been great.

I would love to hear from others in my area how they are doing.

Hi 

Curious to what was your system  output and size of your pv 

I’m in Kloof with 6x575w panels. Hasn’t been a great 4 weeks for solar. 
 

Some stats from the past week. 
 

 

This was the best day this month. 6 Jan

You can almost track the orbit around the sun 🌞 

 

The past couple weeks have been terrible as far as solar production is concerned. Yesterday has been the best this year so far.

Edit: I must really slow down and read the title.....This is not in Durban, but in Mpumalanga

 

Edited January 20, 20242 yr by GVC

8 hours ago, Spys said:

You can almost track the orbit around the sun

No. But you can track it turning on its axis. 

1 hour ago, GVC said:

The past couple weeks have been terrible as far as solar production is concerned. Yesterday has been the best this year so far.

Edit: I must really slow down and read the title.....This is not in Durban, but in Mpumalanga

 

@Nicholas Strachanhad it right. It's the overcast, rainy weather that reduces production. We've had a bad run in Johannesburg with rain every day for a week. The sky would start clouding up around midday at latest and production dropped off (assuming it got properly started in the first place).

The good news, for me, is that I drew an average of 5 kWh from the grid for that period, so I'm still ahead of the game. 

This is the way to look at it, I think: We have these bad spells, but for 4.5 years I've had the lights on and over those years my average draw from the grid is about 2.6 kWh per day.

That's a big improvement. 

2 hours ago, GVC said:

 Yesterday has been the best this year so far.

Edit: I must really slow down and read the title.....This is not in Durban, but in Mpumalanga

 

Also not in Durban but Gauteng and even with some clouds in Pretoria it turned out the best yield in 7 weeks. 

January has been one of the worst months for PV since I've installed my system, Vaalpark in the Vaal Triangle. see dashboards. Lots of rain and cloud cover

 

I've just been checking my historic data. December is usually not a great month for me. January usually not so good either.

3 hours ago, Bobster. said:

I've just been checking my historic data. December is usually not a great month for me. January usually not so good either.

My yield over the yrs also show Dec and Jan to be weak due to cloud. MTD for Jan about 7% lower than Dec. 

On 2024/01/19 at 8:56 PM, GMAC said:

Hi 

Curious to what was your system  output and size of your pv 

I have an 8kw Sunsynk, 3x Hubble am2 and 6kw of panels but am adding another 1.5 kw next week.