Hi from southern Arizona, finally joining in

[adrianfen45]

Hi folks, Adrian here. I have been reading this forum on and off for a couple of years and only now got around to making an account. We bought a house outside Tucson two summers back and the previous owner had put up eight older 240W panels on a string inverter, so I have been slowly figuring out what we actually inherited rather than starting from a clean sheet.
Current plan is to add a small battery for the evening air conditioning load and clean up the wiring in the garage, which is a bit of a mess. I am also curious how much the summer heat costs everyone else in production, since our best months seem to be April and May, not July. Looking forward to learning from the people who have been at this a lot longer than I have.

[solar pete]

Hi adrianfen45 and welcome to Solar Panel Talk there is a lot of solar wisdom around these parts I'm sure you will learn a lot, cheers

[azdave]

I'm up in Gilbert, which is roughly an hour north of Tucson but probably at a lower altitude than you I'm guessing. Best production is certainly the spring with those cool mornings. Mid to late April is the very best peak production here. Summer heat takes a bite out of production for sure. I have attached a summary of our 2025 performance that our SRP utility supplies. It is a bit busy but shows the daily hi-low temps as well as the output. We are luckily grandfathered for a few more years on a really favorable contract so we can make better use of our production credits than customers who have installed solar in the last 10 years.

Our setup is now 14 years old and have never touched it for any repairs. A basic 6.63kW system with only an inverter in the garage and 2 rows of 13 panels on the roof. No batteries, no optimizers, rapid shut down, micro-inverters, back-up generators, etc. All panels face due south at maybe a 20-degree roof angle.

Usage SRP Power - Google Chrome 10132026 64152 AM.jpg