Finally installing PV on my roof in LA: day 1

[J.P.M.]

Geez, .....perhaps I should have writen in comic sans, I look forward to your 5 paragraph response

Not needed here. I save those for posts where I think I can add something useful.

One of my many shortcomings is a very limited ability to be eloquent with few words, but I do attempt to be complete. In doing so, I've found some things take more than 25 words or less. Depending on the subject, I sometimes ignore long winded posts from others. Seems to work for me.

Otherwise, I appreciate your forbearance.

In the meantime, as usual, and respectfully, take what you want of my posts and scrap the rest.

[J.P.M.]

I think for both our sakes' I should use the forum's "ignore" feature to ignore your posts in the future; that should save us both a lot of trouble.

Good idea. That way when I disagree with what you write and say so, I won't run the risk of hurting your feelings. Works for me.

[DanKegel]

API access isn't working yet, but I did download a csv from the monitoring portal, and put it up on pvoutput:

http://pvoutput.org/list.jsp?id=38786&sid=44908

55.7 kWh today

[DanKegel]

Yep, I'm worried about temperature effects.

And I'm worried about solaredge monitoring accuracy.

I might start by just waiting a week or two, then extract data for each panel for each day from the logs,
write a filter to skip days without full sun,
grab ambient temperature data from the nearest weather station,
and see if I can get a repeatable and stable measure of corrected peak and total power in full sun.
If I get ambitious, I might add temperature sensors glued to the backsides of the panels.

I expect doing this right is harder than it sounds.

The above is one of the posts that J.P.M. considers "full of poor thinking as anyone versed in the subject can see".
Yet he claims not to object to "the basic idea of trying to understand and measure the front and back side contributions to the output of a handful of bifacial panels".

Well, which is it? All I posted above was a goal, an idea. I didn't post a detailed plan, yet he denounced it as absurd, as useless as concluding that "Removing a frog's back legs causes deafness in frogs".

I'm starting to think that J.P.M. is objecting not to what I post, but to some preconcieved idea he has of me as I post them. Kind of like people who object to everything a certain politician does, regardless of what it is.

Just a thought, trying to understand why J.P.M. is so intensely down on every little thing I post.

If that post had been written by someone else, would he have objected to it?

[J.P.M.]

The above is one of the posts that J.P.M. considers "full of poor thinking as anyone versed in the subject can see".
Yet he claims not to object to "the basic idea of trying to understand and measure the front and back side contributions to the output of a handful of bifacial panels".

Well, which is it? All I posted above was a goal, an idea. I didn't post a detailed plan, yet he denounced it as absurd, as useless as concluding that "Removing a frog's back legs causes deafness in frogs".

I'm starting to think that J.P.M. is objecting not to what I post, but to some preconcieved idea he has of me as I post them. Kind of like people who object to everything a certain politician does, regardless of what it is.

Just a thought, trying to understand why J.P.M. is so intensely down on every little thing I post.

Since you don't seem to either want or be able to leave this and move on, see the first sentence above for the answer to the last sentence.

To be clear, IMO only, you lack knowledge of the basics to treat the subject accurately and correctly. Therefore, your information can be misleading and time wasting to others in search of correct information. I do not believe that is a good outcome.

You don't know what you don't know. I'd suggest learning to walk before you attempt to run.

Further, to perhaps aid your thinking, to the extent I have any opinion about your knowledgeability at all, its a post-conceived one rather than preconceived, and based on everything you've posted here.

Anyway, and as Pleppik once corrected me for incorrectly ascribing a quote to Richard Feynman that actually came from his wife and meant here in a somewhat rhetorical way: "What do you care what other people think ?"

Note to mods: How about a mercy euthanasia for this thread. Explaining the same thing too many times is getting tedious, like when a 5 yr. old won't stop asking "why ?"

[DanKegel]

I'm happy with leaving it where it is. It's sad that J.P.M. doesn't bother to point to even a single factual error to support his case, though.

Ad hominem objections simply aren't appropriate, helpful, or productive. Corrections for individual factual problems are welcome. I respond well to objective, constructive criticism; ridicule just bounces off.

The thread does seem repetitive; I ask him to explain the concrete basis for his broad opinion that I am unqualified to post, and he just repeats his opinion. It's like we're in different discussions.

[sensij]

Dan, I'm interested in the data your system will produce, and I hope at some point you are able to go back and read what J.P.M. posted in #91 and see that he was, in his way, actually trying to help you*. You took it as an insult and your response kicked off this latest war of words, but in this last post of yours, I think the fundamental disconnect is clearer. Your investigation into the efficacy of bifacial panels is essentially an engineering study. Good engineering is not just about factual and counter-factual... raw data (facts) need to be processed to produce meaningful results. The processing steps frequently require assumptions based on knowledge of the greater system, which can require training and experience to make correctly. Some of what J.P.M has posted hints at aspects of the greater system to be considered. He has expressed skepticism that you will be able to take those hints and apply them to questions you are trying to answer, but you are free to prove him wrong.

When I joined the forum, I brought with me what I've gained from an established and satisfying career in engineering. I also brought a profound ignorance of all things PV. Within the first couple months, I got involved in the kind of exchange that might look familiar. Although nothing I posted was factually incorrect, and all uncertainty was hedged, today I am embarrassed that my posts in that thread are part of my record in this forum. Once the moment had passed and I re-read what had been written, I realized that I had been pointed in the direction of more satisfying answers to the questions that had been asked, but needed to put in some work to understand how it all fit together. I've spent a substantial amount of time since then improving my knowledge of the greater system, and have tried, in part, to exercise that knowledge by striving to improve the quality of my posts here (but there is still more work to do).

Really, without slighting the important contributions of others... J.P.M., Sunking, and inetdog in particular are providing members of the forum free access to a very deep library of knowledge and experience. On matters of opinion and politics, there is plenty of debate to be had, but if that prevents you from accepting the technical education that is being offered, I think you are doing it wrong. Yes, you've suffered some unfair personal attacks (to put it lightly), and I'm honestly surprised that you've stuck around as long as you have. I hope, though, as you get deeper into understanding the system that you have just put on your roof, the technical nature of the discussion will build a bridge over some of the chasms that exist now.



*please don't eviscerate me for putting words or intent into someone else's posts... I'm just writing what I think I observe, please ignore it if you disagree.

[DanKegel]

Hi Sensij,
it's a pleasure to read your response. Thank you.

I'm totally open to technical education.

Yes, J.P.M. did mix some helpful suggestions in with the insults in #91.... I should have thanked him for those, even though they were stuff I already knew.

[DanKegel]

Aaaand Solar Edge tech support got back to me; the API key my installer gave was invalid "probably because the installer forgot to click save". I guess the Solar Edge software has some usability issues.

So http://pvoutput.org/list.jsp?id=38786&sid=44908 has live outputs at last.

[ButchDeal]

Looks nice but your insolation graph is off because your time zone is set to Australia dst but CA zip code

[DanKegel]

Fixed, thanks!
It's still a bit off, since I fibbed and said it was a single southwest array instead of a south array and a west array. But it's close enough I might not bother to fix it for a while.

[ButchDeal]

Fixed, thanks!
It's still a bit off, since I fibbed and said it was a single southwest array instead of a south array and a west array. But it's close enough I might not bother to fix it for a while.

I wish they would allow 3 sections. You can do two easily enough though.