Jinko 280w - Opinions

[jwads]

Hey guys,

I am looking at piecing together a system. I found some Jinko 280w mono panels for 160$

The model is

JKM280M-60

That seems like a great price. Does anyone have an opinion on the quality of the panels? Thoughts?

Thank you!

[macaddict]

These are the exact panels I have installed. Couldn't been happier.

You can can see how they are performing here:

https://pvoutput.org/list.jsp?userid=59404

[jwads]

These are the exact panels I have installed. Couldn't been happier.

You can can see how they are performing here:
https://pvoutput.org/list.jsp?userid=59404

This may sound like a stupid question ( I am completely new to this) if your system is an 8.9kw system, why is it only producing 6kw of power on "fine" days?

[sensij]

This may sound like a stupid question ( I am completely new to this) if your system is an 8.9kw system, why is it only producing 6kw of power on "fine" days?

What are you looking at? I see 7 - 7.5 kW peak on most of the fine days.

[ButchDeal]

This may sound like a stupid question ( I am completely new to this) if your system is an 8.9kw system, why is it only producing 6kw of power on "fine" days?

You are looking at the daily graph and those numbers are the efficiency, which is measured in kWh/kW
If you click on the sun icon for one of those days you will see a graph showing a graph over 7kW .

https://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id=59404&sid=52859&dt=20170904

Most of the confusion in is kW , kWh, and kWh/kW understanding.

[macaddict]

This may sound like a stupid question ( I am completely new to this) if your system is an 8.9kw system, why is it only producing 6kw of power on "fine" days?

It is confusing, I know but the 8.9 Kw is the system size (number of panels x size of panels). The amount of electricity produced (Kwh) is called energy. If you look at yesterday for example: https://pvoutput.org/intraday.jsp?id...&gs=3&da=1&m=0

my system produced 53.71 Kwh which was great as the expected daily production for September is 38 Kwh (based on estimates that you can calculate yourself on sites like http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/ that take into account hours when the sun is out, solar irradiance, cloud cover, etc.).

The 8.9 is the theoretical maximum the panels can produce under ideal conditions (temperature, position of sun, pollution, clouds, etc). So far my highest peak was on September 3rd at 2:10pm which was 7.768 Kw

[cebury]

And even then, the 8.9kw system will not usually peak at 8.9kw dc power (kw) for most/many installations because there are numerous factors involved in how a system performs once in situ. Casually referring to "8.9kw" really means 8.9KW DC STC, meaning standard test conditions in a controlled lab environment. Once installed outside the lab, dozens of conditions will change the maximum possible performance that day, but we still call it an 8.9kw system year round.

It is very common for a susbset of new users to our forum to be folks who have recently installed a solar PV system and are concerned why their peak numbers arent topping out at the size of the STC nameplate ratings, or hitting what PVWatts said it should for that day, or why one panel is a few percent less than another panel, or today it did not make as much electricity as yesterday. They feel misled when a 300 watt panel did not make 300 watts of electrical energy (kwh) that day, or it didn't peak at 300 watts DC power (kw) in full sun.

You are not asking an uncommon question. First, just know what graph you are looking at so you can be clear what question you are asking. There are usually Energy graphs (kwh in AC) and Power (kw in DC) graphs. And PVOutput uses an Efficiency column that is a ratio of the two: kWh/kW (energy made that day in kwh divided by system size in kw). Then understand what factors will affect performance and that will help your understanding of PV ownership for a very long time. Good luck!