Sun hours

[SunEagle]

Yes everyone has a different problem to solve. No tiers here, but plenty of cold & clouds. Bruce

I could go for a little lower temperatures. Still getting days in the high 80's and no rain. Feels like summer to me.

[bcroe]

Well, Bruce, I just got my annual electric bill today from PG&E. Total of $508 for the year. Not too bad for only a 3kW array. It is amazing what tier shaving and TOU rates can do even with a relatively small installation.

Yes everyone has a different problem to solve. No tiers here, but plenty of cold & clouds. Bruce

[inetdog]

Well, Bruce, I just got my annual electric bill today from PG&E. Total of $508 for the year. Not too bad for only a 3kW array. It is amazing what tier shaving and TOU rates can do even with a relatively small installation.

[bcroe]

Sept

Pretty awful sun day today, severe overcast with rain some of the time. Managed 32 KWH.

Meantime yesterday was so cold here it set an all time record for 11 Sept. But a new
component is up & running. My old 1978 AC had died. One week ago a new 14.5
SEER heat pump went in, 3 ton air to air. Can't use it in the middle of winter, but today
it is heating the house while multiplying my KWHs. Will need them; another cold winter
predicted. Bruce Roe

[bcroe]

There is an array west of Crestview, but like mine, its nearly impossible
to see from the road; I haven't made contact yet. Bruce Roe

I went over to Crestview and said hi to someone in the house; got to look closely at the
solar panels. Don't think the person operating them was home. There is also a small
windmill behind them; it was spinning hard today. I don't think they were really serious,
because a couple young trees were starting to grow only 6' to the south.

The array used aluminum framing of stock metal drilled and cut; not solar specific stock.
It looked identical to that on mine; maybe put up by the same installer. However, the
anchors were wood posts instead of concrete. Apparently it had been expanded a couple
of times. I saw some panels with older 5" cells (rounded corners), 6" square cells in 6 X 9
and 6 X 10 panels, all connected up. They might be something like 2 strings of some 300
VDC, I'll guess 4-5 KW. Did not see the inverter(s) but did spot the disconnect boxes on the
outside of the rear building. Bruce Roe

[SunEagle]

I hope the inverters last 5 years. I view them like tires: use them till worn out, then replace.

There is an array west of Crestview, but like mine, its nearly impossible to see from the road;
I haven't made contact yet. There is a really massive commercial array on the south side
of the airport, half a dozen miles to my east. Its also practically invisible from the road. The
factory that built those panels is near by, haven't heard much about them lately.
Bruce Roe

Thanks for pointing out that large array south of the airport. According to the Rockford news back in Dec 2011 that is going to be a 62MW solar array when it is done. Nice to see solar making headway up in Illinois.

Too bad the Florida Utilities have been doing just about everything they can to block it here.

[bcroe]

Other PV Arrays

Nice layout. Hopefully your inverters will last.

I also saw a neighbor of yours SE of you with a much smaller array of 42 panels. Hard to tell
what their cell count is.

I hope the inverters last 5 years. I view them like tires: use them till worn out, then replace.

There is an array west of Crestview, but like mine, its nearly impossible to see from the road;
I haven't made contact yet. There is a really massive commercial array on the south side
of the airport, half a dozen miles to my east. Its also practically invisible from the road. The
factory that built those panels is near by, haven't heard much about them lately.
Bruce Roe

[SunEagle]

The first was finished by mid June (they didn't put in the NET METER till 31 July). Digging the
E-W foundation started in Oct, so G Earth must have been between those dates. The E-W
strings are 10 panels of 72 cells, the S are 12 panels of 60 cells. Same string voltage. Bruce

Nice layout. Hopefully your inverters will last.

I also saw a neighbor of yours SE of you with a much smaller array of 42 panels. Hard to tell what their cell count is.

[bcroe]

When did you install the East/West array? G Earth only shows the southern portion back in 9/13

The first was finished by mid June (they didn't put in the NET METER till 31 July). Digging the
E-W foundation started in Oct, so G Earth must have been between those dates. The E-W
strings are 10 panels of 72 cells, the S are 12 panels of 60 cells. Same string voltage. Bruce

[ILFE]

Great job Bruce. Looks like a lot of your work has resulted in a very nice energy producing installation.

When did you install the East/West array. G Earth only shows the southern portion back in 9/13

If anyone on this forum is harvesting sun, Bruce certainly is. 20 panels East, 20 panels West. I lost count of the ones facing South. He's got his own solar farm there, for sure.

[SunEagle]

There is a lot of detail on it just by reading thru all of this thread. You can get more
explanation & pictures on my PHOTOBUCKET; just click bcroe , then ABOUT ME
for the link. 6 albums under ENERGY CONSERVATION. Bruce Roe

Great job Bruce. Looks like a lot of your work has resulted in a very nice energy producing installation.

When did you install the East/West array. G Earth only shows the southern portion back in 9/13

[bcroe]

If I may, Bruce, how large is / are your array(s)?

There is a lot of detail on it just by reading thru all of this thread. You can get more
explanation & pictures on my PHOTOBUCKET; just click bcroe , then ABOUT ME
for the link. 6 albums under ENERGY CONSERVATION. Bruce Roe

[ILFE]

Checking the archives revealed only my last 500 posts are accessible. So at 600+, every one I make drops another early one. I was going to compare some of my early system calculations & expectations with what actually happened, but guess that will have to be from memory. Bruce Roe

They are probably accessible, Bruce. They just may not be showing up on historical searches.

I'm not very familiar with vBulletin forum software. Personally, I use IPB. But, search history can be changed. Members on one of my forums complained about it being too short, like going back only one year. So, we changed it a couple of years ago to extend it to very early posts.


If I may, Bruce, how large is / are your array(s)?

[bcroe]

ONE YEAR of OPERATION

At the anniversary of startup, my installer came to see how things were holding up.
It had been running at max power all day long, and everything was warm to the touch
including the 4 gauge wire carrying 58A AC output. The inverters had logged 26,800
KWH despite a rather cloudy past year, exceeding predictions for the 15KW AC system.
Thats equivalent to 1000 gallons of propane, enough to get me through a fairly cold winter.

Everything looked like the day it was installed; no PV component failures. The
installer commented on running the inverters at maximum so many hours every
day. We shall have to see, if their life span is dominated by the calendar, or hours
a day at maximum, or total number of KWH produced. I have a spare.

Operational problems included a couple wiring issues. Relocating one so that an
array could be fully tilted, I managed to blow a 1A GFI fuse. I concluded that both
DC wires should be opened by the DC disconnect switch, so I added a second switch
allowing breaking both wires on each system half. A 40A circuit breaker had failed.
High line voltage here was causing false trips, though well within inverter capability.

Checking the archives revealed only my last 500 posts are accessible. So at 600+,
every one I make drops another early one. I was going to compare some of my early
system calculations & expectations with what actually happened, but guess that will
have to be from memory. Bruce Roe

[inetdog]

I also reduced start up from 5 minutes to half that. Why wait 300 sec? Bruce Roe

My guess is that the 300 second window is part of the UL listing requirement for grid tied inverters. As long as you do not care about that, you are free to change it.