Solar System Install and Performance

[mareshow]

Interesting, what's your total system size? And do you know your type of panels?

I'm asking because I'm monitoring production of our clients through our app and I want to be able to compare apple to apples

 

[ABMax24]

Interesting, what's your total system size? And do you know your type of panels?

I'm asking because I'm monitoring production of our clients through our app and I want to be able to compare apple to apples

3KW from 10 300 watt panels.

See link below for the particular panels I have.

https://www.trinasolar.com/us/product/allmax/allmaxmplus-dd05a08ii

Keep in mind only 4 of my panels face south, 4 others face west and 2 east. All at about a 26 degree angle.

 

[ABMax24]

Best day yet today, broke 1600 watts for a brief period and made a total of 9.3 kwh today.



Also figured I'd post up some pics of the bi-directional meter. All values were zero on Jan 29th. The first picture is the energy in kwh I have bought from the grid, and the second is energy in kwh sold back to the grid.

 

[ABMax24]

Here's another update.

We have finally hit the point where we are producing more power than we are using. The longer days and the higher angle of the sun in the sky is making a huge difference in power output. We even managed to make more power this month than we used, and have produced more than we have used everyday since the 12th.

Here is our power generation vs usage for the month.



Here is our overall solar saving for the month, showing we generated more than we used.



Here is what our power curve looks like on a sunny day, there are a few dips from some high level cloud.




Here is an example of why we tried so hard to get away from any electric heating appliance. The peaks of high consumption around 2pm are from the electric heating element in our dishwasher. The huge peaks around 6pm are from our electric deep-fryer. Both these appliances only pull about 1500 watts, an electric stove or dryer could easily pull 4 times this amount, being the reason ours are fueled by natural gas. This is the exact reason why places like California are running into issues with solar power, the output of solar sharply drops about the same time as people come home cook supper or do laundry inducing these large peak loads. This necessitates large natural gas peaker plants to compensate for the sudden increase in load and loss of solar generation.



Here is a good example of performance on a cloudy day. Today it was quite cloudy here for the morning and even managed to snow a bit. Even with all that we still generated 8kwh today, our best day yet is 13.3kwh, so still over half of what is expected on a perfect day. I'm quite impressed with this output considering how dark the sky was this morning.

 

[ABMax24]

Here's another update for the month of April. We did alright, producing 65% more energy than we used, although I don't think we had a day in the last half of the month without cloud, rain or snow. According to the modeling program I have we should have generated 352 kwh for the month, but we actually generated 317.82 kwh, but the weather can explain that. The best we have done is 14.49 kwh in a day, I think we should be able to see 17 kwh at this time of year if we can get a cloud free day. We have also seen 2500 watts being generated at once, the model predicted 2200 watts so I'm quite impressed with that.

We also had another monitor (APSystems ECU-R) installed that links directly to the inverters and shows panel level production, there is supposed to be a way to allow others access to view this data, if i can get it working I will try to get the link posted up so those who want can have a look.

Link to Monitor: https://canada.apsystems.com/products/monitor/

Neurio Data:

 

[Iron Horse Racing]

Seems to be working for you....

We've had three quotes to install solar at our farm....so far I can't justiy the costs...

We have a 2000 sq' bilevel built in the late 70's, windows, doors have been upgraded, attic insulation inspected, some wall insulation is suspect, furnaces in the house both replaced, hot water on demand, and led bulbs...

But we have two water pumps, one drilled well so pump is in ground, the second is a bored well so the pump is above ground in a small garage (its gas furnace heated), that well feeds the three auto waters for the live stock and the shop, the shop/ garage has three gas furnaces and the auto waters are electrically heated, we also do a far bit of welding in the shop....all the lights in the shop's are LED...

Needless to say we consume a far bit of electricity....

On the side of the shop is a 10' x 40' long greenhouse that the windows / roof face south, so we have a great location for the panels.

The quotes we received were for on grid systems with battery storage, they ranged from $21,000 to $30,000, they all seemed to be calculating the return around 12 years, based on 70% efficiency, (I'm skeptical they can maintain that level, month over month, year over year) but they did not include the costs of replacing the batteries at 5-7 years and the life cycle of the panels, which they indicated were 20 - 25 years...

I'm hoping they make some serious strides to the tech and the cost sides, as for now, we can't afford..

 

[jhurkot]

Seems to be working for you....

We've had three quotes to install solar at our farm....so far I can't justiy the costs...

We have a 2000 sq' bilevel built in the late 70's, windows, doors have been upgraded, attic insulation inspected, some wall insulation is suspect, furnaces in the house both replaced, hot water on demand, and led bulbs...

But we have two water pumps, one drilled well so pump is in ground, the second is a bored well so the pump is above ground in a small garage (its gas furnace heated), that well feeds the three auto waters for the live stock and the shop, the shop/ garage has three gas furnaces and the auto waters are electrically heated, we also do a far bit of welding in the shop....all the lights in the shop's are LED...

Needless to say we consume a far bit of electricity....

On the side of the shop is a 10' x 40' long greenhouse that the windows / roof face south, so we have a great location for the panels.

The quotes we received were for on grid systems with battery storage, they ranged from $21,000 to $30,000, they all seemed to be calculating the return around 12 years, based on 70% efficiency, (I'm skeptical they can maintain that level, month over month, year over year) but they did not include the costs of replacing the batteries at 5-7 years and the life cycle of the panels, which they indicated were 20 - 25 years...

I'm hoping they make some serious strides to the tech and the cost sides, as for now, we can't afford..

I'd be curious to know why they were trying to sell you on a battery for a grid tie system.

 

[Iron Horse Racing]

System cost vs usage, the theory was to size the system to cover the average usage and to have on site storage, to cover the spikes even during the day, keeping the need to go to the grid at peak hours down. Our heavy usage is sporadic, but as needed we would be working in the shop, most likely during the early evening power rush, all three companies came to the same conclusion after reviewing our power consumption.

 

[ABMax24]

Seems to be working for you....

We've had three quotes to install solar at our farm....so far I can't justiy the costs...

We have a 2000 sq' bilevel built in the late 70's, windows, doors have been upgraded, attic insulation inspected, some wall insulation is suspect, furnaces in the house both replaced, hot water on demand, and led bulbs...

But we have two water pumps, one drilled well so pump is in ground, the second is a bored well so the pump is above ground in a small garage (its gas furnace heated), that well feeds the three auto waters for the live stock and the shop, the shop/ garage has three gas furnaces and the auto waters are electrically heated, we also do a far bit of welding in the shop....all the lights in the shop's are LED...

Needless to say we consume a far bit of electricity....

On the side of the shop is a 10' x 40' long greenhouse that the windows / roof face south, so we have a great location for the panels.

The quotes we received were for on grid systems with battery storage, they ranged from $21,000 to $30,000, they all seemed to be calculating the return around 12 years, based on 70% efficiency, (I'm skeptical they can maintain that level, month over month, year over year) but they did not include the costs of replacing the batteries at 5-7 years and the life cycle of the panels, which they indicated were 20 - 25 years...

I'm hoping they make some serious strides to the tech and the cost sides, as for now, we can't afford..

Something that could be done on a farm is have the pumps timed to run during daylight hours to maximize consumption during times of solar generation.

The problem for a farm is the electric watering heaters run mostly in the winter during the lowest generation. Something batteries won't help with. I'm a little bit puzzled why all 3 recommended batteries.

Do you know what size system they quoted you? I'm assuming based on prices in the 7-10kw range.

 

[jhurkot]

A farm has so many variable loads, very difficult to integrate a battery. Battery storage is probably about $700-$800 dollars/kWh. I would take the battery budget and slam it into more modules at $0.75/watt.

https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/index.php is a great website to check out to estimate annual production for a specific location.

 

[Iron Horse Racing]

I'll have to look at the quotes tonight, as I don't remember...

The pumps are all on demand, we don't store any water, which is something I've considered, but that has a whole other set of concerns.

 

[team dirt]

I'd be curious to know why they were trying to sell you on a battery for a grid tie system.

With some inverters you can put charge block times in so you only pull from the grid and charge batteries when demand prices are at the lowest. During hi demand prices you pull from your batteries. This is probably the smartest way to utilize a grid tie system but batteries are very costly and life is at best 10 years. In actual reality of trying to run your farm good luck. My cabin is totally off grid and when my water pump kicks in I get one run cycle on it and system is dead. Water is my biggest killer. I have 1800 watts of panel and 8 250amp hr 6v batteries on a 3000w xantrex inverter. I must run my generator when showering or using lots of water. I installed 2 20 gallon draw down pressure tanks so when my pump starts it runs for about 5min to replenish water system as the starting of the pump is the killer to the system.

 

[rsaint]

Here's another update.

We have finally hit the point where we are producing more power than we are using. The longer days and the higher angle of the sun in the sky is making a huge difference in power output. We even managed to make more power this month than we used, and have produced more than we have used everyday since the 12th.


Here is our power generation vs usage for the month.

View attachment 216648

Here is our overall solar saving for the month, showing we generated more than we used.

View attachment 216649

Here is what our power curve looks like on a sunny day, there are a few dips from some high level cloud.

View attachment 216650


Here is an example of why we tried so hard to get away from any electric heating appliance. The peaks of high consumption around 2pm are from the electric heating element in our dishwasher. The huge peaks around 6pm are from our electric deep-fryer. Both these appliances only pull about 1500 watts, an electric stove or dryer could easily pull 4 times this amount, being the reason ours are fueled by natural gas. This is the exact reason why places like California are running into issues with solar power, the output of solar sharply drops about the same time as people come home cook supper or do laundry inducing these large peak loads. This necessitates large natural gas peaker plants to compensate for the sudden increase in load and loss of solar generation.

View attachment 216651

Here is a good example of performance on a cloudy day. Today it was quite cloudy here for the morning and even managed to snow a bit. Even with all that we still generated 8kwh today, our best day yet is 13.3kwh, so still over half of what is expected on a perfect day. I'm quite impressed with this output considering how dark the sky was this morning.

View attachment 216652

So to save that much you are getting 1.41 per kw or am I missing something.

 

[papajake]

That’s the same when we dry camp we setup a outdoor shower if 2 people shower the battery is almost dead we will run the generator now don’t know why the pump takes so much power

 

[team dirt]

That’s the same when we dry camp we setup a outdoor shower if 2 people shower the battery is almost dead we will run the generator now don’t know why the pump takes so much power

Because water is heavy and has a lot of friction so it’s hard to pump. That’s my science brief for the day.

 

[Pink-Inc]

I got some pretty good friction reducer for you to try...just don't drink it

 

[Stompin Tom]

That’s the same when we dry camp we setup a outdoor shower if 2 people shower the battery is almost dead we will run the generator now don’t know why the pump takes so much power

I suspect your not showering in tandem.

 

[ABMax24]

So to save that much you are getting 1.41 per kw or am I missing something.

No that's not quite right, I have it set up at $.15 per kwh. I need to change the values as it doesn't calculate the cost of transmission and distribution currently. There really isn't a setting to do this properly so I will have to set up the cost of energy to include the transmission and distribution fees, and then a negative feed in tariff to compensate or not getting those fees back when I sell power.

I think this is what you are asking?

 

[ABMax24]

With some inverters you can put charge block times in so you only pull from the grid and charge batteries when demand prices are at the lowest. During hi demand prices you pull from your batteries. This is probably the smartest way to utilize a grid tie system but batteries are very costly and life is at best 10 years. In actual reality of trying to run your farm good luck. My cabin is totally off grid and when my water pump kicks in I get one run cycle on it and system is dead. Water is my biggest killer. I have 1800 watts of panel and 8 250amp hr 6v batteries on a 3000w xantrex inverter. I must run my generator when showering or using lots of water. I installed 2 20 gallon draw down pressure tanks so when my pump starts it runs for about 5min to replenish water system as the starting of the pump is the killer to the system.

The time of use function works for places that have time of use billing, I believe Ontario does this as well as many states. At this point however Alberta and BC do not have time of use billing for residential customers, just one rate regardless of when the energy is used.

 

[Cableguy]

fortis just announced they are dropping 2 tier billing
prob cause time of day billing is around the corner