Solar panel production figures

Welshman said:
I would love a bigger system, but the roof doesnt allow it.... i am still looking at the rear of the property, but that will a future project if it goes ahead. i only paid a little over 5k for my system of 8 x 410watt panels and a growatt string inverter, no battery system. I put it in place, so that i can buid on it in the future and in the meantime lower my bills and use green energy from my roof.....

Also i think currently prices are that high, i didnt think it was worth investing more money, just to line the pockets of companies who probably 18mths ago were charging 50% less.

I had two quotes for my system, both exactly the same panels, inverter, cabling roof rails etc etc etc....one was 5.2k the other was 8.5k go figure
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for a small system it seems to punch above its weight. whilst I generate more than you it's not by much ..... your efficiency must be much higher than mine.... mind you the lions share of my potential output is on an ENE facing roof which is not ideal.
 
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bigmike20vt said:
for a small system it seems to punch above its weight. whilst I generate more than you it's not by much ..... your efficiency must be much higher than mine.... mind you the lions share of my potential output is on an ENE facing roof which is not ideal.
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yeh im only 20* off south, so a south, south east facing array....i also live high up on a mountain with no shading ( although the sun has to clear the mountain before i get production ) , but we started producing today at around 6:20am and was still producing last night at just past 8pm. My current efficiency for april is 3.39Kwh/kw whic is pretty good for a 3.2kw system.

I also paid for the system outright, so no loans or zero interest credit cards. The money was in my savings account earning next to no interest at the time, so i used it to put the panels on the roof, which i think was the best use of the money.
 
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Welshman said:
I also paid for the system outright, so no loans or zero interest credit cards
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Ditto, although I do have a zero percent card with the money suitably invested elsewhere to cover it should I need to I didn't use it for my solar install. Used savings, and mainly paid for it as I went along (very small mortgage as I'm mid 50's and over paid it), one benefit of it taking over six months to come to fruition.
 
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Ron-ski said:
Ditto, although I do have a zero percent card with the money suitably invested elsewhere to cover it should I need to I didn't use it for my solar install. Used savings, and mainly paid for it as I went along (very small mortgage as I'm mid 50's and over paid it), one benefit of it taking over six months to come to fruition.
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How would a 25mtr cable run effect performance of panels??? i have a man cave at the bottom of the garden thats 4mtrs x 2mtrs. If i rebuild the roof, i can have it facing perfect south and probably be able to fit 2 x 400watt panels to it and then run those upto the inverter in the loft to the second mppt charge controller ( my inverter is dual mppt ) giving me a 4kwh system. But i'm worried about the cable length and how much i would lose over the run??
 
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Welshman said:
How would a 25mtr cable run effect performance of panels??? i have a man cave at the bottom of the garden thats 4mtrs x 2mtrs. If i rebuild the roof, i can have it facing perfect south and probably be able to fit 2 x 400watt panels to it and then run those upto the inverter in the loft to the second mppt charge controller ( my inverter is dual mppt ) giving me a 4kwh system. But i'm worried about the cable length and how much i would lose over the run??
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Will only two panels give you enough start up voltage for that string on the inverter?
 
If you already have power to your man shed would you not be better putting the 2 panels on micro inverters rather than lay a dc cable all that way?
 
Welshman said:
How would a 25mtr cable run effect performance of panels??? i have a man cave at the bottom of the garden thats 4mtrs x 2mtrs. If i rebuild the roof, i can have it facing perfect south and probably be able to fit 2 x 400watt panels to it and then run those upto the inverter in the loft to the second mppt charge controller ( my inverter is dual mppt ) giving me a 4kwh system. But i'm worried about the cable length and how much i would lose over the run??
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Use 6mm cable from the panels and you will be fine, my runs are 25meters from the panels in the garden using 6mm over the standard 4mm cable.
 
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Welshman said:
another option could be the ecoflow balcony system, which means i would have battery storage as well.....all good options to look into.

I wont derail this thread now.
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Stick it in the other thread?

I am also interested. I heard the main tricky part with multiple systems is the balancing in effect
I guess you could do a little work if your main inverter would cut you from the grid anyway

Although I am sure I read somewhere that <1kw generation is non notifiable
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Stick it in the other thread?

I am also interested. I heard the main tricky part with multiple systems is the balancing in effect
I guess you could do a little work if your main inverter would cut you from the grid anyway

Although I am sure I read somewhere that <1kw generation is non notifiable
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i already have a back up solar generator that i use if theres a power cut, so i can run internet, tv, sky q etc etc ...but yes i will put the ecolflow balcony device in the other thread
 
Welshman said:
My inverter specs - as the inverter will have two strings, the start up voltage will be covered by string 1, as its 3.2kw string and string 2 will be 800watts

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That says 100v start up, that is highly likely per MPPT, my three panels in series don't get to 100v, you can see this on the VRM advanced tab.
 
Ron-ski said:
That says 100v start up, that is highly likely per MPPT, my three panels in series don't get to 100v, you can see this on the VRM advanced tab.
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Thats whats confusing me, because on the website of said inverter its says 50v start up...i'm thinking they have put the wrong information for the inverter, as it states in the blurp one MPPT, but as you can see in the specs it has two.


This is what the website says for my inverter

The Growatt MIC 3600-X is a light and compact residential inverter. The maximum DC voltage is 500V, a start voltage of 50V. There is one MPPT with a maximum input of 13A and features a DC switch, surge protection, and an option for AFCI.
Cheers
 
Just under 20 for the day, will be just about getting through to 2am for battery charge as they only got up to 85% prior to the 4pm dump.
 
Lost the inverter for 20-30 mins thanks to Router reboot in the afternoon, but reckon my day total will be 12-12.5.

Not bad considering there hasn't been any sun to speak of, checked my power stats and had only 2 spikes today, so probably 5-10 mins of sun cumulatively.

Imported 9.1 kWh, Exported 6.3, so my day won't be negative, but should be fine.

Yesterday I made almost £4 on Flux after removing the import costs! Best day yet! :)

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