Solar panel production figures

so far today is setting up to be a stonker.

that said my export won't be much. as a test I am charging the car using the granny cable just to make sure it works ok over a period.

right now my car is being charged (albeit slowly) fully from the sun. no grid being used. call me sad but that kind of blows my mind :)
 
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bigmike20vt said:
so far today is setting up to be a stonker.

that said my export won't be much. as a test I am charging the car using the granny cable just to make sure it works ok over a period.

right now my car is being charged (albeit slowly) fully from the sun. no grid being used. call me sad but that kind of blows my mind :)
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It’s awesome getting free range from the sun !
I do this all the time and so never export if I can avoid it.
 
Could be a good one here. probably not record breaking since it was fairly cloudy early on but we are on the upwards slope of PV output atm (peaks around 2pm or so) and its at 3.4kw right now.

I am not charging from the grid at all now overnight, just for 1 minute to keep settings basically the same and my batteries only dropped to a low of 50% late morning before incoming exceeded demand.
Now back up to 73% and going up quickly.

I have found solar quite eye opening to how much power is really there. I really am utterly convinced by domestic solar now.
I am semi against commercial solar just because of the land it takes, I would rather see wind there, although it could have course be both.

I think France's requiring all carparks above a certain size to be solar covered makes massive sense. Not only does it add a lot of solar, it adds coverage which reduces AC demand when you don't get into quite as hot a car and of course it can be used as well for EV charging.
It seems so obvious I would 100% back the same law in the UK.
 
There are loads of open fields not being used for anything.
The argument that some people have of “solar is stopping a field being used for farming” is crazy. For that happen there needs to be a farm and infrastructure to make it work. Not all fields need to be/can farms. Most have been sitting there doing nothing for hundreds+ years.
 
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SDK^ said:
There are loads of open fields not being used for anything.
The argument that some people have of “solar is stopping a field being used for farming” is crazy. For that happen there needs to be a farm and infrastructure to make it work. Not all fields need to be/can farms. Most have been sitting there doing nothing for hundreds+ years.
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whilst we may need some solar farms I am with MKW I think. best to stick solar on buildings , car parks and all stuff like that 1st. a field may not be doing anything in terms of production .... but it's still a habitat for life (to a degree still will be in a solar farm) and still has plants for photosynthesis.. I am a country boy at heart and I am a fan of nature just for nature's sake.

so sure.... solar farms where needed but let's cover all man made stuff with it where possible 1st and see where we are at.
 
bigmike20vt said:
whilst we may need some solar farms I am with MKW I think. best to stick solar on buildings , car parks and all stuff like that 1st. a field may not be doing anything in terms of production .... but it's still a habitat for life (to a degree still will be in a solar farm) and still has plants for photosynthesis.. I am a country boy at heart and I am a fan of nature just for nature's sake.

so sure.... solar farms where needed but let's cover all man made stuff with it where possible 1st and see where we are at.
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Indeed this is very much my point.
Seeing as these solar farms will likely be there for 40 years lets not cover them all up quickly (and they have issues with Nibmyism, infrastructure etc anyway as proposed site near me tells you) and focus on things like supermarket rooves, covering carparks with them etc.
Mainly because both those types of thing will place the production at the same point as the demand and hence there is much more limited issues with infrastructure.
 
I agree - let's start with the buildings (offices, car parks, stations, etc...) and homes first, and then worry about others areas.

If every home / building had some form of solar panel / battery system the load taken off from the grid would be significant (during the day).
 
Freefaller said:
Broke 40 today! :cool:
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What a day! Was pretty much perfect here, just realised sadly now the oak trees are getting really leafy I start to get some shading around 18:00 onwards which reduces my output at the tail end. As production is already falling off by then it probably only costs me a kWh or two though.

Exported £12.04 of juice today though, not too shabby.
 
Zeeflyboy said:
What a day! Was pretty much perfect here, just realised sadly now the oak trees are getting really leafy I start to get some shading around 18:00 onwards which reduces my output at the tail end. As production is already falling off by then it probably only costs me a kWh or two though.

Exported £12.04 of juice today though, not too shabby.
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I'm looking at my house and roof and wish I had another set of panels on the other side as in the evening from 4pm it gets soaked in sunshine! I could easily have another 4kW of panels. But winter they'd be rubbish.
 
Freefaller said:
I'm looking at my house and roof and wish I had another set of panels on the other side as in the evening from 4pm it gets soaked in sunshine! I could easily have another 4kW of panels. But winter they'd be rubbish.
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If you could guarantee flux would always be around it’d probably still be well worthwhile… unfortunately anything tariff related is just a gamble.
 
Zeeflyboy said:
If you could guarantee flux would always be around it’d probably still be well worthwhile… unfortunately anything tariff related is just a gamble.
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True about tariff. But it's also about minimising my use of the grid for as long as possible. I think getting another battery would be the priority. Ah it's just a pipedream at the moment.
 
smashed my 2023 record and must be close to personal system best.

31.3kwh generated
only 17kwh exported

4 kWh imported


my export was so low because I tested my granny charger on my car. added 15 miles of charge to my car. does not sound much but it was energy I made off my roof. am well chuffed with that
 
17.8, another great start then come afternoon its hello cloud again. May still going to stomp Aprils total though. If only we had a block of days it would have been a solid month.
 
If it hadn't been a cloudy morning I think I would have broken another record today, although I think I did on the export side, yep highest export so far 51 kWh exported, and generated 53.9.

Average daily generation for the month is 42.3 kWh
 
I generated 22kWh @ 7.6 efficiency. Exported 8kWh and imported 618watts.
Got my first Octopus bill which worked out to 71p a day inc the standing charge :)
So once I get my 3 x 5.12kWh batteries set up and Octopus change my smart meters for smarter ones I can give them my MPAN and get paid more than 6p/kWh. Happy days to come I hope.
 
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