energy production

[Brian Spilsbury]

I have been "eyes glued" to my Sunny Beam, watching the output from the 2 SB5000 inverters.
On a whim, I went outback (pun) and activated the snow dump and left the arrays in the vertical position. 10 X power output by catching snow bounce even during this near blizzard.
1.68 kW output and 400 ft of visibility on blowing snow.

Impressive.

[Rob Beckers]

What kind of racking are you using Brian?

-RoB-

[Brian Spilsbury]

I have 11kW of glass up on 2 Deger, 2 axis trackers.
since 9am this morning, it's been a steady 10.22kW from the 2 Sunny Boy 5000's.

[Brian Spilsbury]

an update on energy production.
We've had some pretty miserable weather but according to the monitor I've been getting between 45 and 55Kwh per day for the last several days.
The system does much better than I thought on cloudy days.

[Ralph Day]

I'd been wondering how production with trackers would do. I have seasonal adjustable 12kw pv pushing 10kw of Enphase inverters. If you check out my public site you'd see that I peak and start to clip at about 11am, until 3pm (this time of year). Clipping doesn't occur when the system is warmer in the warmer weather.

My best days so far were 85 and 86kwhrs, back in the last week of March. How did your trackers fare during that week? Any 90kwhr days? Those days were pretty much clear and cold all over southern Ontario (I'm in Prince Edward XCounty).

Thanks for any information you can provide.

[Brian Spilsbury]

In the last week of March, I had some 100+ days.
Sunny days (and cold) the output starts clipping at 10.22kW at about 8:45am

[Paul Martin]

Mine were 98 - 101 during that week. I have been watching your site Ralph for comparisons and we are consistently about 15% higher than you but this is less than we were told. What do you mean by clipping?

[Brian Spilsbury]

The inverters limit (clip) the output to 10.22 kW even though the DC input is more than that.

[Ralph Day]

As Brian says, the peak power reached won't go beyond 10.333kw regardless of DC potential (inverter limits).

Paul, are yours also on trackers?

It entered my head: would it be economical to convert my system to trackers?:idea:

[Brian Spilsbury]

Rhetorical question?

max performance is about 30% better with a 2 axis tracker and about 25% better with a single axis. Given the price difference between 1 and 2 axis systems, I might go single if I had to do it all again.
With an installed fixed system, wouldn't it be more cost effective to add more glass?

[Paul Martin]

Yes we have two dual trackers which make up the 10k. I don't really understand it all. Right now, I can only read the meter to find out what we are producing. Trying to find the most economical way to connect to the net to start monitoring it but haven't had time to really do something about it.

The waiting for everything has been very frustrating. Hydro hasn't even received confirmation that we are connected to the grid so neither has the Microfit people and it has been almost 3 weeks. Our connection cheque hasn't even been cashed. Been 3 months waiting for the HST refund which we have been told have been delayed for everyone. Anybody else get their HST refund?

[Brian Spilsbury]

H1 seems to run at their own speed. Nothing seems to motivate them to go any faster than they do, except possibly a complaint to your MPP. This is one of their (Liberal) brainchildren, after all.

[Ralph Day]

Brian: Already at the max of 12kwpv for the 10kw of Enphase inverters.

Paul: Just deposited the HST cheque today. I did the paperwork as soon as I could (Jan 13). It was several weeks before the OPA had confirmation of connection from H1. Then they confirm the contract, then H1 confirms that they'll be depositing your money on the next payment date. Your production for March is sent in a statement the first week of April...you get paid on the due date of your H1 invoice (you get an invoice for the microFIT account, $5.93). Our first one was for July and August...paid out the end of September. Patience Grasshopper.

[Paul Martin]

Thanks for the info. Patience is definitely needed as well as a very, very strict budget until the $$ finally start coming in. Nobody warned us about the length of time this could take.

[Ralph Day]

True. Our initial costs were incurred in Nov 2009 and our first revenue not realized until Oct 2010 (our choice, but still...).

Ralph

[Jack Martin]

If its really happened then its impressive case.