Sanyo Hit-N system instaleed, results

[SolarCity]

I'd strongly agree with the installer on this one. You'd be surprised at how hot your loft gets in midsummer - especially with the new inverter throwing more heat out. The efficiency, and the life, of the system will reduce as the temperature rises.

 

[TrickyDicky101]

Hi Alan

My system was installed Thurs/Fri last week. Since then, I have observed a maximum peak output of 2.8kW on Saturday. Total generation to date has been c. 38kWh. Like you, the impact of cloud has been tremendous (IMO anyway): today with a clear sky I was getting 2.0ish kW at 11am, then some cloud came over at 1pm or so (and by no means was it dark or dingy at this stage) and peak dropped to c.400kW. I do wonder how much will be generated on a cloudy and rainy day - I suspect it won't be very much at all.

Best regards

Richard

 

[kate.harrison1]

Hi Richard,
Many thanks for your pm from the other forum. As you can see, I have managed to finf this one and, as you say, has some interesting posts. I am still somewhat baffled at the apparent discrepancy of peoples outputs. As I said, mine, commisioned late morning on 20th and consisting of 16 Sanyo 240HIT ( 8 west facing and 8 east facing) plus SMA400TL has now generated a total of 34.24 at close of play today> Averaged out, that is about 5.7kw per day. If the weather was cloudy, ok, but it has been pretty sunny the whole time since installation so I am, frankly disappointed. I was advised that the south facing roof was only big enough to accommodate about 6 panels bu I am beginning to wonder whether we have made a mistake and should have just had fewer panels on the directly south facing roof. I was led to understand that inverters need a certain total power output to operate efficiently and that 5 or 6 panels would not have worked well.
I can only assume that the low figures are a combination of the low sun not shining directly onto the panels and the shorter trajectory of the sun meaning that it seems to rise and set further to the south than it does say during the spring and summer.
Unless there is some fault with my system, I suppose I have to just wait and watch what happens in the spring/summer when the sun passes right overhead and SHOULD enable something close to peak output. All models I looked at sugested about 15% lower output totals for e/w than s but I seem to be getting much lass than that. Also how does the poster earlier in this thread manage to get what she does from an EAST facing array of the same size on the Scottish borders??!! Do you reckon my inverter is not well matched?

 

[kate.harrison1]

Have had my Sanyo system running for 2 weeks tomorrow consisting of 16 x N240SE10 panels with a sunnyboy inverter and so far it has made 116kwh. Orientation SSW 41 degree pitch with no shading. Best day so far was Saturday with the sunnybeam showing a lovely smooth curve and a production of 18.6kwh

Gary,
Do you mind me asking you if your output has significantly dropped this week?

 

[Gary K]

Output is dropping as the sun follows a lower path. On Saturday the system maxed out at 2.96kw between the slight hazy cloud where as in the first couple of days of being turned on it was reading 3.17kw briefly.
the last few days have made-
24th - 11.89
23rd- 12.420
22nd- 15.86
21st- 11.188
20th- 16.686
19th- 14.152
18th- 15.185

toal in 21 days is 211.66
but the weather has been good

I have registered on PVoutput as Norwich Power if you like to compare.

 

[TrickyDicky101]

I'm envious of those generation figures Gary! It will be interesting to see what happens to them when the cloudy & rainy days hit us.

Kate, I suspect neither of us are going to be blown away by our generation figures until Spring/Summer next year (love to be proved wrong, however).

 

[series530]

Hi Richard,
Many thanks for your pm from the other forum. As you can see, I have managed to finf this one and, as you say, has some interesting posts. I am still somewhat baffled at the apparent discrepancy of peoples outputs. As I said, mine, commisioned late morning on 20th and consisting of 16 Sanyo 240HIT ( 8 west facing and 8 east facing) plus SMA400TL has now generated a total of 34.24 at close of play today> Averaged out, that is about 5.7kw per day. If the weather was cloudy, ok, but it has been pretty sunny the whole time since installation so I am, frankly disappointed. I was advised that the south facing roof was only big enough to accommodate about 6 panels bu I am beginning to wonder whether we have made a mistake and should have just had fewer panels on the directly south facing roof. I was led to understand that inverters need a certain total power output to operate efficiently and that 5 or 6 panels would not have worked well.
I can only assume that the low figures are a combination of the low sun not shining directly onto the panels and the shorter trajectory of the sun meaning that it seems to rise and set further to the south than it does say during the spring and summer.
Unless there is some fault with my system, I suppose I have to just wait and watch what happens in the spring/summer when the sun passes right overhead and SHOULD enable something close to peak output. All models I looked at sugested about 15% lower output totals for e/w than s but I seem to be getting much lass than that. Also how does the poster earlier in this thread manage to get what she does from an EAST facing array of the same size on the Scottish borders??!! Do you reckon my inverter is not well matched?

Kate,

just as a quick sanity check: do you know if the arrays on each of the roofs are on different strings from the inverter? The 4000TL has two strings (AFAIK) and each has an individual MPPT tracker. If one roof was suffering from low light it would not affect the other and you would maintain a reasonable overall harvest. If, for some reason, it was wired such that the two strings were distributed across each roof I could imagine that this may cause the lower energy.

The other consideration is the amount, if any, of shading. While there may not be any hard shading due to telegraph poles or dormers, do you get any diffused shading as a result of distant trees or trees with an open structure? Hard shading is bad but diffused shading, as I think I am conclusing through reading posts on here and on other forums, can sometimes have an even worse effect.

 

[Gary K]

I'm envious of those generation figures Gary! It will be interesting to see what happens to them when the cloudy & rainy days hit us.

Back down with a bump today . Started with cloud and light rain and gradually got brighter during day
total output 2.7kwh.
Told you the weather had been good in the last week!!!

 

[TrickyDicky101]

It's somewhat worrying the feelings of elation I get when the sun breaks cloud cover and my peak hits 2.5kW (in the last day anyway) followed by the emotional doldrums as the cloud and rain strike reducing peak to 193kW.

I'm pretty sure I'll get bored of this soon enough...

 

[zeljuga]

Output is dropping as the sun follows a lower path. On Saturday the system maxed out at 2.96kw between the slight hazy cloud where as in the first couple of days of being turned on it was reading 3.17kw briefly.
the last few days have made-
24th - 11.89
23rd- 12.420
22nd- 15.86
21st- 11.188
20th- 16.686
19th- 14.152
18th- 15.185

Average above: 13.9115714 kw /day
Multiply bay 365 days = 5077.72357 kw/year
Weary optimistic for 4 kwp system (October average output month for year)

However 211.66 kw for 21day , average :10.0790476 kw/day
Multiply bay 365 days = 3678.85238 kw/Year
Realistic output for 4kwp system . But optimistic for 3.84 kwp system