Solar Array performance data

[SolarCity]

Seeing as we have so many installers on this forum, an idea struck me about the performance of solar arrays.

Seeing as between us all we must have hundreds of installs under our belts, wouldn't it be handy to collect all the data from these installs and save them on a seperate website?

Information like location, panel, inverter, array size, shading info, orientation, roof inclince could all be taken and we could analyse which panels appear to be performing the best.

Are Sanyo the best? Are Suntech a great budget choice? Do transformerless inverters make much difference? Does undersizing inverters work better? etc.

Thoughts?

 

[SolarCity]

As a side note, I've been thinking about this a lot lately, particularly after an incredibly frustrating conversation with a customer yesterday morning. We have lost a job to another installer that is using UpSolar panels. We quoted Sanyo 245w panels and we were cheaper (not sure how much). The customer informs me that they have gone for the UpSolar option, despite it being a little dearer, because they have more confidence in the panels. The installer, apparently, showed them a magazine article which claimed that they were the best and then claimed that it wasn't worth going for the Sanyo option as their roof had plenty of space and therefore using Sanyos wasn't necessary.

I'm annoyed because the couple that we have been dealing with are cracking people and it bothers me a lot that they've been sucked in by bull****.

 

[Worcester]

@BiggsSolar

We are working on a site for people that have monitoring systems in place, that will include postcode system details etc. .... so that they can see their output etc, top level information for that site would be puplicly available so that people can do that comparison - watch this space ...

 

[SolarCity]

Sounds good Gordon, look forward to seeing it.

 

[Markc]

As a side note, I've been thinking about this a lot lately, particularly after an incredibly frustrating conversation with a customer yesterday morning. We have lost a job to another installer that is using UpSolar panels. We quoted Sanyo 245w panels and we were cheaper (not sure how much). The customer informs me that they have gone for the UpSolar option, despite it being a little dearer, because they have more confidence in the panels. The installer, apparently, showed them a magazine article which claimed that they were the best and then claimed that it wasn't worth going for the Sanyo option as their roof had plenty of space and therefore using Sanyos wasn't necessary.

I'm annoyed because the couple that we have been dealing with are cracking people and it bothers me a lot that they've been sucked in by bull****.

Upsolar over Sanyo......! Let me think about that a moment?

I'd like to see that magazine article. Was it called the Beano?

 

[Worcester]

It's in the OKO report .. UpSolar are rated as one of the top 4 with a rating of "very good"

The report goes on to say about all the panels they tested:

[FONT=&quot]"The encouraging result, you usually make the promises of the manufacturers."[/FONT]

 

[SRE]

I thought the OKO report was quite out of date??????

 

[SRE]

How can Upsolar possibly be dearer than Sanyo - there must be some serious profit margins on the Upsolar installation? I have to confess that we've quoted for Upsolar twice on real budget installations, PVSOL gives them a reasonably good yield prediction (but obviously doesn't take into account long term build) and they were at least 2k cheaper on a 4kwp install s how they could be sold at a more expensive price than Sanyo I do not know!

 

[davidanson]

Have a look at Sheffield Solar Farm | Solar power research and application in the UK.

They are doing part fo the job already - for those of us in the frozen north.

 

[SRE]

Sheffield - North? ROFL

 

[davidanson]

Sheffield - North? ROFL

.....of the Watford Gap