Skip to main content

PV Solar Energy - not all that it appears, for me at any rate

I installed a maximum sized domestic 4kw PV solar cell array on my South facing roof just before the government cut off date of 12th December 2011. I therefore qualify for the maximum Feed In Tariff of 43p per kw hour which ought to pay for my investment in about 8 years. So far so good. I do have a chimney which does interfere with some direct sunlight, and later in the day some distant trees do obstruct the sun in winter, so I am not expecting my array to produce as much as a set-up without interrupted sunlight. But I was led to expect a daily average throughout the year of 10kw hours (about 3,500 kwh per year). Our array has rarely produced more than 3 kwh in any day since 12/12/11, despite several very sunny ones. So I called Solarking, the installers (who did pull out all the stops to make sure I had  my installation up and running before the deadline. They were also extremely courteous and delivered a very tidy job). They said, "Don't worry, nobody gets much more than that in the winter months of low sun and shorter days. You'll make up the average when the sun is higher, stronger and lasts longer". Fair enough, I thought... until I received this from a friend who lives in the next county:

As you can see, during January he has achieved 5 days of around 10 kwh or more. In fact he is producing on his worst days the same as I produce on my best!!

In 46 days since installation I have produced 100 kwh = an average of 2.17 kwh per day. My friend's average is more than double this at 4.99 kwh.

I also wasn't offered the same type of web-based monitoring system that he uses, so there's another reason for a gromble...

...but come on! There must be something significantly wrong with my set-up for there to be more than twice the difference in output - even allowing for a chimney and treetops at dusk.

This posting will be tweeted to Solarking for an explanation. Sadly they don't publish an email address for ongoing support, otherwise this debate wouldn't be happening in public.
Labels:

Comments

  1. chimney pipe27 January 2012 at 02:03

    2.17 kwh per day, it is really so powerful! best wishes to you.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thanks for taking an interest.

Popular posts from this blog

Phillips screws - yes I'm angry about them too

Don't get me wrong. They're a brilliant invention to assist automation and prevent screwdrivers from slipping off screw heads - damaging furniture, paintwork and fingers in the process. Interestingly they weren't invented by Mr Phillips at all, but by a John P Thompson who sold Mr P the idea after failing to commercialise it. Mr P, on the otherhand, quickly succeeded where Mr T had failed. Incredible isn't it. You don't just need a good idea, you need a great salesman and, more importantly, perfect timing to make a success out of something new. Actually, it would seem, he did two clever things (apart from buying the rights). He gave the invention to GM to trial. No-brainer #1. After it was adopted by the great GM, instead of trying to become their sole supplier of Phillips screws, he sold licenses to every other screw manufacturer in the world. A little of a lot is worth a great deal more than a lot of a little + vulnerability (watch out Apple!). My gromble is abo
7 comments
Read more

Prepare for Alien Contact

I've not gone barking mad or joined some weird religious cult (aren't they all?). But I do predict that we will make contact with intelligences from other planets soon. Here's my reasoning: There are approximately 100,000,000,000 stars in our galaxy (easy way to remember this order of magnitude is it's one hundred, thousand, million). Usefully there are also approximately the same number of galaxies in the universe. And assuming every star has about the same number of planets orbiting it as our Sun, and that the Milky Way is an average size of galaxy, that means there are around 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 planets in the universe. A lot. Scientists have long debated the probability of life, as we would recognise it - reproducing, eating, etc - existing outside Earth. Most agree mathematically that it's a certainty. What they did was take all the components they believed were required for life to have evolved on Earth and then extrapolate what they know about
Post a Comment
Read more

Introducing Product Relationship Management - it's what customers want.

Most businesses these days have Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems which store and process vasts amounts of information about us. They use this information to generate communications, amongst other things, which target us to buy their products and services. CRM is all about how a business relates to its customers: Past (keeping them loyal through aftersales and service), Present (helping them buy through bricks and clicks channels) and Future (prospecting). Most businesses will at some stage have declared themselves 'customer-centric'. They will probably have drawn diagrams on whiteboards that look something like these: But there's a problem with this whole approach of keeping the customer at the centre of your world and the focal point for everything you do. Is it what the customer wants ? Of course companies who ignore their customers eventually go out of business. And those who treat their customers well, tend to thrive. But is it really in the best inte
1 comment
Read more