Wahoo I'm up! - Next question...

SRP came Thursday and plugged me in!  I'm PSYCHED!
15 Kyocera 200 watt panels, home made rack and a Xantres inverter.

My question is...

           What's the skinny with the Xantrex program?  There is a downloadable program where one could hook their inverter up to a PC (I assume for monitering/tracking purposes).  Are there any thoughts out there?  Shoud I bother?  Is it simply another cool thing?

Thanks for all you help in the past!

Mikey

Comments

  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    Re: Wahoo I'm up! - Next question...

    Personally, I just write down the reading from my Xantrex 3.0 GT inverter once each night (daily, total, number of hours for that day)... I did this pretty religiously for the first year so that I would have a baseline to look for panel/inverter problems down the road. And, so far I am continuing (probably, only writing the lifetime total hours is really needed, at least once per metering period.

    You kind of need some sort of data over time to understand if you array is producing correctly or not... There are so many issues with temperature, wind, changing solar irradiance, cloud cover, dust, weather, etc., that just having a couple numbers at high noon to make sure everything is working OK is not accurate enough to check for proper long term function.

    I plug the numbers into a spread sheet with my utility's Time Of Use (TOU) net metering numbers (from monthly bill) so that I can keep track of how much "excess or deficit" power I have available over the year, and I can sort of manage my ongoing usage over the next year. Because I am on TOU metering, watching my peak billing period usage is pretty important ($0.29 vs $0.09 per kWhr during the six "summer" months).

    I have not wanted to dedicate a desktop computer to monitor my array as they can consume serious amounts of power. And even a laptop is not insignificant (mine old is about 30 watts, or 0.8 kWhrs per day or about 5-10% of my typical generated/used power). This small amount starts to "hurt" when you are running around the house putting even washer/drier, small wall worts and TV's/dvd/vcr/HDTV receiver on power strips to turn off the standby power costs.

    You can also go by this site--I don't know if this is the same program as from the Xantrex site, but this guy is one of the engineers who designed/brought to market the Xantrex 3.x GT inverter:

    http://www.solar-guppy.com/
    http://www.solar-guppy.com/forum/

    (whoops... never mind, you have already been there too--leave links for others to reference if interested).

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  • Roderick
    Roderick Solar Expert Posts: 253 ✭✭
    Re: Wahoo I'm up! - Next question...

    Beautifully done! Say, how much did it cost (not counting your engineering and labor) to make those racks?
  • System2
    System2 Posts: 6,290 admin
    Re: Wahoo I'm up! - Next question...

    Thanks BB!

    You are on the Solar Guppy site so I'm being a bit redudnant but...

    We have a computer on 24/7 so it would not change our power comsuption much to hook it up (monitor is turned off at night and all is unpluged during thunder boomers)

    I am not on TOU here. SRP said it would not make much of a difference with our power usage. Maybe I shoudl look into at again tho???

    Thanks again!

    Mikey

  • System2
    System2 Posts: 6,290 admin
    Re: Wahoo I'm up! - Next question...

    Thanks Roderick!

    I teach HS Shop (Auto and electronics) and my side job is welding at a scrap yard in Phoenix.  I got the chanel from them and just invested sweat equity in the fabrication.  The racks are ment to tilt in the winter by adding 51" legs to the top side, (From 18 degrees laying flat on the roof to 45 degrees from horozontal) but when my wife and helper (Step dad and friend) heard it would only net a 10% increase (read $60 a year) they told me I was nuts to make em tilt.

    I punched the holes (2" & more than I want to count!) to lighten up the racks (steel), let wind through them (prevent their transformation into a kite!), and let more air circulate it keep the panels cooler in the summer.  (Used up the threads in 4 greenlee knock out dies! Prolly shouldn't have used an air impact on the knockout dies LOL)

    Stainless hardware (panels to rack) and galvanized hardware (rack to rack and rack to roof) was about $80.

    Thanks again!

    Mikey

  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,431 admin
    Re: Wahoo I'm up! - Next question...

    Time of use can be a big money maker for solar systems if you generate a lot during the peak times, and only consume most of your power during off peak times...

    But each utility/state/country has its own rules and requirements--so you have to study the rate planes very closely to see if they make sense for you...

    For example, my E-7 rate plan is very favorable for me... So much, that PG&E stopped allowing new customers to use it anymore... Now they have to use E-6 (residential) which is way more complex and has many hours when the sun is quite low in the sky or has set (not much help for solar panel there)... And in my case, then E-1 (flat rate residential) would probably make more sense.

    http://www.pge.com/tariffs/EPS.SHTML#EPS

    If you have big loads that you can schedule for late evenings (after 9pm-7am) like electric hot water or electric car, TOU might work well (but replacing the electric hot water with solar hot water would probably be more cost effective than going solar PV).

    You really have to take some wild guesses and put them in a spread sheet to see if they make sense for you.
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset