6MWh in 8 months

autoxsteve

I passed 6MWh this past weekend. I've had my system online since St Patrick's day and needless to say, I'm very pleased. I need to go buy a truckload of Christmas lights!

Brock

Re: 6MWh in 8 months

That's impressive! I have found with our last array we got about the array size in kw a year, 1000w array should make about 1000 kw/h a year. Our current system has only been up and running 5 months now, time will tell.

TnAndy

Re: 6MWh in 8 months

Brock,

Forgive my newness.....as I'm just about to bring my system online....but are you saying a 1,000 watt array only produced 100Kw/hrs in a year ? 100/365 = .28Kw/hrs per day...280watt/hrs/day.....surely that can't be right..... or I'm not understanding something.

Autoxsteve is doing 1,000kw/hrs a month with 4,100 watts of panels, or about 250kw/hrs per month per 1,000watts/panels. Of course, he has a great sun resource there in Southern Cal.....but I was hoping for 350-400kw/hrs a month (yearly average) out of the 2,100 watts of panels I'm about to bring online here in East TN. I'd be VERY happy if mine did 500kw/hrs a month yearly average !

Steve: Are your panels fixed mounted ? Mine are mounted on two poles with single axis tracking. I was given to understand that SA tracking would increase my gain about 25%, so I 'might' just come close to your figure if yours are fixed. Given the amount of pain I went to in building these trackers, I sure hope this is the case.....

crewzer

Re: 6MWh in 8 months

I was given to understand that SA tracking would increase my gain about 25%,

PV Watts suggests that +25% for SA tracker vs. fixed array looks about right for your neck of the woods. Full benefit will require clear "view" from East to West (no trees, buildings, etc.)

See: http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/codes_algs/PVWATTS/version1/US/Tennessee/

HTH,
Jim / crewzer

Brock

Re: 6MWh in 8 months

WOOPS, yes that should be 1000kw/hr. (I will fix that)

In the past 16 weeks (since I had 960w up and running) we have generated 298 kw or about 21 kw a week although the numbers have been falling since the install because of less sun each day and our lovely weather. Even if we average 20 kw a week that will be just over 1000 kw/hr a year. In the solar map we are at about 3.5 hours a day over the year.