Adding another 1,000 Watts of P.V.s

Alaska Man
Alaska Man Solar Expert Posts: 252 ✭✭
in Off Grid Solar & Battery Systems #1
With the price of Solar Panels being so affordable right now, instead of getting a mechanical tracker or even a human, powered, pole mounted one. We decided to add 2 panels to the east side of the house and two more to the west side. Each Panel is a Canadian Solar 250w, 12v Panel. This summer I hope to get my genny run time down to zero. That will make it a total of 1,960W for my 880 ah bank.

The local retailer put them on a type of layaway for me. I do lots of business with him so he was accommodating. Throwing a few hundred at him with each check should get me the parts and pieces just about break-up.

Life is Good today.


Going to have to edit my signature line. Adding an Outback FM60 controller too.
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  • CALLD
    CALLD Solar Expert Posts: 230 ✭✭
    #2
    Sounds awesome Alaska Man! Yes the East/West flanks to your main-south facing modules certainly sounds like the best bet for a high-latitude summer off-grid setup. When you get closer to the equator like me having them all facing straight up gets you the best result for mid summer performance. I too am in the process of upgrading but for a different reason - winter is approaching and our country is already in the grip of daily rolling blackouts due to an ailing power utility that can't add capacity faster than it's losing it. Upgrading from 880w to 1490w with MPPT should just about get my new winter production figures to match what I've just seen in summer with the existing setup;)

    FYI even summer doesn't mean you get to throw away the Genny, we had 6 straight days of cloudy weather right after the summer solstice and believe me - 6 straight days of sunny mid winter weather would have yielded more...
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  • Alaska Man
    Alaska Man Solar Expert Posts: 252 ✭✭
    #3
    Yeah, I hear that. We had the rainiest summer in history last year. I told everyone it was because I installed my solar system, so it figured with my luck it would rain all summer. There were very few weeks that we didn't have to run the genny once or twice. Hoping for much more sun this summer, fingers crossed.


    Got to love those MPPT controllers. let them do the thinking for me. ;-)
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  • northerner
    northerner Solar Expert Posts: 492 ✭✭✭✭✭✭
    #4
    Alaska Man wrote: »
    This summer I hope to get my genny run time down to zero. That will make it a total of 1,960W for my 880 ah bank.

    I live in the north as well and made it through all summer without having to run the generator. In fact I went from Feb17 through to Sept 26 with no run time. I ran for just over 1 hour on Sept 27, and then no run again till October 23.

    In December, I had just over 100 hours of generator run time, always my absolute worst month. I'm getting close to retiring the genset for yet another season.

    Good luck with your upgrade!
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  • westbranch
    westbranch Solar Expert Posts: 5,183 ✭✭✭✭
    #5
    This has been the cloudiest and foggiest winter I have seen here since 1979, real bad for PV generation. Snow would come and then just clouds... never the return of clear cold skies like we used to get ...
     
    KID #51B  4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM
    CL#29032 FW 2126/ 2073/ 2133 175A E-Panel WBjr, 3 x 4s 140W to 24V 900Ah C&D AGM 
    Cotek ST1500W 24V Inverter,OmniCharge 3024,
    2 x Cisco WRT54GL i/c DD-WRT Rtr & Bridge,
    Eu3/2/1000i Gens, 1680W & E-Panel/WBjr to come, CL #647 asleep
    West Chilcotin, BC, Canada
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  • Alaska Man
    Alaska Man Solar Expert Posts: 252 ✭✭
    #6
    My Array stopped making power on Oct 29th on January 30th I made 0.01 Kwh. LOL

    I'm about to make 1.0 Kwh in another day or so, with the 960w array, getting kinda stoked about that. ;-)

    But I do have a wee bit of a foot hill to the south. If I was on the other side of the mountain I could make power year round, not a lot, but I could catch an hour or two of sunshine. The problem is there just isn't much energy in it. No heat at all at 65° N in the winter.


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  • solorone
    solorone Solar Expert Posts: 257 ✭✭✭
    #7
    Alaska Man wrote: »
    My Array stopped making power on Oct 29th on January 30th I made 0.01 Kwh. LOL

    I'm about to make 1.0 Kwh in another day or so, with the 960w array, getting kinda stoked about that. ;-)

    But I do have a wee bit of a foot hill to the south. If I was on the other side of the mountain I could make power year round, not a lot, but I could catch an hour or two of sunshine. The problem is there just isn't much energy in it. No heat at all at 65° N in the winter.


    Alaska is a tough solar site but I bet it is a beautiful place. I have an acquaintance up there with a similar site, mountains to the south, I think his dark time is good bit longer..
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  • CALLD
    CALLD Solar Expert Posts: 230 ✭✭
    #8
    Alaska Man wrote: »
    My Array stopped making power on Oct 29th on January 30th I made 0.01 Kwh. LOL

    I'm about to make 1.0 Kwh in another day or so, with the 960w array, getting kinda stoked about that. ;-)

    But I do have a wee bit of a foot hill to the south. If I was on the other side of the mountain I could make power year round, not a lot, but I could catch an hour or two of sunshine. The problem is there just isn't much energy in it. No heat at all at 65° N in the winter.


    In the middle of a thunderstorm I've just seen 5watts on my charge controller at 14:00, the sun is at an altitude of 62° above the horizon. There goes another summer day, 15 to go before autumn (fall in American talk).
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  • Denman
    Denman Solar Expert Posts: 42 ✭✭
    #9
    We're about to add a whole new bank of solar panels here in Colorado too. :D And make a redundant system tied with a throwover breaker. :D Love the prices going down.
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