The Lemon Fool

Our 4kW solar panel installation has been generating about 4kWh/day over the past month, according to its meter. Is that in line with what others have been seeing?

If so it's not very impressive. Very very long payback time.


GS

No!

Our 3.7Kwh can produce 20+Kwh on a sunny day. Something is amiss. My system is ESE so it would be more if facing due S.

Check out pvoutput.org (another called bdpv - French).

System owners send their gen data to the website so you can view the output of people near you with similar systems.

Meatyfool..

GS,

You have a problem. Check your system, or - though I hesitate to say this with you - your understanding of what the metering is saying. I have a 3.6kW system and I am doing about 12-22kWh/day over the last few weeks. A system fault sounds likely I would suggest.

Regards,
dspp

dspp wrote:GS,

You have a problem. Check your system, or - though I hesitate to say this with you - your understanding of what the metering is saying. I have a 3.6kW system and I am doing about 12-22kWh/day over the last few weeks. A system fault sounds likely I would suggest.

Regards,
dspp

Thanks all. There is a cumulative reading. It is showing 373kWh total generated over three months.

GS

My 2.5kW panels are heading for 15kWhrs so far today. It will be a best this year. A well sited 4kW set of panels should be in the mid 20's already today

Something must be wrong GS
I am in N Scotland with a 4kW array, almost due S facing and with absolutely no shading at any time.
I've done >1200kWh over the last 3 months.

I have found the forecasts available from this resource to be very representative: http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php

DB

GS,

For 3.6kW in Dorset these are my monthly numbers this year so far:

Jan = 67 kWh
Feb = 115 kWh
Mar = 224 kWh
Apr = 374 kWh
May = 464 kWh
Jun = 365 kWh mtd (averages 450kWh most Junes so far, i.e. this has been similarly bad as 2016 was so far)

I have a SolarEdge system and these stats come direct from the online monitoring. I can drill down to module level if necessary through the online database for my own system, and for another one I keep an eye on. This is one of the reasons I do not hesitate to recommend SolarEdge systems as they allow you to very carefully check performance and fault find without leaving the keyboard. When I had one of the DCDC 'bricks' fail (there are 12 PV modules, and 12 bricks), that is clipped on the back of a module, the system itself alerted my installer, who could see the problem, and then SolarEdge despatched a warranty replacement by post. All without my installer (or me) leaving our keyboards. Then a quick reach behind the panel, unclip & unplug the brick, and that was going smoothly again, and in the meantime I only lost 1/12 of the system output.

Hope that helps,
dspp

GoSeigen wrote:Our 4kW solar panel installation has been generating about 4kWh/day over the past month, according to its meter. Is that in line with what others have been seeing?
If so it's not very impressive. Very very long payback time.GS

How are you monitoring?
This my http://www.bdpv.fr graph for a 4kWp system:-

My 3.78kw array in Essex this year shows:
Jan. 103
Feb. 210
Mar. 277
Apr. 413
May.536
Jun. 422

Yesterday (27th) was best output day for June with over 24kw
Average daily output this month approx 16kw

Bucks - 4kW array, SE facing

January 2019 121.74
February 2019 223.29
March 2019 292.23
April 2019 385.53
May 2019 453.23
June 2019* 328.05

*to date!

Total since June 2013 (installation) approx 21 MWh

4kw Herts pointing SSE

Jan 112
Feb 216
Mar 299
Apr 394
May 487
Jun 379 (so far)

This thread could get quite long!

Interesting figures.

It would seem that SE & SSE facing arrays don't perform quite as well as my SE/SW array
Totals for year=
SE 1804
SSE 1887
SE/SW 1961