Solarguy
Member
38Mwh for a 17Kw system is outstanding. My 15.25Kw system in Florida 23 to 24Mwh yearly and I'm happy with that with the panels facing west.
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Installing Solar at Your Home
- Thread starter davecolene0606
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- Energy Environment Policy
38Mwh for a 17Kw system is outstanding. My 15.25Kw system in Florida 23 to 24Mwh yearly and I'm happy with that with the panels facing west.
I have an 8k sq. ft. all electric house. In December 2012, I installed a 17.9 kW DC array ( 70 Solarworld 255 panels) with Enphase M215 inverters. Cost was $62k or $3.47 per watt DC or $4.11 per watt AC. Solar production was 29.8 MWh for 2013 or 40% of total usage. The array is tilted 13 deg. @ 180 azimuth, so overall production is slightly lower than ideal but summer production is better. To date, the array is producing about 105% of the PVWatts estimate.
I'm on a TOU plan with a summer on peak rate of $0.21/kWh. With aggressive load shifting and the solar addition, I have reduced on peak usage to less than 2% of total kWh. I recently added solar water heating and Belkin Wemo switches to the hot water recirc pumps in an effort to eliminate all on peak use. I would have preferred to add more PV panels instead of the solar hot water but the local utility has eliminated all incentives for PV.
I'm on a TOU plan with a summer on peak rate of $0.21/kWh. With aggressive load shifting and the solar addition, I have reduced on peak usage to less than 2% of total kWh. I recently added solar water heating and Belkin Wemo switches to the hot water recirc pumps in an effort to eliminate all on peak use. I would have preferred to add more PV panels instead of the solar hot water but the local utility has eliminated all incentives for PV.
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nwdiver
Well-Known Member
wpapua
Member
Starting very small here in Australia !! Just installed 4.5kW on a new home - 14 x 327W SunPower through an SMA 5000TL inverter, destined to, hopefully, take home energy storage when the price comes down. S85 Sig. due September (? Tesla Time !). No word on Tesla's official release in Oz yet. Test drive yesterday - delighted to be part of the 'Future of Motoring'. Trust the PV will make a worthwhile contribution to EV charging, if it's plugged in when home during the day (retired).
That is a awesome array!
Space it a bit limited at my house, so we have a 4.8kW SolarWorld/Enphase roof mounted system (with another 3.575kW coming next month).
Just out of curiosity, why did you go with micro inverters for such a large system. I would have though shading was not an big issue and string inverters would have probably cost less.
dhrivnak
Active Member
Some very impressive set ups. I hope you voted in the driving on Sunshine poll where we are trying to see how many TMC members have gone solar. Driving on Sunshine - Page 10
Maybe a moderator could merge the threads to just show off your home solar. One easy place to vote and add your pictures of your home set up.
Maybe a moderator could merge the threads to just show off your home solar. One easy place to vote and add your pictures of your home set up.
That make sense.
We have neighbor's trees that cast a shadows starting in late afternoon/early evening. You can see the shadow move across the panels on the panel output time lapse view. I can't imagine loose the whole string that early with traditional inverters.
bollar
Disgruntled Member
We're completing our first summer month with Solar PV and Tesla. Now that we're in 100 degree heat, our ancient air conditioners are sucking up most of our production. Still, we drove the car about 1000 miles for $12 in purchased electricity.
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simplesolar
Member
bollar
Disgruntled Member
Ah! It's the Powerhouse Dynamics SiteSage system (formerly eMonitor). It starts at ~ $500 to monitor a few of your key circuits and you can expand it to cover every circuit if you want to. They have a nice web portal that has a lot of information on each monitored circuit.
It monitors circuits the same way as other systems like the TED. There are CTs that are clipped around the circuit wire at the breaker box.
It monitors circuits the same way as other systems like the TED. There are CTs that are clipped around the circuit wire at the breaker box.
I use the same system. A few warnings-
1/ there is a yearly service fee in addition to the hardware
2/ if you use an HPWC you will need to buy an additional 150A CT to measure your electrical consumption correctly. The standard branch circuit CTs are rated for ~50A (from memory) but in reality stop working at about 70A.
I have three panels, two mains and a sub. It can handle such configurations.
A
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bollar
Disgruntled Member
bollar
Disgruntled Member
bollar
Disgruntled Member
I pay $270/year ($513/2 years) for 68 channels plus renewables monitoring (PV, wind, etc.). I no longer have access to the cost for smaller systems.
Each circuit is a channel, except for certain dual breaker circuits with 110/220 loads (dryer & oven, primarily). The dual breaker circuits require two channels.
