California Wildfire Solar Degradation.

[Craig]

I am assuming everyone else here in California is seeing about 10% output from their solar panels due to the level of smoke in the air.
I was wondering if others were as bad as mine. With about 80% of new homes being built with solar I also wonder if this will increase the amount of brown outs if it gets hot again.

 

[Liam M]

Last 2 days, my small 600w array has been producing ~50w ish.
This is my 1st run in with solar filtering.
Are foggy/cloudy days just the same?

 

[MichaelK]

Normally I can start my well pump at 8am when my solar resources raise higher than ~2000W. Last week I had to wait till 9am to reach that level because of the smoke. Once the sun was at a substantially high position in the sky, I noted no problems. I guessing that when the sun is low and closer to the horizon, it's passing through more smoke than when straight overhead. I'm sure there was still some reduction, but not enough to negatively interfer with my power needs.

 

[Craig]

Last 2 days, my small 600w array has been producing ~50w ish.
This is my 1st run in with solar filtering.
Are foggy/cloudy days just the same?

I get way more power from cloudy fogy days than I am getting from the smoke.