Brucey
Solar Wizard
Got 77kWh today so reached my yearly target of 40MWh.
My 44kW vertical and bifacial set in Finland.
- Thread starter shadowmaker
- Start date
Brucey
Solar Wizard
When does your solar year end? New stretch goal of 50MWh?Got 77kWh today so reached my yearly target of 40MWh.
Congratulations. I enjoyed the day riding my electric dirtbike in 18°C sunny weather…Got 77kWh today so reached my yearly target of 40MWh.
shadowmaker
Solar Addict
End of March.
50MWh is out of reach, but PVWatts is predicting 6,7MWh for these two months together, so something like 46-48MWh might be possible. PVWatts predicted 42MWh for the whole year, but I was more conservative what to hope for. 40 was my target so everything after that is just a bonus.
shadowmaker
Solar Addict
Sunny afternoon here too, but -25C and dropping to -30C for tomorrow. Not nice for dirtbike, but ok for snowmobile.
OffGridForGood
Catch, make or grow everything you can.
You guys must be getting our weather, we are above freezing and getting (wait for it) RAIN
in February this is very unusual here. I think we only saw a few days all winter that were normal -25/-30 C most of the time right around freezing temps or above and no snow.
I only needed to clean snow off my PV panels once!
Exact opposite here. Coldest winter in 20 years, and tons of snow.
Zwy
Emperor Of Solar
55 degrees max tilt on the Sinclair.
You might be able to cheat a little with being creative. But don't tell them you will be cheating as they will send it over to engineering and it takes forever. I sent emails regarding if they were making any progress and they never responded. I ended up finding some used MT Solar and the day I picked them up, Sinclair engineers finally responded. I guess they screwed the pooch on that one.
I'll be happier with the MT Solar, higher height array which means less length for same number of panels, I get 4 feet ground clearance easily at the 65° tilt.
I started turning mine back up yesterday, it was 47 days since winter solstice and I thought production just seemed a little shy of what I had been seeing. No snow here now anyway so you don't get that extra yield from the light reflecting off the snow when array is at 65°.
shadowmaker
Solar Addict
I don't think even 65 degree would do it here. Freezing rain/wet snow accompanied with fast temperature changes can freeze up those panels for long time here. Then again I'm so far north that even in summer solstice my optimal tilt would be over 50 degree, so going fixed vertical here isn't that bad. This doesn't mean that I should be recommending this to people living 2-4000km more south than me. We need a guinea pig.
I'd think that being more south with vertical/close to vertical AND bifacials would be better than expected IF there's enough albedo.
Zwy
Emperor Of Solar
65° works well here. I did a recent video showing my array melting off crap like that in about 1.5 hours.I don't think even 65 degree would do it here. Freezing rain/wet snow accompanied with fast temperature changes can freeze up those panels for long time here. Then again I'm so far north that even in summer solstice my optimal tilt would be over 50 degree, so going fixed vertical here isn't that bad. This doesn't mean that I should be recommending this to people living 2-4000km more south than me. We need a guinea pig.
I'd think that being more south with vertical/close to vertical AND bifacials would be better than expected IF there's enough albedo.
Included was showing my array after a blizzard that was clear and producing during the blizzard and the next day. It did get cold here after that, -20°F for temps at night and not above 0°F for 10 days. I went to a neighboring town and showed grid tie at a fixed 45° tilt that stayed covered the whole time. That system lost 10 days of production from snow cover alone, the kicker was it turned cloudy for several days once it warmed up to thaw those panels off and they still didn't get any meaningful production for another 3 days. Before it warmed up, skies were clear and I was pulling over 50Kwh per day from 8.4Kw of panels. The EG4 MPPT's were pulling more than panel rating for a total of 9.0Kw at peak output from those 8.4Kw of PV. It's all in the video, I showed the PV coming in and the snow on the fixed arrays. My panels are not bi facial.
shadowmaker
Solar Addict
174kWh today. Would call it a perfect day with fresh snow on the ground and -30C morning/-15C afternoon, no clouds.
That’s what’s considered a perfect day? You Fins are a different breed.
shadowmaker
Solar Addict
That and didn't run into a single polar bear. A perfect day.
Also: no mosquitoes!
Zwy
Emperor Of Solar
Snow cover left early here this year. I think the drought here continues for another year. Spring planting looks to be dry so they will have to plant deep to get any moisture for germination.
The other day was mid 50°F temps. The El Nino sometimes is OK.
We might have some decent floods here in Spring in the usual regions if this all suddenly melts.
DougfromdaUP
Solar Enthusiast
You are right. Here in the frozen upper peninsula of Michigan I have tested my normally vertical but fully adjustable array with as little as 5 degrees tilt off vertical, and fluffy snow (the kind cold areas get) will stack up on and ruin production.
The light reflection off the snow in front makes me beat PVWatts and other predictions of power made by a tremendous margin on sunny or even moderately bright days.
shadowmaker
Solar Addict
My array is not totally vertical. Haven't measured it, but its around 80-85 degree to catch more noon sun in summer. My panels seem to have some kind of hydrophobic coating on them which may help with snow too. I have never seen any snow on them, not even little.
PVWatts takes albedo into account using weather files so snow reflection should be in those calculations. Of course PVWatts gives you just an estimation based on averages. IRC it claims +-30% accuracy for month and +-10% accuracy for year. It can't be dead on correct always but using it to see how production changes when using different tilt/azimuth etc. gives you nice predictions how to optimize your array for your needs. I understand it's not wise to compare monthly PVWatts results (or even yearly) to my actual outputs, but so far I have nothing else to compare my set to.
shadowmaker
Solar Addict
So your set is 16,74kWp? Using that means if your set was to be same size as mine (44,1kWp) it should have produced 47,42MWh yearly. So production wise we can be pretty equal, but location wise you are ~3000km more south. It tells me my setup is working much better than expected.
Similar threads
