Solar Sun-day in Florida
Welcome to Solar Sun-day, not posted Sunday -- (Dad joke, get it haha?) While I did work on the generating the stats this weekend and painting the conduit / panels for the new Solar power system this post is mainly about some statistics from the new system. For a description and pictures / drone video of the system install, visit my earlier post here:
https://ecency.com/hive-168869/@ksteem/weekend-solar-install-with-battery
As just a quick review, we installed a 32 panel system rated at 13kWh, and 4 Enphase Battery Backups.
This shows the overall production for the Half Month (July 12-30th). In that time period, we've used (Consumed) 1.8 MWh (1,800 kWh), pictured in Orange on the graph. In that same time, our Solar Panels have produced 993.2 kWh, or about half of what we've used (shown in Blue). We also powered the house off of our backup batteries for about 81.3 kWh shown in green, and charged the batteries for about 132.8 kWh. We also exported 223.9kWh back to the Power Company grid.
I'll have to wait a couple weeks to see how this actually impacts our monthly bill, but based solely on electric cost, it should shave at least the $129.10 shown here off the bill, maybe more. Hopefully double that amount or more in a full month.
This is a shot from one of the better days with full sunshine nearly all day. We actually produced more energy than we used, even including the nighttime hours with no sun. You can see the nice pretty blue curve of Solar production ramp up in the morning full strength in the early afternoon and then go back down in the evening. Keep in mind, we are in one of our three top consumption months (July, August, Sept) here right now with Air Conditioning running hard. Daytime temperatures running around 95F (35C) during day and 80F (26C) at night. We'll likely see some days over 100F (37C) next month. It's also the storm season for us with clouds and thunderstorms many days over the last 2 weeks.
Below is one of the least productive days, with rain and clouds nearly all day. Only produced 26.4 kWh all day. Very sad.
This day below was more interesting. In this shot, I was letting the Solar charge the backup batteries during the day (green below the line), and then using them to power the house for several hours in the early evening. You can see all the dips in the blue during the day from clouds and storms, then running off battery from about 5pm to 9pm (about all the backup we got that day with the AC running, and other usage.
In this shot below, it shows what happens when we drive 200 miles and then charge the Chevy Blazer EV. You can see the big spike in the orange around 2-5pm, and also can see that we were using both Solar (blue) and the backup batteries (green upper) to charge the car without pulling from the grid (black upper). This was cool, but actually left the house batteries down for the night so glad we didn't have outage!
I've been watching the stats a bit obsessively and even changing some of our scheduled things to use during solar production (pool filter, clothes washer/dryer etc.) What we found is that we are typically using about 2-3 kwh for the always on stuff like refrig, freezers, water heater, computers, clocks, etc.... about 5-7 kwh when the AC quilting machine, and other daytime stuff in use and about 14-15kwh when the car is charging or clothes dryer running also..
Lessons learned:
I really thought I had over-sized system enough to account for the car charging. Not near as much as I had thought. I think we still may come out with net overage for the year, but we're certainly not going to cover the entire consumption during this hot and stormy months. But if we can get this close in these months, the other months when we don't need AC should make up extra.
I also learned that there is a built-in safety buffer on the systems.. ie: even though our system is rated at 13 kWh, the max I've seen it actually produce is about 10-11 kWh.
I definitely knew that we were not going to be producing power early morning and nighttime, but due to the position of our roof and panels, it ramps up really slowly in the morning producing only a few kWh until just after noon, when it kicks into high gear until about 6pm. I could likely pick up some additional good hours if I placed another 8 panels on the other roof slope to catch the morning sun, but not sure I'll do that or need to. Will re-evaluate next year.
I definitely did not take into account the impact the clouds would have. Even the spotty white puffy clouds will drop the production dramatically 5-8 kWh when they pass over. I'm fairly new to this area in Florida, and didn't know the afternoon thunderstorms were so frequent. These are pretty sporadic and generally only last 2-3 hours of clouds before they blow over, but it definitely impacts my production! More that my typical buffer for unknowns that I factored in.
I really like the Enphase app and all the information it gives me. Besides these graphs that are updated every 15 minutes, it also has a realtime view that shows me where the power is coming from and going to with changes every second. I have to confess, I've spent more time monitoring this thing and turning things off and on than I care to admit. Not sure if it will show up, but I tried an animated gif that shows the power flow switching from consumption and charging the backup batteries to also feeding back to the grid. Way cool to see it live.
Feel free to comment or questions. I'm no expert (yet), but I am learning a lot!
Enjoy!
@blazing Forgot to tag you in the post. Just responding to your comment in the original post wanting to see the stats. Here you go! Just check the full thread above this comment.
Enjoy!
K
Solar is certainly a help for grids in the places that have a lot of sun during the day. If there isn’t, then it doesn’t make as much sense unless you’re off grid.
One of the things I’m interested in and nervous about is how the hurricane and storms season will impact the panels. They are certainly rated for a beating I’m sure but do you have protective plates to cover them or anything? Also do you have insurance on them, meaning if one of them gets destroyed or a section, will it be insured and covered?
They are pretty solid and I'm thinking will not only hold up better than the roof, but also help protect the roof. They are covered with insurance as well, but I'm thinking that they will hold up to anything that doesn't take the roof off. With each panel having it's own microinverter, if one or more panels breaks, the others keep working. Just having the panels over the majority of the garage roof has also placed the roof into the shade during the afternoon which greatly reduced the heat in there as well. Probably cooled it 10-20 degrees on it's own from where it used to take a direct beating from the sun, now the Solar panels absorbing it and shading the roof, cooling the garage.
You're right definitely needs the sun though. I can't see how it would have been cost effective in Vermont with the near constant clouds, rain, and snow. Wind and Hydro better in places like that for sure, or maybe combo.
That's good it's insured, I figured it would be but you never know lol.
Interesting and it makes sense that it cooled the garage. I wonder if there is a way to harness that heat they generate! The things are black after all lol so it must get freaking boiling being on a roof in the direct Florida sun. If I recall photovoltaic solar panels are like 97% heat, 3% electricity generation or something. Someone smart will figure out how to use that heat!
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That is really cool! I am so jealous. I have been wanting solar for a while now, but I am not sure it makes the most sense here in Michigan. I love all the data you can get from that thing. Our gas and electric bill is only about $150 each month, so the savings would probably be miniscule.
Yeah, not sure about the sun levels in Michigan, but certainly would not have been effective on it's own where we were in Vermont with all the cloudy weather. My stepson is going to be doing some Hydro power, will be interesting to see how that compares. Looking more into some of the new wind turbines as well, I think those could have a lot of promise to combine with the Solar.
That is really cool. Hydro would be neat if you have the source available. I've always thought geothermal would be cool too, but I have heard the cost to implement is insane.
Real time gif was blurry when zoomed in to see it. But I could still make out the movement.
Great post bro. Very interesting stuff.
My first time trying to make an animated gif and was from a screen recording app. I actually thought it was going to be much simpler. Definitely need to look at some better tools in that arena. Thanks, it's been quite interesting to learn more about the Solar and power in general. I think there is huge potential in smaller home or community size alternative power sources that big companies have been quashing to keep their little cash cow monopoly providing to them.
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So the million dollar question is, is it economically viable? By the way, is electricity there expensive?
Well, that's going to be a different answer for everyone. (Except maybe next door neighbors). For us it will definitely be economically viable, the only question is when will it get full return on investment. For me, I also factor in and include the savings of the EV vs. gas vehicle. There's no way to predict completely accurately, but likely around 5 years or more before we are at the 100% payback number. However for us, it's already reducing our monthly expense to be positive, ie: it's saving us equal or more than the payment for the loan, so you could say it's paying for itself now, and will be all profit in a few years. It will take a few months of data to tell more accurately. We pay about 13 cents per kWh for our electric here, plus an assortment of other fees they tack on.
I really love the stats of these inverters. Great to see how much solar you are capturing and using.
Our power bill is down by a little under 40% this month. So I am happy seeing the progress on my array as well.
Glad you got yours up and running.
I'm pleased with it so far. Now if these storms could stay away for a month or so and give me some good numbers! I really expect us to be over 75% for the year and maybe even over 100% (my dream) once we shift into cooler weather and less storms.