The month of October we produced over 1.73 MWh (Megawatt hours) of power on the farm.
In the last month I have added a second sol-ark inverter, this changes how the panels are balanced. Since I only have one channel of solar power coming in I really need to consider adding more panels on additional channels now I have two inverters. With only 5500 watts coming in on each, one channel is simply not enough for two inverters. So I will soon look into increasing my panel count. But for now I am making a steady 1.7 megawatt hours last month.
That white stuff is not snow, but powdered lime. We are using it to attempt to keep the weeds down. We will know next year if it works or not.
Array A production stats:
PV: 665.3 kWh
Load: 1979.5 kWh
Grid Import: 1410 kWh
Battery Charge: 302.3 kWh
Battery Discharge: 233.2 kWh
*combined stats are different from screenshot from single inverter. See notes at beginning of post.
Array A build:
System Size = 5.5 kWp DC
Panels = Sungoldpower Monocryalline 60 cell (12 Panels, 450 Watts each)
Mounting System = Brightmount EG4 screwed into 6x6 timbers
Wiring: 1x 8 AWG 19 strand PV direct bury wire pair
Inverters = 2x Sol-Ark 15k all-in-ones (240V)
Estimated First Year Production
7,408 kWh
Battery Backup = 48 3.2v EVE LF280 LiFePO4 280AH batteries
Battery Management system = Daly Smart BMS 16S 48V 500A
Battery Capacity = 45.696 kWh (840AH)
Propane Generator = Briggs and Stratton Power Protect 26kw
Array B production stats:
PV: 1070.4 kWh
Load: 1533.9 kWh
Grid Import: 589 kWh
Battery Charge: 512.9 kWh
Battery Discharge: 452 kWh
Array B build:
System Size = 9 kWp DC
Panels = Sungoldpower Monocryalline 60 cell (20 Panels, 450 Watts each)
Mounting System = Brightmount EG4 screwed into 6x6 timbers
Wiring: 2x 8 AWG 19 strand PV direct bury wire pair
Inverters = Sol-Ark 15k all-in-one (240V)
Estimated First Year Production
14,815 kWh
Battery Backup = 48 3.2v LiFePO4 290AH batteries (unknown brand)
Battery Management system = Daly Smart BMS 16S 48V 250A
Battery Capacity = 47.328 kWh (870AH)
Propane Generator = Briggs and Stratton Power Protect 22kw
Totals combined for all arrays:
1735.7 kWh (1.73 MWh) produced for the month of October
Previous posts on my solar stats:
https://peakd.com/solar/@solominer/solos-solar-array-production-stats-september
https://peakd.com/hive-163521/@solominer/solos-solar-array-production-stats-august
Looks like you out-produced me for sure this month. Darn Hurricanes and storm fronts, lol.
My setup produced 1.3MWh for the month, we still fed 570.4 kWh back to the grid, and I saved about $163.70 off my electric bill from the credits.
Of course charging my vehicle from the house electric and Solar throws my stats off a bit for comparison. Especially with the extended driving we've been doing the last few months. Not pictured here, but the vehicle has used 427.311 kWh, for a cost of about $55.53 to drive 1,325 miles last month. If my math is right, a gas car getting about 20mpg would have cost $231.87 for the same miles (assuming gas price of $3.50 per gallon). I'll be doing a more detailed post on the vehicle and charging vs gas with a more TCO view later.
You have significant energy consumption but also benefit from lower energy prices (both gasoline and electric). In my case, I didn’t do much driving in October (194 kWh), and all my energy needs were met at home without any imports on a monthly basis. However, in September, when I needed to travel to HiveFest, my total driving energy consumption was 568 kWh, of which 233 kWh was charged at home.
From November to February, I can’t meet my energy needs entirely on my own. However, I have an arrangement with the grid operator that allows me to use a 'virtual' power bank, where I can retrieve the energy I previously exported to the grid, subject to a 20% fee.
Nice that you get some of your power production back from the grid provider. The 20% tariff seems a bit high, but I suppose better than nothing at all. Everyone wants their piece of the pie. Here in Florida, we're lucky to get full price back for our production to the grid. They do however limit it I think to 120% of what your "normal" annual usage rates from them are. Not sure I'll hit that cap with the vehicle charging, but maybe when my driving slows down next month.
Here's exactly how it works in my case. Since I installed my PV system a long time ago, the 'old rules' still apply to me. These rules included benefits for early adopters, where the grid acts as a large virtual battery with 80% efficiency (hence the 20% fee). New installations can no longer choose this model. Instead, they must sell their surplus energy at wholesale prices, which are typically very low during peak production periods.
For example, if I have a productive month like September and export 400 kWh to the grid, I can later use that energy (minus the 20% fee, so 320 kWh), and I have up to a year to use it before it expires. This was a great offer because it allows us to build up enough energy to cover weaker months (November to February).
Of course, in the real world, this isn't entirely sustainable, as you can't easily find real energy storage with these characteristics. However, context matters. The energy mix in my country was quite poor at the time, so the grid needed green energy desperately. By offering these perks to early adopters, the grid operators were able to secure that green energy through user investments.
@gtg That is really interesting you can store your power for later through your utility provider. I have never heard of anything like that before. Yeah there is about a 12% loss when converting solar to the batteries and then using it later with lithium ion batteries... even worse with lead acid.. so I can see why the fee is high.
My utility provider will pay pennies on the dollar, and has a weird clause where If I do not produce a "steady" I will get penalized. So its not really worth it to me to deal with my utility company exporting power.
@ksteem Ah yeah September was like that for us, lots of cloud cover. But October was pretty clear up here. Oh that is interesting you export your power, I looked into it and its not really a good deal with my utility provider. So I consume almost all of the power instead of exporting it.
We have thought about getting an electric car, but we live in a very rural area. So there are fears we may not make it back home if we drive deep into the city, make a bunch of stops and then try to get home. But I am considering buying an electric UTV for around the farm.
Yes, for the car many often have that distance anxiety. It's an important consideration for sure. I'm not a fan of it for cross-state or long distance trips, but It's quite comfortable within the range limits. We've been driving once a week up to Jacksonville, which is 85 miles away, making stops, having lunch then driving back without any issues and generally still 100 miles left on the charge. I don't even think about worrying about short side trips and stops unless our main destination is over 100 miles away.. then would maybe need to think about a plan for a charging stop somewhere. For those longer trips, we take the other car or get a rental if going cross country.
I'm really seeing production drop as we head into winter. We peaked around 900kWh in the summer months, but October was only 360kWh. The shorter days will be a factor and we get more cloudy days. We will still save money by charging up the battery on cheap rate. I don't plan to get any more panels for now. I plan to do a summary when we've done a full year.
We just started to get shorter days here it would seem. So I think I will be in the same boat soon enough. I am guessing my November report will show this.
Ah nice, we have charged up the battery bank a few times using the grid. Mostly when a tropical storm is on the way, and its been cloudy a few days before.
If you can charge in the middle of the night, usually the power is cheaper.
I'm not expecting to generate all we need every day through the winter, but off peak power is a quarter of the price of peak, so I can charge then. If the sun does shine then we can export the excess. Off peak costs 9p and export pays 8p, so not much difference.
I see quite high estimates (e.g., 'Estimated First Year Production: 14,815 kWh') for a 9 kWp installation. In my case, having a complex on-roof installation (with a flat surface, shading issues, etc.), I can barely count on a 1:1 ratio. For example, with a 10 kWp installation, I can barely achieve 9,000–10,000 kWh per year.
Of course, the output depends not only on the specific setup but also on geographic location and associated factors like weather conditions.
I'm curious to know how effective other installations are (FYI @ksteem @steevc).
Mine hasn't been alive for very long yet, but you can see my production in the posts here.
https://peakd.com/hive-168869/@ksteem/solar-power-when-off-grid-from-hurricane
and here
https://peakd.com/hive-168869/@ksteem/solar-update-30-days-later
We're almost out of our highest consumption months of running the AC units most of the time. I actually thought we would be done last month, but here in Florida, we are still using the AC part of the time in November! In our previous location, we were already hauling firewood and sitting by the wood stove at this time of year. I actually spent this morning at the beach catching the sunrise and yes, it was nice! Pics to come later.
Edit: I actually just found this graph on the last few months usage.
It looks like I'm producing about 1.2-1.3 MWh on average each month, with the best month so far at 1.6 MWh.. The grey color on the bottom is how much I've sent back to the grid during our peak production/low usage hours.
My panels face west, but will not get shaded. The 8kW system has generated 5600kWh since March. So it may struggle to reach 1:1 over the year. The British winters can be pretty grey, but we should get some sunny days.
I'd love to see more people on Hive reporting how their systems do. I wonder if we need some standard way to report it.
@gtg Yes, it may be way off.. I think I was calculating that during peak solar, which will not be the case in the winter. I will revise once I get a whole year of power so it can no longer be an estimate.
How would it work in winters
Not sure yet, will be my first winter using it.
I see :)
Dean that is cool.
I enjoyed the addition of the solar panels to the homestead enough but should have expected a report on stats knowing you!
Do you have any idea how many megawatt hours your home and operation will take? Managing this system, especially if it becomes your only source, will be an interesting process. I have friends who run a cottage completely on solar and we drain that thins each year at a music festival there charging our phones! ;)
Hah yeah well it benefits me making these reports so I can look back at my metrics.
Looking at how much I import I would need to triple my capacity for array A (right now I am only pulling in around 5000w) So I probably need around 15,000. And for Array B maybe just another 25% more power would get it there during the day. But at night my battery banks are not large enough to power 100% of the buildings unless we are under energy conditions where we turn off most things.
I would probably need to double my battery banks to get close to $0 import along with more PV as stated above.
I have always had my reservations concerning Solar energy being used in my country but after a weekend at my aunt's and seeing how Solar energy came to the rescue when the electricity went off, I'm seriously having a rethink and considering purchasing one. 🙂
It sure is nice to have it when the power goes out, let alone how much it drops the power bill..
though it is costly
Yeah it's really on the high side even at my end. But would work towards it for light and fan 🙂
Damn! Quite the setup you've got there.
Thanks, its been a work in progress for a few years now.
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With the heat kiling me over here would be great to have one of those powering up the house
I feel ya, during the summer it was nice knowing that sunlight was powering my house and not just heating it.. lol
Lolzzz😂🤣 now that's a point i would love to consider myself and get the sun to do the same with my house
I see that the statistics you make are getting better, of course I really hope that in this job you succeed in doing it, keep up the spirit of my friend 💪
Thank you, it is all coming along.
If we could be able to produce solar power like this in my country, it could have help us over the epileptic supply of power
Yes it could.. hopefully yall can get that one day.
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A lot of 'stuffs' I really don't know about but enough to understand that everything is going well... Si? 😁
Yeah everything is well
Nice setup. Is the feed in tariff still worth anything where you live?
I have some solar arrays in NSW, Australia that are not worth replacing the broken inverters on because the feed in tariff is so low and the grid connect charges so high.
They are pushing a new regulation that will tax you for every kW that you export to the grid.
When you say "feed in tariff" does that mean how much I get paid to export my power to the utilities? If so the answer is no, its a really bad deal where I live. They pay pennies on the dollar to send it back to them, and have weird rules where you have to provide consistent power of you wont make much money at all.
I know other places in the US its better for solar operators but not really where I live when it comes to exporting power.
I had some good conversations about solar with my buddy the other day. They are talking about putting farms in near where I live and I was asking him what the drawbacks were. He said one of the main ones was how the just let the area around it grow wild and it ends up looking like crap. I guess it can mean a huge hit on your home values. I'd still personally like to have some solar panels though.
I can see that in a home owners associated neighborhood like a HOA. But my land is zoned agricultural, so it does not really matter if it overgrows.. As long as it does not block the panels..lol
That is why I went with a ground mount, it may be "ugly" but at least I am not drilling holes in my roof.
Yeah, that could lead to a whole bunch of different problems. I really don't know much about it myself because I never thought there would be anything near us. Now that we are potentially going to have one right across the street, I am going to be pretty mad if my property value goes down because of it.
looking pretty healthy and for sure room to grow! I'll be curious to see how the lime goes next year. The setup and everything is really coming together. All of that hard work is being shown, keep it up.
Yep, its a great start but I am going to expand soon enough.
I am curious too if it works.. hard to say.
The trick with the weeds could work!! Or you will need to keep trimming everyweek hehehehe
Hah yeah I am hoping it works, as that is exactly what were doing..
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Solar energy is the future, there should be a great incentive for it to be placed everywhere possible. Here in Brazil we need to evolve a lot in this matter.
Ah yeah well solar has been getting cheaper every year, so hopefully more countries will get into it.
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Can I ask if you're running single phase or three phase please?
120/240v split phase
I have two services coming into the home, each going into a 15k inverter.
Congrats,
Sign up with https://sourceful.energy/ you will earn more token for your solar production
Oh thanks but my inverter is not supported by them.
https://docs.sourceful.energy/energy-gateway/compatible-inverter/
I was looking up information on what you use the energy for and ran into your I'm now a whale post! That's amazing! I'll just ask: Do you also live on the farm? Can you use the electricity produced to power your home? I'm at about 800KwH in my home, so you could easily cover the electric bill with what you're producing.
Hah yeah lots going on in 2024 for me... witness/whale/solar power :-)
Yes, I live on the farm.
So you need to consider at night you will still need to pay for power unless you have a really big battery bank. So yeah during the day at peak production you may, but cloudy days and at night you still need power.
For you to be using solar in this manner, you must have many hours of sunlight in your region.