Another Month Beating Estimated Solar Generation

Amazingly we have now had another month that has beaten both the SAP2009 and PV-GIS solar generation estimates for our PV Solar Panels. May was predicted at 334kWh for SAP and 347 kWh for PV-GIS but the actual output generated by the panels was 365kWh (based on generation meter not inverter)

This now makes 5 out of the 6 months that have beaten or matched the PV-GIS targets and all six months since we installed the panels have significantly surpassed the SAP predictions.

The following page shows the output by month with the highest day solar panel output, the earliest start times and end times each month as well as the maximum peak output that the 3kWp panels produced.



Solar panel electricity generation during May 2012

You can see that for May 2012 the panels started generating electricity at 05:25 in the morning and stopped generating at 20:45 at night. The actual output at these times is insignificant at 12W but it shows how the generation day extends over the summer as the panels only start generating at 08:05 in January and finish at 16:30

November PV Solar Panel Output Performance Update

 With a late surge as a result of a brilliant last day to end November the panels gave a final output for the month of 53.02 kWh. As the panels were commissioned late morning on 18th November this was produced over 11.5 days so the estimated production for the whole month of November would be 138 kWh.

So 3.01kWh panels have generated  an average per day of 4.61kWh. This compares well to the SAP calculated estimate of 3.6kWh but is below the figure quoted by PV Solar UK of 4.87kWh which seems overly opimistic - much the same as the rest of their figures!

Monthly PV Solar Panel performance for November

The 11 days of November that the solar panels were generating were a varied mix of sunny, cloudy and a couple of rainy days so appeared to be a typical spread of weather although we are now far more attentive to whether the sun is out or not!

It is now quite noticeable that shading has a significant effect and the graphs produced by the inverter clearly show the drop in output as soon as the panel area has any shade falling on it. I will post some eexperiences of how the shade affects the solar panel output later.