n00b question, what does 4.68KW mean? Your charts say you're getting ~2kWh. Is it only half working?
n00b question, what does 4.68KW mean? Your charts say you're getting ~2kWh. Is it only half working?
Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm terrible understanding KWH. Is 31 kwh basically able to power a 1300 watt home 24/7, assuming batteries etc
n00b question, what does 4.68KW mean? Your charts say you're getting ~2kWh. Is it only half working?
4.68kW is 4,680 watts. That could light up 46 100 watt light bulbs.
Power is sold in kW/h. 1000 watts for sixty minutes is 1kW/h. Ten 100W bulbs turned on for an hour would be 1kW/h. This is often sold/referred as a unit of electricity. Nickel for some, dollar for some depending on generation/transmission/distribution costs, etc.
But if this system is capable of generating 4.68 kW shouldn't it be generating 4.68 kW/h at it's best? I have a headache.
There are two bars for every hour, so you have to add two in order to find the peak generation in kW. At peak, it was about 2.1 kWh (in 30 minutes), 2.1 kWh + 2.1 kWh = 4.2 kWh for one hour, or 4.2 kW. Pretty close to its rated power.
There are two bars for every hour, so you have to add two in order to find the peak generation in kW. At peak, it was about 2.1 kWh (in 30 minutes), 2.1 kWh + 2.1 kWh = 4.2 kWh for one hour, or 4.2 kW. Pretty close to its rated power.
There are two bars for every hour, so you have to add two in order to find the peak generation in kW. At peak, it was about 2.1 kWh (in 30 minutes), 2.1 kWh + 2.1 kWh = 4.2 kWh in one hour, or 4.2 kW. Pretty close to its rated power.
For the whole day, they generated 31.89 kWh, divide by the 11 hours it generated to find an average generation rate of 2.899 kW.
Actually I'd be curious to know as well, how you deal with snow, do you have to constantly go shovel it off? Are the solar panels strong enough to witstand hail, or even walking on them? Do you still need to redo the shingles every 25 years?
1. Solar panels produce heat and will usually melt the snow eventually as some light still gets to them. I am in the south so I am not sure of the specifics but I know for a fact snow usually isn't as big of an issue as you think. Besides, they produce much less in the winter naturally so missing a few days isn't a big deal.
Uh, what? Solar cells do not produce heat... lol. Maybe a slight amount when producing electricity due to internal resistance, but that isn't happening if it's covered in snow.
Thermodynamic efficiency limit
Solar cells operate as quantum energy conversion devices, and are therefore subject to the "thermodynamic efficiency limit". Photons with an energy below the band gap of the absorber material cannot generate a hole-electron pair, and so their energy is not converted to useful output and only generates heat if absorbed. For photons with an energy above the band gap energy, only a fraction of the energy above the band gap can be converted to useful output. When a photon of greater energy is absorbed, the excess energy above the band gap is converted to kinetic energy of the carrier combination. The excess kinetic energy is converted to heat through phonon interactions as the kinetic energy of the carriers slows to equilibrium velocity.
Solar cells with multiple band gap absorber materials are able to more efficiently convert the solar spectrum. By using multiple band gaps, the solar spectrum may be broken down into smaller bins where the thermodynamic efficiency limit is higher for each bin.
Snow will most certainly block panels.
A house down the street has an array, and when it was snowy I always thought that it must suck, and that someone should invent panel wipers(like windshield wipers). lol
I believe he's referring to heating caused by the sun. Heck the sun does not even have to be out (overcast day) and snow will melt on the roadways (if it's not too thick). Same could apply to the panels since they are dark.
If this would be a problem a rhime heater similar to what's used on anemometers could be employed. A layer of glass over the main lens could also be fitted with wire heaters like the rear windows of cars. This would be activated when freezing conditions prevail, etc.
Adul, by leasing, do you have any issues with having to cover damages caused by nature? In other words, if you get a big old hail storm that pounds the panels half to death, or a wind storm tears them up, does the leasing company come fix them, or does it have to be covered by your home owner's policy?
I'm in north Texas, beginning of tornado alley, and while we don't see as much activity as, say, Oklahoma and points further north, we have had some hail storms and straight line winds that were pretty hairy!
I'd be interested in finding out, too, how often they'd check to see if one of the panels is not functioning correctly, or has dropped off in efficiency? Is that something your monitoring system checks? And how bad off does a panel have to be before they come out and replace it? Also, do the panels need to be washed down from time to time, to keep dust/grime build up from lowering the efficiency?
I'm a first time home owner (just closed 3 weeks ago! :awe: ), and this sort of system, with the lease, interests me.
The shade from a single powerline can reduce output by more than 75%.