REAL TIME STATS
The image above is updated every minute during daylight hours,
the last image of the evening is retained over night, it is now:
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ESTIMATED vs ACTUAL STATS |
The
chart below compares the estimated power that my solar panels
should generate based on
calculations from the
PVwatts calculator provided by the National Renewable Energy
Labs. The actual energy produced is obtained from monthly
reports provided by the Enphase Enlighten web interface (below).
The electricity that we purchase from the utility is shown
in blue.
Our usage varies a lot due to variations in our
business use of energy intensive tools, lighting and computers.
Note for instance that June of last year shows a significant
energy drop while my wife was out of town for 3 weeks. Her
business
Younger Knits uses a 1.5kW clothing steamer many hours
a day and a lot of rinse water that involves the 1.5kW well pump
and sump pump etc. Energy consumption also peaks in the
winter when we use small electric heaters to supplement our
propane and wood stoves when outside temperatures stay below
20F for weeks.
I will update the graph below in the first week of each month to
reflect the most recent month's data. |
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Local weather:
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Near real time performance data is below.
On average we use
about 15-21kWh/day.
This powers our home and 2 home based businesses with all the computers
and
relevant equipment. For reference, average US homes consume
upwards of 25 kWh/day.
If we were to eliminate all the business usage I believe we would
average below 13kWh/day.
The design goal of the system is to generate a slight
surplus in June/July and generate about 25% of our needs in the middle
of winter.
Our 21 - 175 Watt panels produce 3.6kW of power in theory, but that
ideal performance is derated by a factor of .87 due to various
performance and efficiency issues so the actual peak power is 3.13kW.
As I observe the overall power over months, the seasonal
variation of available sun hours becomes quite clear. |
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