Well we have nothing special to report for October.  We generated a bit more than the estimated (313 vs. 303) despite some very rainy days.

 
Our surplus is still going strong for now (over 2700 kWh by my estimates) and we will likely start to draw back down from this amount going into November.
 
Here is the monthly graph:
 

 OK!  We've had the system turned on for one full year now!

Time for an annual report....

Here are the simple numbers:

Total generated for the year:

4926 kWh


Total put into grid:

4313 kWh


Total used from grid:

2345 kWh


Simple difference:

1968 kWh



Calculated current surplus with RG+E:

2751 kWh

(This includes some paid kWh's during low months and some from the first installed month's bill, before the system was turned on.)


This graph shows Oct 08 through Sep 09 (excludes the few days in October that make up the end of the 1 year)

 

Our estimated output (total generated) was 4687 kWh for the year.

So, with the system hitting 4926 kWh, we beat the estimates by 239 kWh....not too bad!


Also, our total usage for the year (from the grid and from the panels combined) was only about 2929 kWh!


The system was originally sized to provide about 109% of our demonstrated usage (which, for the previous year, was somewhere around 4830 kWh)

So, we were able to cut our usage down by about over 1900 kWh!

We actually produced over 161% of our needs for the year.

Not a bad month overall.  Our estimate was 435 kWh and we ended up generating 500 kWh.

 

 

 

 

Just saw this article today and thought I'd toss it out there since it shows people using solar panels in a different way.  Enjoy!

 

 http://behindthewheelnews.toyota.com/?id=229

OK...So I never claimed to be good at keeping up with a blog.

To all the masses that do check this site, (all 5 of you?) I am finally adding an update to catch up on things a bit.

Since I wrote last, we have had some pretty good months overall.
There was one snag at the end of June.  The inverter apparently just stopped working for some unknown reason.
I noticed on June 26th that we had no change in the generated output on the 25th.  We were leaving for a weekend getaway that day.
We called Rochester Solar Technologies and their tech came right away to look things over.  At the time, they did not see any blown fuses and could not get a hold of the manufacturer (SMA) for troubleshooting.
After the weekend, the tech returned again and, after troubleshooting with SMA, decided that the inverter needed to be replaced.
A new one was ordered and installed a week later (July 4th weekend fell in between)
So the system was down for a total of 2 full weeks, which made us miss our target output numbers for both June and July.

Overall though, we are still way ahead and also on track to at least be producing close to the estimates given to us for the year.
Also, even after adding the load of a new freezer, and running the dehumidifier a lot during this rainy summer, we still have lower usage overall which will benefit us with a large surplus going into the winter months.

With the extra output, we would actually be able to charge an electric vehicle such as the new Nissan LEAF.  Check it out here:

www.nissanusa.com/leaf-electric-car/

 

 

 

 

 We also had some record high days of 30 and 31 kWh in a single day, obviously helping us reach the high monthly number.

At this point our surplus is huge and just getting bigger.  In the meantime, we find that our usage (overall) is down as well.  From my projections based on the last seven months, we are on track to use at least 1500 kWh less than we did for the year prior to that.....so we're stockpiling solar!

 

 

 

Hope everyone has a great day!  If you have a minute, check out this site for some simple ideas that can help our our planet (and same you some green as well!) Thanks!

 

http://earth911.com/blog/2009/04/20/8-ways-to-make-every-day-earth-day/

 

 

So March did indeed turn out to be an excellent month for making power.  We made a total of 557 kWh, which is 149 more than the estimates we had originally received.

The number is also beyond the May estimates as well, and come close to the June and July estimates!  

 

We also blew away all our previous one day records by making 30kWh, twice! Many other days were close to that as well.

 

 

 

 

Keep the sunny days coming!

So we are doing quite well with our energy making experiment this month.  March has given us a few cloudy days so far, but for the most part we have had enough sun to generate some larger amounts of power.  We hit a new one day record of 25.  I expect we could beat that as well though, given a longer period of sun in the Spring and Summer.  Our next bill will show a surplus. That trend should continue until winter rolls around again.  Maybe by then we will be able to install some wind power to help supplement the solar when it is dark and snowy.  

So January was a bust for solar output.  We generated absolutely ZERO for the entire month. This was due to snow, ice, and more snow on the panels that just would not come off despite my attempts to pull it down from below.

 

Finally at the beginning of February, we hit a warm enough day (41 degrees)  and climbed up on top of the roof to try to push the snow and ice from the top.  This worked much better than our attempts to pull from below as we had more leverage. (and the warmer day with direct sunlight helped a lot too) Since then we have had some average days and some really great days, matching (twice) our best ever of 22 kWh generated in one day.  So, even though winter is far from over in our neck of the woods, we are looking to longer days ahead....and that can only be a good thing!