Hi All, I am new to solar and to the forum. Below is my first months graph, my question is what does this look like across a full year. I want to try and gauge my annual generation (obviously weather will determine) but if anyone has full year(s) use I would appreciate a look to give me an idea of how solar runs in the real world.
Right, I have a load of text above here, this should be a picture?
The number of panels etc is irrelevant to me, just want a picture.
Thanks.
Watcher you could try putting your details into
https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/
Other tools are available like solcast if you prefer.
https://solcast.com/free-rooftop-solar-forecasting
Or as a really rough idea, maybe multiply April’s figures by 8?
(I looked at my own generation for April and for the year to get that multiplier - various factors could be at play, like is yours south orientated too?, etc)
Watcher You probably want to compare solar generation rather than grid out...
Your usage is more likely to fluctuate too!
Yes, exactly this. I was hoping to see a bell curve from someone to see what ‘average’ looks like through the year.
Like the 8 multiplier for a number but it will give an average not a visual.
Cheers for the replies.
South facing, South of England.
Watcher Picture it is, sw facing, south of England
Spot on! Thanks very much.
I did do another power wheel thing for mine: Every day of 2021 & half of 2022 (Givenergy's API changed and broke my data collector and it's yet to make it to the top of the To-Do List)
Can hover over each day & cycle through PV Generation, Consumption, Import, Export.
https://terravolt.co.uk/live-pv-production/
My average for April on a 4kW system is 483kWh (12.4% of the annual production)
I have over 10 years of data for a south facing system for a rough guide to monthly averages.
As a guide a 4kw system should give around 4000kWh per year on average (usually a bit less)
Jan is around 4.5% of total production
Feb is around 8 % of total production
March is around 12% of total production
June is around 15% of total production
July is around 13% of total production
Aug is around 12% of total production
Sep is around 9% of total production
Oct is around 5.5% of total production
Nov is around 3% of total production
Dec is around 2% of total production
Have a look at https://pvoutput.org/ it's a website where solar owners upload their data for logging and comparison purposes.
You can search by region, postcode and system size for a system similar to yours near to you and have a look at the data.
I've been uploading my data (automatically) to there since I had solar installed in 2015 https://pvoutput.org/list.jsp?userid=44207
Mal-Givenergy Thanks. April and May are missing from your list - do you have them?
4monks
Sorry don't know what happened there.
April 12%
May 14%
May is usually really good but depends on direction and angle of the roof.
Actual values for each month and percentages.
Mean value 97.62 175.26 324.28 482.96 552.90 527.53 517.29 450.03 352.67 220.30 123.03 74.89 3898.76
Year portion 2.50% 4.50% 8.32% 12.39% 14.18% 13.53% 13.27% 11.54% 9.05% 5.65% 3.16% 1.92% 100.00%
Mal-Givenergy As a guide a 4kw system should give around 4000kWh per year on average (usually a bit less)
The amount is sensitive to orientation, roof angle and latitude. Our latitude is about the same as Liverpool (53°) for which there are solar charts going back ten years or more, and for our orientation (218°) and roof angle (43°), the average (according to the Liverpool data) is 950Wh/kWp installed per year. Our 12kWp arrays generated just under 10MWh last year.
Before I got the solar array I went to the public site data for Solar Edge, and looked for a comparable latitude setup of similar kW size in the UK. Then I downloaded the data for this and shaped a curve from the four or five year's worth of readings, and plumbed this into a yield model for my panels. It ended up being pretty darn close! For those looking for similar models you can poke around here: https://monitoringpublic.solaredge.com/solaredge-web/p/home/public?locale=en_GB
This is my graph for 8 years of production from my 10kw Solaredge system, every year is a little different but the trend is consistent, there is only 3 months a year when consumption is greater than production,.
@Wonder Watt
Support/Community page not opening?
Is this what you're looking for?
5.46 solar array with 6 panels facing east and 7 facing south in Essex.
Whilst this is not actual data, the graph below takes the average expected daily generation for our two panel array.
I calculate the average for each day over 16 years from 2005-2020 and then sum up to get a monthly expected value.
The data was sourced from JRC Photovoltaic which I used extensively when deciding whether or not to go solar.
Thanks Tim, it was but all good now.
Trying to reach out to @Wonder Watt admin as their site is off kilter atm. This was the only thing I could think of as they watch this site!
Cheers.
Watcher Sorry, missed it was last year's original post.
Watcher They haven't posted in a couple of months.
Watcher Yeah there was an outage with the forums software (we use a third-party for that) - apologies!
All good now.
Missed you, hun! 😉