best ever day

[dan_b]

Just been scraping through my SolarEdge logs and spotted that 9th June 2021 was my best ever day of solar generation in 9 years of the system being on my roof.

However, my best ever month was May 2020 - back in those glory days of early lockdown when all the pollution seemed to disappear and almost every day was a best in class generation day.

[nowty]

My best day ever was 27th May 2021, just over 70kWh generated and with a little curtailment due to the export limiter in the afternoon. Not surprising it was this year as I did install my last panels around March 2020 and I re-angled two of them for slight optimisation in the Autumn of 2020.

Note - I plugged the EV in for an hour at 4pm when SWMBO retuned home in it.

[Stinsy]

My best ever day is 31st May 2020 with 25.7kWh. I had 3 consecutive 25kWh days at the end of May last year but I’ve only had a single 25kWh+ day since then (30th May 2021). The past few days have had the sunshine but it has just been too hot to produce maximum power.

[Joeboy]

I haven't looked back as only a few years on my system. Its great to read that the older systems are showing no signs of degrading, instead improving? Albeit with a covid assisted push.

[dan_b]

Yeah, my system is almost a Veteran now, lol.
3.06kWp but in reality the highest it'll ever get regularly is 2.5kWp because of shading and the split array.
So glad I took the plunge with it though.

[Fintray]

I haven't looked back as only a few years on my system. Its great to read that the older systems are showing no signs of degrading, instead improving? Albeit with a covid assisted push.

It's over 11 years since my first system was installed and in the first full year it produced 3665kWh. The lowest has been 2014 with 3358kWh but the last three years (2018-2020) have been 3650, 3609 and 3680kWh resp. so no real difference in performance over that period that I can see.
I think the best days production from my first system was 31st May 2021 at 27kWh and for both systems 30th May 2021 at 94kWh, it might have made 100kWh but for the inverter cutting back the export.

[Stinsy]

I’ve read that the solar panels installed 10 years ago with a 25-year expected lifespan can now be expected to last 35 years.

However, commercial arrays have been stripping out perfectly functioning panels and replacing them with new more efficient panels. Without FiT I’m sure many people would be doing the same on their roofs. You could strip out a 2kWp array and replace it with a 3kWp array for maybe £2k, you might consider that worthwhile even if your panels are only 1/3rd of the way through their useful life. I’m sure lots of people will be stripping out 2kWp arrays and replacing them with 4kWp (or more) after 25 years, once the FiT is up even if their panels are showing little degradation and have a decade or more of useful life left.

[Joeboy]

It would be nice if those solar farm stripped out panels saw a 2nd life in the res market?

I'd be on that for array 3 licketysplit!

[Stinsy]

Bimble Solar and various eBay sellers often have container-loads of used panels that have come from these solar farms…

[Joeboy]

Had a look back and 1st July 21 is my best day with 35kWh off of main array and a further 12kWh from 2nd array along with a little downtime, giving a 47kWh total. I hope to see a 50kWh combo on some special day one year soon.