Solar at my workplace

[Paul_F]

There's a lot of it about at the moment. The factory I work in is in the middle of installing 1MW of PV on the roof.

[dan_b]

Not generating much, but it's doing something!

[Fintray]

Every little helps but sunnier days are coming!

[dan_b]

Things we love to see in early February - solar array generating more than the building demand! (ok so everybody's working from home today so not much demand in the office, but still!)

[Moxi]

Nice Dan,

You definitely need a diverter to send the rest to the EV's parked outside or the hot water tank (if you have one) or just a small battery to provide in day load balancing ? Needn't be expensive and will pay back quickly and count towards the business green credentials.

Moxi

[dan_b]

The demand when we have a full office is a good 2-3 kW higher.
When our film studio is in operation, that's a 10kW draw just from the lighting.
Also have 2x 3-phase (potentially 22kW) PodPoint chargers for the EVs, so they can pull a fair bit when plugged in.
No hot water tank.

Have signed up to the Octopus Panel Power Tariff (just waiting for the Octopus 3-phase Smart Meter to be installed), so will get an export generation payment, but will keep an eye on it though for sure.

[Mart]

Not generating much, but it's doing something!

Hhave to say Dan, that the install looks really smart. I remember when folk were getting really upset about 'ugly' PV panels appearing (early 2010's). Funny how time changes, and 'new' stuff stops being scary. I'd actually go further in your case, and suggest the roof looks more interesting now, with that new fangled green stuff on the roof*.

*As Cartman once said - "It's all a bunch of tree hugging hippie crap!"

[dan_b]

Yeah aesthetically it's been done rather well.

The PVGIS estimate of generation for January for our install was 138kW.
We actually generated 141kW from 4 days less than the full month.

[dan_b]

Love the SolarEdge portal.
Was just having a rummage at the per-panel data.
We have panels rated for 370W. At 10.30 this morning - 2nd week Feb, one panel was already pushing out 340W. Ok most the rest were basically still asleep (lowest one was 34W at the same time!), but I'm quite impressed how close to max that one was even this early in the season. Bodes well for when the sun does get a bit higher in the sky...

[marshman]

I suspect it was cold!! you will usually see maximum outputs in terms of peak power in April/May. Once things warm up weather wise the peak power drops off due to temperature. Your panels REC drop off at a rate of 0.34% / deg C. So your 340W at say 10 deg C would fall to around 295W at 50 deg C, under the same levels of insolation. And they will reach that temperature, maybe even warmer in June/July & August. So that is a drop of over 13%.

But as you say still impressive for early February.