Solar power
Morena world. Despite the overnight weather forecast that wasn’t too good—although it’s a clear and sunny day now—our house is running at 85% self-sufficient on the solar system. That won’t last long once the upstairs heater goes on!
Getting paid for surplus solar power
Self-sufficient solar power production
Another gloomy day here in Pukerua Bay, although the rain seems to have eased off. I think there is more forecast for later in the day. Remarkably, we are producing 615W of power from the roof from the light seeping through the clouds.
No solar power today
As expected today, with heavy cloud cover and rain, our solar power production and self-sufficiency is a big fat zero!
Solar power obsession
Trying — and failing — to not be obsessed about how much electricity we are producing off our roof solar panels, how self-sufficient we are, and how much we are giving away to the power company for free. On a cloudy day like today, we are producing only 22% of what we are using. Whereas yesterday, a brilliant sunny day, we used only 34% of what we produced.
(See what I mean about being obsessed?)
Solar update with operational system - day 1
Solar update with operational system.
Yesterday, we had clear, sunny skies with good solar production for a brief period. That is, until a hail storm arrived. But this screen grab shows what is possible.
At about 3:10pm yesterday, we were producing 3404W from the panels and using 236W for the house. That’s about 7% of our power going towards the house’s running. The rest was ‘wasted’ by going into the grid. Even though we aren’t being paid for it, it is power we don’t have to pay Contact Energy for. We’re obsessively watching the app and will have to learn to balance production under certain conditions and use appliances in the morning. We tend to put an electric heater on for an hour or so to warm the house if it’s been cold overnight. And we do laundry in the morning so we can line dry it. Fortunately, we don’t have to do laundry daily, so we have some flexibility.
So much for a bright sunny day producing all the power we need. Now we have a hail storm!
Solar power update
Good news. The electrical inspector has just been around, tested the new solar system, turned it on and pronounced it safe to use. We are now running off the solar power produced on the roof panels on a bright sunny day.
We still don’t have the import/export meter installed so we don’t know how much power we are giving away, but we can wait for that, I reckon.
But it will be good to get the smartphone app to monitor the smart meter in the switchboard to get a clear idea of what we are producing and using.
Very exciting!