It was a big dumb cloud

Don't worry I'm not going to upload a graph like this every day. But I could, I mean it's my blog and all, but I won't. The mystery of that huge dip in the first day's graph has been solved. it was likely just a big dumb cloud. Today's graph is much more uniform and at a better 5 minute resolution.

I'm really happy with the data logger (an SMA webbox).

My First Solar Production Graph

Our system is still in testing mode, but now we've hooked up the webbox data logger and so I can get data out of it. I had knocked up a script to hit it every minute and get data but it crashed halfway through the day. Luckily the built in webserver and ftp server had all the data I needed for today's production and here's a graph.

That dip is interesting, I'll be interested to see if it's there in tomorrow's data too. It could be a tree shading the panels at that time of day, who knows. Looking at the data, the voltage of the panels is constant. I'll be looking into this more.

We made over 28kWh in one day!

Solar panels installed!

Well it only took two days to install the solar system. Everything turned out great and we're really happy with it.

The system got turned on for the first time today which was also the day the building inspector would sign off on our permit. While it was on for testing we generated 10kWh of power which is worth about $2 or $4 depending on which tier of power you are offsetting.

We're allowed to offset the power we use at night or on cloudy days but not sell back more than we end up using. There are no batteries, the electrical grid is effectively our battery. If there is a power outage, our inverter notices and refuses to output any power (to stop us electrocuting people working on restoring power).

Now we just need to wait for the utility company to come out and give us a fancy smart meter (for time of usage billing) and to bless the system and we'll be allowed to leave it on all the time.

From 20110607solarinstalled

The coolest thing was seeing our electric meter running backwards while the system was running!

Solar Power System Ordered

We've ordered Solar Power Panels to be installed at the new house. We've always wanted solar power, but at the old house most of our south facing roof was taken up with the panels that heat the pool water by pumping pool water through them. There is a little roof space over the smaller bedroom, but nothing big enough to put a solar power system on.

Our new house is a different story. I thought the main part of the roof was all south facing, but if you look in Google maps on the satellite imagery the long part of the roof is south east facing and the smaller roof over the bedroom and office is south west facing. Where we are south west is best because it's less likely to be foggy in the afternoon so that's where the panels are going.

I talked to 3 companies to get their bids on the job and we chose the one we liked that had a good deal and seems to know (and explain) their stuff the best.

Here's the specs of the system we ordered:


Total System Size: 4.320 kW DC Power (STC) / 3.746 kW AC Power (CEC)
Estimated Annual Production: 6,530 kWh 
PV Panel Description: 24 x Schuco USA LP Model: MPE 180 MS 05 
Inverters: Qty. 1 - SMA America Model: SB4000US (240V)

Initially it was only going to be 22 panels, but since the inverter is a fixed cost I asked if we could max it out with panels to reduce our cost/kW even though that meant a slightly slower return on investment since the extra electricity we would be replacing would have been cheaper than the solar. I also got a webbox which will allow me to upload and archive my data easily.

Getting at my data and not depending on an external service was a key factor in our choice of system. I had looked at microinverters from Enphase. Microinverters are an inverter for 2 panels so there would be a lot of inverters up on the roof. This makes adding extra capacity (for a plug in car?) at a later date much easier. But this thread in the forums taught me that my data would be held captive by Enphase and I'd have to pay $1/panel/year forever to upload and view my data which little protection if they end up going out of business.

This week we should see the permits issued and the equipment ordered and hopefully install will happen later next week and then it'll get turned on when PG&E takes their sweet time in turning it on. The credits and tax rebates make it an attractive offer that will hopefully pay for itself in 6-7 years they say. I'll be happy if it pays for itself in under 10, it should work for at least 25 with the only maintenance being panel cleaning and replacing the inverter after 12 or so years.

We did look into leasing the system, but it just didn't offer the return on investment we wanted and seemed as if we were mostly just giving our roof and sun over to someone else to make all the upside on it. It'd be a good option if we couldn't afford the system, but luckily we can.

After looking at this I've also been considering putting a solar pool pump at the old house. But since it's so expensive I'll likely only seriously look into it once our current pump dies.

Wood

Hey, do you remember that tree that fell into our garage, it's still not fixed! but when the tree fellas (there were more than 3 of them!) came to clean up the fallen tree they told us they were going to come back and clean up all the dead trees in my other neighbors yard, the one we've been complaining to about his dead trees. He didn't want the wood from those trees so the tree guys offered it to us and we said yes.

Well, shoot that was a lot of wood and then we needed to split and stack it. There is a time I would have done all that myself, but I've run a wood splitter for a day and don't need to get that achievement award anymore so we paid the tree fellas (two this time) to come do it. 3 solid days of work later and we have about 9 cords of wood which should last us for about 5 years!

Meanwhile, down the hill at the new house, the Canadian Dogwood tree is in full effect and looking lovely. This tree was planted by Jo who built our house, he was a contractor and our house is the house he built for himself to live in,  no wonder it's awesome. When his wife sold us the house she told us that she'd really like us to keep this tree so here we are trying to keep the tree around. It's lovely.

And he's a phone picture of some of the other crazy stuff growing in our garden. There's so much weird and wonderful plants growing around, I love looking at them all.

Thursday morning was an especially nice sunrise so I popped out on the balcony and took a picture for you. You're welcome!

tree vs garage

We've had quite a bit of a storm here this last week. I didn't go home on Wednesday or Thursday but when I popped in quickly to pick up some stuff on Friday this is what I found. Seems the big ole pine tree couldn't take it anymore and gave our garage a big hug. Underneath that tree is the old mailbox that got creamed twice by the highway, that thing's a magnet for disaster! At least it pulled the tree toward the garage, it could have been a lot worse and hit the house.

The tree snapped when it hit the garage, still it's twonked the dormer pretty good and jacked that half of the roof and snapped off our stovepipe chimney.

It also jacked the cyclone fence and did some damage to the garage doors too. Nothing too bad.

Amazingly there wasn't any water damage inside the studio above the garage! I nailed up some tarps and everything still seems good.

Because we hadn't complained to our neighbor about the tree it has to come off our insurance and we have a $1K deducible :(

We're working hard on getting it all tidied up and fixed up as soon as possible before it starts raining again. I got to play with my chainsaw for a bit and the people renting the house where the tree used to live came down and chainsawed a lot of stuff too.

Nature and stuff

I used to love all the nature at our old house, we even made a field guide of all the stuff we saw there. We've been too busy at the new house to do a full evaluation but have found a few things on the way. Check out this sunrise! I took that picture from out balcony!

 And while the garage is being remodeled we've had to have the door open for a few nights. Guess who came to visit us!? Mr Raccoon! neato!

Here is a bird of paradise that's growing right outside our front door. The landscaping and flora here is lovely we'll have to try and keep it up!

And the cats are settling in nicely, although they'll miss the boxes once they're all gone (not quite there yet!)

More pictures in the Gallery.