Solar Power

Solar power works fine if it's cold, provided it's sunny or at least reasonably bright.  If anything, the panels work more efficiently when cold.

Simon,

Fully agree. The problem in winter is not the cold, it is the shortness of the day. There may also be an effect from the lower angle of the sun, and here I am not thinking of the angle of the panels but rather the greater absorption by extra distance through the atmosphere, but I don't think that would be significant.

Alasdair

Solar panels also do not work well when covered in snow. On a cold clear winters day the output can be higher than in summer as the losses in the semiconductor are less at lower temperatures which makes up for the increased angle of the suns rays.


Best regards


Roger

But the angle of the panels makes a big difference.  Since I had a new inverter fitten in January, I haven't seen much over 1.5kW out of a set of panels that are rated at 3.4kW.  But my roof is at quite a shallow angle, and the sun is still low in the sky.  With any luck, come spring, this should pick up.

Are you in the U.K?  Solar panel electrical generation is dependent on solar irradiance (light levels) and is dependent upon geographical location, age of system, size of PV array (for domestic in UK typically 4kWp or less), power rating of panels (e.g. 200W/250W etc.,), azimuth (direction) and inclination (slope of roof - if roof mounted).  If you're in the UK you should have received a Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) certificate at the point of commissioning.  That will show you estimated annual generation (kWh).  What does that say?

It would seem that some of you believe that it works in cold weather too. As the Power Source is light dependant hence has some limitations. I have designed equipment which can distribute or even store this this Power if required. There are so many applications where This Power can take load off the National Grid. If anybody has requirement for using the Solar Power I will be interested to help. Please do have a little look at my website and give me feed back. 

www.solarit-electrical.com

I'm sure I've got the MCS certificate squirrelled away somewhere.  The panels are over 6 years old.  It's just the inverter that's new, because the old one failed after 6 years.  The good news is that with the longer days, the peak power has already gone up to 2.4kW on one day.  The new inverter is a lot fancier than the old one, with extensive data logging to see what it's doing.


I've also got a lithium ion battery with the new system.  To be honest, I'm not sure if it will ever pay for itself in terms of saved electricity bills - the batteries are still too expensive.  But it does mean that I can post to this forum at 2.45am, while still running on solar power!

Hello All,

Yes I am based in U.K. My Equipment is designed for U.K as well as for overseas Market. My view is one cannn’t generate more than 2KW power on a 4 Bedroom Detached House. If someone has different opinion I would love to hear about it. I am very happy that I am getting lot of feed back from you. Keep it up.

Last year I had 15 PV panels installed on my semi-detached house. Only four panels face roughly South and the balance face west.  Attached is the output profile for the installation.  3.3MWh  was produced in 2017.  I also installed a Tesla Powerwall at the same time allowing energy not used during the day to be stored and used later.  I did manage to consume 2.82MWh which represented 37% of my total demand.  I still reckon it will take at least 12 years to recover my investment.  Fingers crossed.

What I think is a shame is the low take up of solar panels on commercial property roofing in the UK (with some notable exceptions such as some major railway station projects). As I understand it this is down to the tendency to leasehold nature of such property which makes long term investment less financially attractive - this doesn't sound insoluble. Here in Cornwall there's a huge local outcry against the amount of farmland being put over to solar farms (it's not actually very much land area, but it does seem to have upset people) - it feels as if the same area could have been fitted to commercial / industrial roofing and been rather more popular.


Sadly the one direction our house does not face is anything vaguely like south!


Of course, as with all energy issues there's the question of whether solar panels offer a "whole life" greenhouse gas reduction, i.e do they take more fossil fuel energy to build than they save, this thread has just made me look this up and there's a nice article here http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13728 that suggests that yes, they have now passed that break even point through advances in technology and larger scale manufacturing.


There are those who dismiss solar panels and wind power as "irrelevant", my feeling is that with the rise of electric cars they may become very relevant!


Cheers,

Andy