Talk Morgan Forums Community General Photo Gallery Solar PV at the N-M ranch

I know that one or two of the TM regulars are also micro generators, so I thought I would post our new installation up for anyone interested.
It's a 4KW system and it went live at the end of last week, but with so little bright weather over the last few days we have not generated very much electricity so far.
Cheers,
N-M

I am not sure about that one, David.
Where we live is closer to the steel industry than the textile industry.

The building is not a 'pure build' as it has been added to over past years.
For example, to the face of the right hand chimney was the end face of the house before 1958. It has all been done tastefully and in keeping with the rest of the building as you can see.
Some of the internal fixtures and features are one off's by the architects used in the last major refurbishment (again, late 1950's). I think a large part of the architecture linked to this property is based on the Derbyshire Peak District rather than Yorkshire or the City it is closest to. One of the fire places is a scaled down copy of one particular fireplace in Chatsworth House drawn and commissioned by the architect at that time.

As much as I love 'it' and the surounding views where it sits it is not a particularly listable building...it's a bit like Trigger's broom (Only fools and horses)....original apart from three new handles and four new heads.

It is mentioned in one or two local history books, so it does have some historical relevance.

Solar update.

The system is currently averaging 9.45 Kwh per day since commissioning at the beginning of November.

That comes in at £4.25 per day return on the investment.

Sunny days make a huge difference to the generation rate even though this system was sold on the premise that dull days would still generate something.

Hi NorthernMogman,
I think I went live at a latitiude not much different to you in Mid November 2011.
As of this morning 1854KwH from my 3.8Kwp set up.
Have you seen this website?
http://www.sheffieldsolarfarm.group.shef.ac.uk/
Enthusiasts around the UK are donating readings and in turn getting a pretty good feedback on how efficient their set up is compared to people in similar locations.
Had the same agonising about spoiling the look of the house and like you decided it was relatively easy to dismantle if absolutely necessary.
Regards
VOY

Mine has just finished the year at 3174 kWh vs the quoted 3064 kWh despite the dreadfull weather from mid April.

Hi VOY,
I knew that Sheffield University was a testing ground for solar technology, but I wasn't aware of the website. Interesting. Thanks for the info.
Last Friday I submitted our second reading, just over 220 days into our first year of generation and the current total stands at 2344 KW/h. So, our daily average has raised to 10.6 KW/h per day.
Regards,
N-M

Hi John,
Good to hear you are on the right side of your target/expected readings for the full year....and yes, it's been a poor summer so far this year compared to last year.
One thing that's interesting about reviewing the gen readings over the year is that it is a more accurate way to tell if we actually get a decent summer or not, one year to the next. Some years it can be difficult to tell as our memories play tricks on us.
Regards,
N-M

Hopefully I have 8 (or possibly 10 if there is space) being installed today...
As it's a chalet bungalow, they're going on a flat roof, so we lose some efficiency, but with retiring at the end of the year I hope this will help keep the ever rising use of electrickery down a bit!

I hope all has gone well, Graham.

Well done Graham. You won't regret it. Mine is still over performing vs the quote.

If you get the Sunny Boy inverter it has a blue tooth facility so you can use "sunny explorer" software to download the output data, but be warned the signal is very week & may need a blue tooth dongle to use it.

Yes, all going well.
Quite surprised by the output in the first couple of days - but we had nice sunny days The last three has been very overcast / foggy, so not expecting tremendous output.

There was room for 10 panels with no problem, so went for that rather than the 8. Hopefully this will cover a lot of daytime use when she retires at the end of this year... Bad enough with the prices going up again, without additional useage!

Cheers,