Not a good day for solar

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Mooderator
Staff member
Hearth Supporter
Nov 18, 2005
104,848
South Puget Sound, WA
Seattle has been under a firehose for the past couple days. Add to this the solstice tomorrow and we have the lowest solar radiation day since the Univ. of Washington has been measuring for the past 20 yrs. Not complaining, we need the rain, but I thought this was interesting. Good thing we are not depending on our arrays as a sole source of power right now.

 
I hear you. Today we would have got 7 hours and 8 minutes of daylight if it had been clear. So far this month my 3kw solar system has generated 17kwh, which is less than it can generate on a sunny day in June.

I'm not sure what's worse, the almost constant daylight at the summer soltice that makes it hard to sleep or the near perpetual darkness of the winter solstice that makes it hard not to.
 
I hear you. Today we would have got 7 hours and 8 minutes of daylight if it had been clear. So far this month my 3kw solar system has generated 17kwh, which is less than it can generate on a sunny day in June.

I'm not sure what's worse, the almost constant daylight at the summer soltice that makes it hard to sleep or the near perpetual darkness of the winter solstice that makes it hard not to.

the darkness is worse. So much worse. The long summer days are the magical reward for the suffering!
 
Thus one of the reasons that as the percentage of renewables in the overall power supply increases things get real complicated. Its relatively easy to have a tank of fossil fuel but not so easy to have a tank of sunshine. ;)
 
i hear you, my production today was 22kw.. so far for the month im at 325kw my best for the month is 27kw.. we've had alot of rain this month as well as cloudy days. i still have like 1500kw left on my net meter credit so i may have a bill like February.. but i dont care .. i also sold my credits last month.. that was nice.. i had like 20 to sell.. sofar solar has been super positive for me..
 
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Flatlining for a few days here.