Another huge increase in April solar production here in New England.

[Brian26]

After last years record April solar production I generated even more this year. It was a really sunny month here with lots of cold clear weather. My system this April has generated close to what they normally produce in June! Anyone else see a huge increase as well? It really stands out on the monthly generation charts.

The system is an 8 year old 5.4 kw system with a Solaredge SE5000 inverter with optimizers. My panels are directly SW with almost full sun all day.

 

[stoveliker]

My April has been
2019 676 kWh
2020 630 kWh
2021 775 kWh
2022 773 kWh

My all-time max.month was May 2020 at 889 kWh

This is a 7.2 kW system, half facing East, half West, with hills with large trees in both these directions.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

After a slow start. I got my first 100Kw production day this past Thursday. Friday Saturday and today will all be roughly the same. Total production for the month was 2040Kw with an hourly 13Kw production during the day. With energy prices today im glad I did this back in 2017

 

[Brian26]

After a slow start. I got my first 100Kw production day this past Thursday. Friday Saturday and today will all be roughly the same. Total production for the month was 2040Kw with an hourly 13Kw production during the day. With energy prices today im glad I did this back in 2017

Nice production! 2040 kwh would be over $500 here and in most other New England states with prices at .25+ kwh. I feel the same way with my 8 year old system. I reached my return on investment in 5 years and with these high energy prices and huge electricity increases it was certainly a sound investment. I am also using heat pumps in winter and got away from heating oil as well.

 

[sloeffle]

Nice production! 2040 kwh would be over $500 here and in most other New England states with prices at .25+ kwh. I feel the same way with my 8 year old system. I reached my return on investment in 5 years and with these high energy prices and huge electricity increases it was certainly a sound investment. I am also using heat pumps in winter and got away from heating oil as well.

How are you measuring your ROI ? When I ran the numbers at .16kwH ( my current rate ) a number of years ago, I was looking at a 10 - 15 year payback for a system that didn't even cover all of my usage.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

How are you measuring your ROI ? When I ran the numbers at .16kwH ( my current rate ) a number of years ago, I was looking at a 10 - 15 year payback for a system that didn't even cover all of my usage.

The ROI is the cost of the system devided by the savings per year.. for me that would be the cost of the system minus the 30% government insensitive which is the cost of the system after insensitive. the yearly savings is.. my entire electric bill for a year plus my serct produced.. which for me is a little less then a 4 year pay out to pay the system completely..

 

[stoveliker]

I use a similar calculation - though some say one should also have factored in (at the cost side of the balance) the returns one would have gotten if one would have invested the price paid for the PV system in e.g. stocks.

I had a 55% government incentive (30% + 25%, federal and state, though I forgot which was the larger). So I only paid 45% as the rest of the system was paid for by my kind fellow citizens. That cuts the break even point significantly. And that break even point was with 2018 kWh prices.

Moreover, 3.5 years in, I don't feel the cost of that investment anymore, and I only feel the benefit (the contentness) of having a $15 electricity connection bill when I also use those free electrons to heat with my minisplit in shoulder seasons. If I offset that against oil (which I would also have used in shoulder seasons when my wood stove puts out too much, or would have been needed only a part of the day), it cuts it even more. Especially this year...

 

[peakbagger]

Up in the mountains we get a lot of stalled weather fronts, the forecast can be sunny in the rest of the state yet my area is clouded up. My April production was nothing special.

 

[begreen]

Yes, same here. April generated about 600 kWh due to several cloudy days and shading still is interrupting the summer bell curve.

 

[peakbagger]

I just do not keep records. With one array now 20 years old and the other two over 10, I dont worrry about it. I carry a surplus with the utility and know that around April I stop drawing things down and in May I start banking power. The new plug in hybrid is eating up a bit more power but the jury is still out on if I will eat up my surplus. If I do I just start burning a bit earlier and keep burning a bit later so I do not use the mini split as much

 

[begreen]

I just do not keep records. With one array now 20 years old and the other two over 10, I dont worrry about it. I carry a surplus with the utility and know that around April I stop drawing things down and in May I start banking power. The new plug in hybrid is eating up a bit more power but the jury is still out on if I will eat up my surplus. If I do I just start burning a bit earlier and keep burning a bit later so I do not use the mini split as much

Yes, our arrays are 12 and 8 yrs old. I have the same attitude. They fill the kW bank from Apr-Oct and we draw down the rest of the time. I no longer track our Volt's draw either, nor do I worry about the heat pump. It's all way better than a fossil-fueled habit.

 

[sloeffle]

The ROI is the cost of the system devided by the savings per year.. for me that would be the cost of the system minus the 30% government insensitive which is the cost of the system after insensitive. the yearly savings is.. my entire electric bill for a year plus my serct produced.. which for me is a little less then a 4 year pay out to pay the system completely..

Thanks for the info. I forgot about the 30% government tax credit. Via my napkin math, I'm still looking at 10 years for a 8kw system.

 

[Brian26]

Thanks for the info. I forgot about the 30% government tax credit. Via my napkin math, I'm still looking at 10 years for a 8kw system.

Here in CT we have currently have the 2nd highest electricity rates in the US after Hawaii at 26.48 cents kwh. Rates are actually higher than that now and approaching 30 cents kwh with a May 1st rate increase that just went into effect. Ohio is listed at 12.67 kwh according to the EIA link below. When electricity is that expensive it doesn't take long to recoup your investment on solar. I also got the 30% federal tax credit and the state of CT had amazing incentives back when I installed. Both incentives took off around 50-60% of the total cost of my solar. I think I paid around $1.50 a watt after the incentives when I installed. Many of the New England states and NY and NJ had some incredible incentives around 8-10 years ago. Especially some of the solar renewable energy credits people were selling for huge money.

Electric Power Monthly - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA)

www.eia.gov

 

[stoveliker]

I'd never calculated it this way. I paid $1.27 per Watt installed in 2018.

 

[sloeffle]

Here in CT we have currently have the 2nd highest electricity rates in the US after Hawaii at 26.48 cents kwh. Rates are actually higher than that now and approaching 30 cents kwh with a May 1st rate increase that just went into effect. Ohio is listed at 12.67 kwh according to the EIA link below. When electricity is that expensive it doesn't take long to recoup your investment on solar. I also got the 30% federal tax credit and the state of CT had amazing incentives back when I installed. Both incentives took off around 50-60% of the total cost of my solar. I think I paid around $1.50 a watt after the incentives when I installed. Many of the New England states and NY and NJ had some incredible incentives around 8-10 years ago. Especially some of the solar renewable energy credits people were selling for huge money.

I didn't realize prices were that high in CT. That would make sense why your ROI is so much better than mine.

I get my electric from a coop, and I "lease" five solar panels from them so that's why my rate is little higher. The rate is locked in for five years on the solar panels though.

 

[stoveliker]

I'd never calculated it this way. I paid $1.27 per Watt installed in 2018.

Mistake: $1.39 per Watt.

 

[Brian26]

Another epic month of solar production. Had a record production day with 42 kwh the other day.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

production this spring and summer so far has been good compared to this winter.. I know winter is always down but compared to years past it was low.. as of this morning for june iv produced 1920 kw with a day high of 108.6.. I should be over 2k today and for the month somewhere like 2.3k..

 

[begreen]

Another epic month of solar production. Had a record production day with 42 kwh the other day.

View attachment 296528

Excellent. We are producing nicely now too. 32kwh yesterday. I expect the same today. I need to wash the pollen off of the #1 array to see if I can boost it up a bit.

 

[Woodsplitter67]

here's the thing though.. every day that goes by the days get shorter at this point so production is slowly dropping.. keeping fingers crossed for sunny days or at least high thin clouds

 

[Brian26]

July off to another record start. Nearly every day this month has been pretty much full sunny days. The last 7 days were pretty much all max production days. Notice on the yearly chart at the bottom how sunny its been the last 3 months. I am going to have a ton of solar banked for the mini splits this winter.

 

[stoveliker]

Same here, except for the fact that the fireworks smog in July 5th wasn't so bad 😝

 

[begreen]

Yep, lots of bell curve days here too.

 

[Brian26]

And it continues with another record month...