Snow Drops

4/21/2020

April weather in the Chicago-land area is difficult to forecast.  It can be clear with bright blue skies, or dark-clouded and cold with snow flurries.  Or heavy rains with lightening and thunder.  Pick your favorite.

So it has been an interesting solar production month so far.  Every day seems to bring another production record for my installed system.

But the event that I really did not expect was the somewhat startling thump that occurred on two peaceful mornings.  Our morning ritual is to wake up, look out the bedroom window for any unusual stirrings in the neighborhood.  After throwing water on the face, walk down the stairs to the first floor and make coffee.  Sit down with my brew and open up the news.  My dining chair faces the sliding window overlooking our deck, bird feeders and the backyard detention ponds.  It could be pre-dawn or the sun may be up (pretty casual these days).

After recent snowfalls on two days in mid-April, I expected the solar production to be reduced.  That is until the snow melts from the panels.





This is the view on the morning of April 15,2020 after getting approximately 5-6' overnight.




















This is the view on the morning of April 17, 2020 after getting about 4" overnight.

At about 7:45 AM on the 15th and then again on the 17th, we were surprised by the snow drop from overhead.  The picture below shows the remnants of the snow that slid off the roof.

There is no warning of the imminent drop.  But there are 30 feet of glassy panels that are rising along the roof slope up to the peak above the sliding glass door.

If you get enough sun load on the snow, the slippery glass panel surface becomes a great slide.  I have not viewed the avalanche build up on the roof, but it generates enough momentum to shift the snow clean.

And then there is plenty of great panel area to generate energy.





















As I mentioned earlier, April seems to be a good solar month.

Since the beginning of the month, five separate 'largest ever' days of solar production occurred.  Progressively higher 'highs' occurred on April 2, 10, 16, 18 and 20.  And right now, April 21st looks like another high.

Since we are using only about 28-35 KWh of energy a day, I decided to use the excess solar energy today to 'fill up' the electric vehicle during the day.  An EV charge usually is limited to 10 KW and normally requires about 2-4 hours of time (which I would normally do during the night time).

Sunny days are great!

April 2020 Milestone

4/11/2020

As of 5 PM today, we are 21 days into the Illinois "stay at home order".  Our community lifestyle has dramatically changed over thes last 3 weeks.  Because of the order, our buying, traveling and social habits have been minimized to only the essentials.  When I do venture out, the road traffic is minimal.  I have been able to take my neighborhood walks, but social distancing is practiced by almost every one I "meet".  Clearly, life today is different and won't revert to normal for some time.

But, the grass is green and it continues to grow.  The trees have started to bud.  Our Cornelian Cherry Dogwood has blossomed with yellow flowers.  The pollen count is high.  And the sun is rising earlier every day and races to a higher zenith.

The sun part is great for the solar system that was installed in the latter part of December last year.

At this time, my daily ritual is to mentally note where the sun is rising and then check the solar production monitoring application.  Several checks during the day are standard.

April 2020 has brought several different milestones.

Milestone #1 is surpassing 3 MWh of total energy produced, reached in earlier April.

Milestone #2 is achieving the highest level of daily solar energy production, thusfar, at 76.83 KWh produced on April 10, 2020.

 

The chart to the right is taken from the monitoring application display.  It shows centrally the System Production (76.83 KWh), and it also shows the line graph of the Kw energy produced by the solar panel against time.

The granularity of the plot is 15 minute segments.  It shows that the first energy received by the system was in the 6:15 AM segment and was a mere 0.024 KW.  The last bit of energy received was at 7:15 PM and was 0.022 KW.  Peak energy was received at 9:00 AM, 11:30 AM and 1:30 PM, and is limited to 10 KW.

The more abrupt growth of the curve and more gradual downward slope of the curve is a function of the panel and roof position and the path and height of the sun.





Another milestone occurred March 20, 2020 when I received my first ComEd (local power company) billing with a full month of solar production.  It was great to see that the prior billing period reflected a flow of 790 KWh of energy "from the grid", and a flow of 957 KWh of energy TO the grid.  My monitoring system does not yet tell me how much self-generated energy (solar) that I consumed at home, but some simple math can tell me this.

[For Billing Period 2/192020 - 3/19/2020]

Solar Energy produced                               = 1285 KWh
Solar energy pushed to the ComEd Grid =   957 KWh

Solar energy self-consumed                     =   328 KWh
ComEd additional energy required         =   790 KWh
Total Energy required                                = 1118 KWh

So, you may ask, Why do you need to acquire energy from ComEd if your solar system produced more than you required in the billing period?
The answer is that the sun is up only during the day making solar energy.  My consumption is 24 hours a day.  And on some of those billing days, I charged my electric cars in the middle of the night.

Please keep safe and healthy my friends.  Everyone is so dependent on each other to lessen the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.  As long as the sun continues to shine, we will make it to the other side of this panemic.  I am anxious to see you all then.