10 Megawatt Hour Aniversary

[hill]

We got back from Nashville yesterday ... visiting the only child ... 9 months & one week pregnant (prepare for tangent) btw ... here's her Halloween costume (and her hubby's too):



We had to laugh. oy vey ~



So ... when we got in yesterday, I checked the Kwh readings on our two PV inverters after we got home. This one is hooked to 20 panels facing South West:



The one below hooks to 16 panels facing kinda north east.




Is my addition right? Over 10,000 Kwh ... they must have clicked over about 2 or 3 days ago ... isn't 10,000Kwh the same as 10 megawatt hours? That sure sounds a lot higher . We've been grid tied since mid January of 2009 ... 10 months ago. That's 1 megawatt hour per month? Hey! I better go turn the porch light off!



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[drees]

Hate to tell you, but you've got 9896 kWh adding up there...

Still a lot of power for 10 months of generation - you must have about 9 kW of panels up there?

[hill]

Ooops ... no one's accusing me of being a calculater. Guess we'll have to wait a bit more to hit 10Mwh. They're rated 7.1Kwh which is intriguing to me. (for round numbers) Dividing our 3520 hours of operation so far, into 10,000Kwh and you only get 2.8Kwh averaged over the time when the panels wake up in the morning, until they shut off at night. That's sure lower then the 7.2Kwh rating.

Similarly, 12,000Kwh over 12 months (8,760 hours ... day & night) would be less than 1Kwh per hour. That includes the night time hours, but heck, your meter spins FORWARD at night (and at dusk, and during the dawn). To be realistic, rating panels over the whole 24 hours (as opposed to a theoretical perfect 90 degree operation with clear daytime sky, and cool temps) gives a buyer a more realistic operational number.

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