December 21 was the shortest day of the year, 9 hr 49 minutes in Huntsville AL. A thin cloud day compared to the day before: Today - high thin clouds moved over the house solar roof causing a dip around noon. Solar fusion generated only 19.2 kWh. This from the backside of a high pressure system that had moved to the East. The backside brings warmer temperatures and humidity for clouds. Yesterday - the high pressure was overhead with no wind and no clouds. Solar fusion generated 23.3 kWh for my house and EVs. There will be cloudy and wet days when we'll be lucky to generate 2.8 kWh (Dec 18) but that is just one cloudy wet day out of the past week; Dec 15 - 24.2 kWh Dec 16 - 23.3 kWh Dec 17 - 9.4 kWh Dec 18 - 2.8 kWh Dec 19 - 23.9 kWh Dec 20 - 23.3 kWh Dec 21 - 19.2 kWh I do have 13 kWh, solar battery but though the electrons are free from the Solar fusion generator, the round trip through the battery is only 86%. So I have learned how to adjust my major loads for peak solar. More about this later. Bob Wilson
Yeah I posted a “Happy Winter Solstice” announcement on our family chat, no one responded. Northern hemisphere, its onwards and upwards now. Funny how it’s also the first day of official winter. A somewhat arbitrary, but convenient convention, to accommodate the weather lagging the day length.
Our rig only did 46.8kWh for the 21st. That's a little under half what we'd see on a perfect summer solstice.
8½ hrs o' daylight here yesterday in the north (flathead Valley) Being in a valley - mountains to the east & west, it seemed even shorter before the sun actually peaks or dips on each side.
2.5 kWh produced on my system yesterday, over 8 hr 24 min of daylight. Almost average for this month, which is the worst not only for length of day, but also weather and tree interference. Best month this year was July, averaging 27 kWh/day, somewhat low. Best month can be anywhere from May to August, and average over 30 kWh/day in better years.
