System Goes "Live" 7th November, 2009

My system was approved for operation too late in the day to produce any power on the 6-11-09. I switched the system on and went to bed, knowing that I'd be producing energy from dawn. The morning of the 7th was overcast. I got up shortly after dawn to make sure the system was working. Sure enough, my data logger was reporting energy output:

6:45 am - The system is making enough electricity to run two 60 W light bulbs.

7:00 am - Now I can run two 100W light bulbs (well I'm excited)

7:20 am - The output is climbing...

7:30 am - There it is... my first Kilowatt hour produced!

10:15 am - It's still overcast, yet I'm generating more than 6 kW / hour. Fantastic.

6:00 pm - The output has dropped to just 210 W because there is no direct sunlight on the panels. But look at the total for the day - 31.012 kWh despite intermittent cloud all day! Now that I've seen the system perform in less than ideal conditions, I'm very excited about seeing it perform in unbroken sunlight.

Day Two of full Operation 7/11/09

It is Sunday 7/11/09. The day is cloudless and much solar radiation is falling from the sky. It's too valuable to let fall to the ground, so my photovoltaic panels are busy harvesting electricity and selling it to the grid. Its is 1:00 pm and the system has just topped yesterday's total.

Sunday 7/11/09, 4:20pm. Showing more than 10 kWh improvement over yesterday and still increasing.

Last Hoorah for day two. It's 7:00pm and the output has trailed right off. But what a total! My daily consumption averages 28kWh. I've produced 47kWh. Happy with that!

These are the first two full days of operation 7/11.09 to 8/11/09. The first graph is the cloudy day (Saturday). The second graph is the picture perfect day we had on Sunday. A perfect curve. Note the gentle bias toward the beginning of production. This is because my panels face 70 degrees away from North toward the East. My system is optimised for morning sun because of the orientation of the roof. By 10:30am my system is pouring the energy into the grid at a rate of 6000W/h.