Energy Generation Report From Datalogger - Nov 2010

This chart shows you the Watt*hours generated from our 4.9 kW solar system during the month of November [except for 30 Nov which is tomorrow]. Note this is Watt*hours, not kW*hours. I wanted to show this chart as it shows some interesting information:

• There are 7 days where we generated over 20 kWhr. That is over 4 kWhr/kW of installed capacity. Or over 4 hours of accumulated solar radiation converted to electricity
• There are 7 days of very low generation, with the lowest day, 22-Nov a very dark rainy day. It snowed on the 27-Nov and about 1cm of snow accumlated on the panels. The sky was overcast and the temperature about -2C. There was not enough heat to melt the snow off the panels.
• The 28-Nov was a fairly cloudy day, however several of the panels still had partial snow cover. This seems to have decreased the overall daily output for that day. 
• There was a very small amount of remnant snow on 2 panels on the morning of 29-Nov, but it appears to have melted off early in the morning.
• There is considerable variability from day to day.
• Month-to-date generation was 354 kWhr, that is $284, plus whatever I generate tomorrow. The system must generate approximately $300/month to cover the cost of the loan. This is one of the lowest solar radiation months of the year. We'll find out how low Dec and Jan are soon!

We'll see if tomorrow yields $16 so we break even.
I started recording the daily output from the system since August by reading the utility meter. I will publish those in the coming days.