MyFreeMonitor.com on Indigogo - Crowdsourcing

I did my first crowdsourcing experience the other day towards a Waterloo-based company called Eyedro. The produce a small system that is a low-cost way to monitor power consumption. Their small devices clamp onto an electrical feed normally at your breaker service box of your home or business. The device connects wirelessly to your router or with a wired connection. The data is uploaded to Eyedro's cloud servers where you can look at your power consumption in a browser.
I sent them an email and asked if I could connect this to my PV system to measure production [instead of consumption] and they said "Sure"! So, I paid up on Indigogo and this will help them develop their MyFreeMonitor.com software system, plus they'll send me a power monitoring system. I think it is really neat! All the power to them!
http://www.indiegogo.com/myfreemonitor
Click on the image to go to their website and see their product and funny video.

PV Revenue to Dec 2012

December was pretty grey here and my solar panel revenue reflect that, see below. However, note the difference between Dec 2010 and Dec 2012 - nearly half the production in '10 and I attribute this to snow cover. It is always hard to assess the impact of snow on panels because it is hard to have a "control" that is snow-free and a "normal" array of panels that are permitted to accumulate snow. It is ether too expensive to set up such a study for a home owner and heck - if you could clear off the snow easily and safely then you'd do it! It is not really a research question anyways, it is a curiosity that has financial implications  And perhaps design considerations too.
One interesting thing I was asked the other day was about the way snow slides off, safety, and panel layout. When I had my panels installed I spoke to my installer where the bottom panel should be placed:

• bottom of panel is above shingles - some rain will fall on a concentrated location on the shingles and could cause excessive wear. Snow can slide off and can cause ice damming.
• bottom of panel is above eavestrough - rain drops into eavestrough. Ice and snow can slide off and accumlate in eavestrough potentially causing high load on eavestrough and/or causing ice damming that may harm shingles.
• bottom of panel extends beyond the eavestrough - show and rain are shed directly below, potentially causing safety issues. 

I opted to have my panels end directly over my eavestrough. I can't say if ice damming has been a significant issue but I don't think so. Only under the most intense thunder storms has rain run off the panels and gone over the eavestrough. Some precip may shoot down the other two rows of panels down onto the lower row and caused a concentration of water on the lower panels, but the small gap between the panel rows is sufficient to minimise that. Overall, I don't think it is a huge issue. However, just like a metal roof on a shed or barn, one must be careful about the risks of snow and ice sliding off the structure and falling on people below.
Table 1. Sum of daily revenue by month.

Sum - Revenue, daily	Years
Date	2010	2011	2012	2013	Total Result
Jan		$136.10	$205.18	$67.37	$408.66
Feb		$220.57	$258.66		$479.22
Mar		$449.77	$456.57		$906.34
Apr		$395.30	$501.84		$897.14
May		$428.51	$607.72		$1,036.24
Jun		$567.19	$573.10		$1,140.30
Jul		$616.75	$611.45		$1,228.19
Aug	$131.53	$528.09	$577.23		$1,236.85
Sep	$351.28	$423.49	$480.85		$1,255.62
Oct	$360.90	$313.65	$270.70		$945.25
Nov	$285.03	$253.69	$229.61		$768.33
Dec	$62.74	$176.31	$115.73		$354.79
Total Result	$1,191.47	$4,509.43	$4,888.65	$67.37	$10,656.92
as of:	2013-01-13

Table 2. Sum of daily power generation by month.

Sum - Daily kWhr	Years
Date	2010	2011	2012	2013	Total Result
Jan		170	256	84	510
Feb		275	323		598
Mar		561	569		1130
Apr		493	626		1119
May		534	758		1292
Jun		707	715		1422
Jul		769	762		1531
Aug	164	658	720		1542
Sep	438	528	600		1566
Oct	450	391	338		1179
Nov	355	316	286		958
Dec	78	220	144		442
Total Result	1486	5623	6096	84	13288
as of:	2013-01-13

Note: August 2010 and January 2013 are partial months.
It is nice to see that we have 4 months now with 3 years of full data measurements. It shows the considerable variability between the months.

Small FIT Applications to be Accepted Starting 14 Dec.

[Right from the OPA Website]

December 4, 2012: Update on Small FIT Application window

• The OPA will start accepting applications under the FIT Program from Small FIT proponents on December 14, 2012. To prepare for the launch of the new phase of this program, the FIT Program website will be shut down for maintenance from 3 p.m. on December 13 until the opening of the application period on December 14.  

This is for projects less than 500 kW. My understanding is that this window of applications will be for 200 MW of projects. I don't know if they will close the window again at a set date or if when they have granted contract offers for 200 MW. In any case it is good news. There are many many companies and people who have been waiting for this. I encourage you to read the Minister's Directive - it covers many clarifications to solar on rural lands, "stranded" solar projects, community and aboriginal support programs, etc.

Power Generation Until End of Nov 2012

Well, there is not much to say other than it has been a very dreary few months and my table of kWhr/month shows it. October and November have been the least sunny of the last 3 years. And in the first 5 days of December my system has only produced 22 kWhr. But hey, who's complaining? Not me... look, we haven't even finished December yet and this year has produced 5974 kWhr compared to 5623 kWhr for all of 2010. Not bad. Let's see what December brings sun, cloud, and snow-wise. Dec 2010 had snow and grey skies whereas Dec 2011 was very much snow free though rather grey. My prediction is grey and little snow in Dec 2012.

Sum - Daily kWhr	Years
Date	2010	2011	2012	Total Result
Jan		170	256	426
Feb		275	323	598
Mar		561	569	1130
Apr		493	626	1119
May		534	758	1292
Jun		707	715	1422
Jul		769	762	1531
Aug	164	658	720	1542
Sep	438	528	600	1566
Oct	450	391	338	1179
Nov	355	316	286	958
Dec	78	220	22	320
Total Result	1486	5623	5974	13082
as of:	2012-12-05

Some Basic Parameters of the PV System to Date

There are some handy parameters that can be used to estimate the power or revenue generation of a PV system. Often people will take the kW of the system and multiply it by the expected parameter to get expected value such as kW hours per year or dollars per year. These numbers are relatively easy to calculate. Ideally people are using the most realistic values possible if they want to estimate their expected outcome.

An example is, how many kilowatt hours should I generate from my 5 kW system on my roof?

First, here are my parameters for our 4.9 kW DC system [5 kW string inverter]:

Variables	kW	Dollars
Mean [4.9 kW]	15.81	$12.68
Per [1 kW]	3.23	$2.59
Min [4.9 kW]	0.05	$0.04
Max [4.9 kW]	35.13	$28.17

In this case, applying my parameters to a hypothetical 5 kW DC system, we could estimate mean daily kW production over the year to be 5 kW * 3.23 kW per kW = 16.15 kW per day. Multiply that your FIT contract price and this would be your daily income averaged over the year. 

You can use the values above to estimate your highest and lowest income as $28.17 / 4.9 * your DC kW.

Oh, and you can see that you'll have some bad days too - $0.04 / 4.9 kW will give you $0.01/kW on dark snowy, snow-covered panel days. 

Revenue to Date

A quick post to provide my monthly income to date from the solar panels. Movember is not complete - it is just to 24 Nov 2012.

Sum - Revenue, daily	Years
Date	2010	2011	2012	Total Result
Jan		$136.10	$205.18	$341.29
Feb		$220.57	$258.66	$479.22
Mar		$449.77	$456.57	$906.34
Apr		$395.30	$501.84	$897.14
May		$428.51	$607.72	$1,036.24
Jun		$567.19	$573.10	$1,140.30
Jul		$616.75	$611.45	$1,228.19
Aug	$131.53	$528.09	$577.23	$1,236.85
Sep	$351.28	$423.49	$480.85	$1,255.62
Oct	$360.90	$313.65	$270.70	$945.25
Nov	$285.03	$253.69	$193.78	$732.50
Dec	$62.74	$176.31		$239.05
Total Result	$1,191.47	$4,509.43	$4,737.09	$10,437.99
as of:	2012-11-24

Note how the revenue for the dark and dreary October was lower than previous years. With only 6 sun days left for November, I hope it picks up a bit or it will be another low income month.

Results to August 2012

Our solar PV system has been installed for two complete years as of 24 August, it will be the end of September when we have 2 years of full monthly data. Here are my results to date. First I show the monthly revenue in Table 1. August 2010 data (and revenue) is not complete since the system was connected on 24 August.
Comparing 2011 and 2012 months January to August, we see that in particular January, April, May were good months. Interestingly, even after a beautiful summer this year (albeit with very low precipitation), June, July, and August there was only about $50 difference between 2011 and 2012 these 3 months combined. Clearly it was the difference between the winter and spring months that is making 2012 a good solar year for me.

Table 1. Monthly revenue totals for 4.9 kWe solar PV system.

Sum - Revenue, daily	Years
Date	2010	2011	2012	Total Result
Jan		$136.10	$205.18	$341.29
Feb		$220.57	$258.66	$479.22
Mar		$449.77	$456.57	$906.34
Apr		$395.30	$501.84	$897.14
May		$428.51	$607.72	$1,036.24
Jun		$567.19	$573.10	$1,140.30
Jul		$616.75	$611.45	$1,228.19
Aug	$131.53	$528.09	$577.23	$1,236.85
Sep	$351.28	$423.49		$774.77
Oct	$360.90	$313.65		$674.55
Nov	$285.03	$253.69		$538.72
Dec	$62.74	$176.31		$239.05
Total Result	$1,191.47	$4,509.43	$3,791.76	$9,492.66

I've listed kWhr generation summary in Table 2. below. It is interesting that the longest days being in June and July certainly translate to additional generation with July having the highest combined amounts over two years. Don't be fooled but the Total Result column with August showing the highest result - there was a full week of generation in August in 2010 that is being tallied. The 2011 + 2012 total is 1378 kWhr, notably less than the June and July totals.

Table 1. Monthly power generation totals for 4.9 kWe solar PV system.

Sum - Daily kWhr	Years
Date	2010	2011	2012	Total Result
Jan		170	256	426
Feb		275	323	598
Mar		561	569	1130
Apr		493	626	1119
May		534	758	1292
Jun		707	715	1422
Jul		769	762	1531
Aug	164	658	720	1542
Sep	438	528		966
Oct	450	391		841
Nov	355	316		672
Dec	78	220		298
Total Result	1486	5623	4728	11836

I will share some additional statistics and parameters in my next post.