Much of the lead-up to the solar going in was taken up by getting a floor into the loft-space. We banged down 2x1" slats over the rafters so we didn't need to worry about any wiring sitting on top of the rafters getting crushed and then got 8x2' loft flooring boards screwed down onto them. All good stuff.
Monday 20th Jan 2014 : Installation Day #1
The people from the Renewable Shop arrived at 8:50 - loads and loads of 'em. They were having to do two installations in Ashbourne at the same time so they wanted scaffolding up quick then half of them disappeared to the next job. We were left with the nucleus of five guys who over the course of the day would get most of the fittings on the roof, the invertor up into the loft (they weigh a ton, not quite literally but they're damn heavy). Also the internal wiring was done so that day 2 would be a case of finishing off the fittings and then getting the panels connected up. There was a bit of luck with the wiring in that there was the old immersion heater wiring going down to the cubby hole where the meter is and up into the roof space so that saved a bit of time.
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| Getting roof fittings done |
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| Invertor and internal wiring done |
Tuesday 21st Jan 2014: Installation Day #2
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| The state of play at 4:30 in the afternoon job almost done bar taking away the scaffolding. |
Wednesday 22nd Jan 2014
Not much to report today.
Went up the attic to do a bit of a tidy up and prep for finishing off the floor - we had left the bit near the access point clear in case they needed to do any wiring stuff.
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| Picture of invertor - 'strings' to solar panels coming out and going up the chimney! |
Meter read 2.41, I think it began on .41 when it was commissioned on Tuesday.
Thursday 23rd Jan 2014
Meter reading a smidge under 7kWH so best generating day so far.
Friday 24th Jan 2014
EPC being done today so should be able to get paperwork off soon for the FIT tarriff.
Tom from The Renewable Shop came along to finalise the paperwork - have a ton of stuff to send to Scottish Power not to mention insurance and what have you.
Been a bit of a glum day so not expecting much generation. Some things I need to not forget about the system:
1). To see what the invertor is generating at any given point you simply tap the display on the invertor.
2). To shut it down if we get any electrical work done you need to pull down a lever under the invertor and the do the cut-off switch
3). In the event of a powercut the system will take three minutes to be sure that all is well and start generating again.
4). If it's a red hot day the output may go down as the panels are less efficient when red hot.
5). Panels will get grebby give em a clean in March and if possible September - don't use detergent though.
A poor generating day today - wet and horrid:
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| Just under 1.3kWh generated yesterday with the cruddy weather we had. |
Saturday 25th January 2014
Sun is out at 10am - very low angle of course in Winter but the meter is flashing and we're generating a bit of leccy which is a good consolation seeing as the golf course is shut and it'll be another weekend with zero golf.
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| Tiny bit of blue sky - not a bad generating day |
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| According to the inverter we got 3.28kWh generated today - bit better than yesterday. |
Sunday 26th January 2014
Should have been happier with the generation yesterday as today's has been all but non-existent as it's rained pretty much constantly all day.
I reckon about .3 kWh produced today - very poor indeed!
Monday 27th January 2014
At work all day but it didn't look like anything to write home about so was pleasantly surprised to see 3.1 something generated. All good stuff.
Tuesday 28th January 2014
A bit of weak day's generation but the first week's total generation is about 16 kWh
This means the average daily production has been 2.33 kWh which is under the PVGis estimate for January for our system which should have been 2.79kWh
Wednesday 29th January 2014
If I thought it was bad yesterday, well it was more of the same today as well. .46 kWh generated.
Thursday 30th January 2014
Another really bad day snow and rain and all sorts - surprised to see any generation at all so .6 of a kWh is better than I expected.
Friday 31st January 2014
Possibly the worst day so far - added just .12 kWh. So in the last ten days of January 2014 we managed to generate a 17.43kWH which is well under expectation.
