It must be sunny ways. Yesterday’s solar production reached a couple of benchmarks. First, the stream of electricity being produced reached the maximum system output: 5KW. A first since installation. Second, production for the day accumulated 34.59 kWh passing the 30 kWh benchmark which is our average daily consumption. That is, we produced more electricity than we consumed.
Notwithstanding, generally production has been lower than anticipated by the models. December and January’s production levels fell under 50% of that predicted by the models. Unusually cloudy weather; not enough of those blistering cold, but clear, winter days. February rebounded a bit to 65% of production estimates. March has fallen short, tracking at 41% so far for the month. More cloudy days.
However, yesterday’s production was encouraging as it confirmed the capability of the system to reach 100% and the benefit of good weather, longer days and a sun floating higher in the sky.
Length of day and the angle of the Sun is starting to make a difference. Yesterday’s production continued for over 11 hours, two hours longer on the best of days in January. The first watt was registered at 7:35 AM; the last came in at 7:00PM. This is in contrast to December and January where production started on the best of days at 8:00AM and ended by 5:00PM, yet even in this case, generation maxed out at about 13 kWhs for the day.
It would be nice to be able to get back on track for March and recover some of the lost ground, but in this point, the 14 day weather forecast is not encouraging: many cloudy days.
More broadly, what I may be witnessing is the impact of Climate Change. The modelling is based on historical data (30 years of historical solar irradiance and weather patterns [1]) , yet if the climate is changing these predictions may be skewed. More cloudy days?
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