2011 Tracking

Again same chart as before. Green area is the predicted output for the Back and Garage Panel arrays.Dark blue area is the recording of Kilo Watt Hours as per Enphase recording from the inverters.Light blue readings is the reading from the Ontario Hydro Meter. % of forecast is comparison from the PvWatts program and the actual Hydro meter.

Please return to this chart as I will be updating each month as the readings come in.

So stay tuned.

2010 Wrap up

Well December was a little disappointing. Check out my updated chart.

As this shows we only made 45.94 % of my forecast. Not good. So I checked my Enphase site, and checked on Dec 27th.

This was a clear cloudless day, so why is the output so erratic? Just need to look in the back yard.



Although trees are good for the planet, they are not so good for solar power production. As this month has the shortests days in the year, it also has the sun lower in the sky then any other month. I just hope it doesn't affect January too much.  

1st Cheque

Well it really wasn't a cheque but, it sure is good to see the funds going into the bank instead of out. We received $856.81 for the time from Sept 21st to Nov 4th. This looks accurate to me. The numbers on the chart are from the 1st of every month. This is so I can compare to the predicted numbers from the PVWatts program. Number so far have been encouraging. December is not looking good. Too much snow.

Had 6" on the whole roof from yesterday. On any previous snow falls, it seemed to slide off. Today it took 2 hours to clean it off. Sure glad we don't have a 2 storey house.

First readings

It's the end of our first whole month so we can now see how well we are doing. Here is a small print out of the readings. Numbers are in Kilo Watt Hours. September's reading is what we generated from the 21st to the end of the month. I want to track from the 1st day in the month in order to be able to compare to the predictions as accurately as I can.

Note: Hydro Meter is accumulative. Therefore the difference from the first of one month to the first of the next month is the Amount of energy generated.

What you see in green is the predicted hours I should generate, and the numbers I relied on to predict the return on investment. This was using the PV-Watts program.The dark blue Enphase numbers are what you will also find on the  Enphase link in the blog. It is what the inverters are telling Enphase what they are producing. As you can see they do not match what the Hydro meter is saying. I am not sure why yet, I am investigating. The good news is even the hydro meter shows a 3% improvement over the prediction for first month and 32% for the second. Very happy with that. Don't know if it is going to hold so stay tuned. I will update again next month.

Hooked up and on line

As you can see we didn't get 3 rows of 14 on the back roof. Do to the position of the cross braces and vent pipes in the road we only got 2 rows of 13 and 1 row of 12 on the large rear roof. We did however find out that we could put a second row on the front garage roof.

This gave us 4 more panels there for a total of 2 KiloWatts at the front. I have updated the predictions in my calculations page to reflect these changes. ROI stays pretty close to the same as it was. We also have retained the 9.6 total system capability.

The big days was Tuesday September 21st.  Hydro did a disconnect.

This did require them to move some bushes on the neighbors lot. Hope they aren't too pissed about that.  They then installed the double meter box, had it inspected, and turn our power back on, all in one day. It did take some time to schedule that everyone would be here on the same day. Panel now looks like this. Switch was turned on at 3:15PM.

I have some trim work to finish up.

To see how well the system is performing you can take a look at my Enphase web site. It will show you a total history of all the power that has created. http://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/public/systems/nJC57822

The display shows the panels are tilted to reflect the angle that they are actually facing. I will track actual meter readings and compare the output to my predictions, so stay tuned for more updates.

Construction 2nd Phase

Well, we had to wait a little longer than a week to get the material. By the time they came in and the weather co-operated it was the last week in August. First the rails and inverters.

A week later they installed the panels.

 Looks like this now.

The power connection goes through the roof

Wire run to the fuse panel

and then outside to the shut off.

To bad it's not hooked up. Well, it was inspected today by ESA and all looks good.

This is necessary before we can hook up to the grid. Hopefully next week we connect in. Then the power meter starts turning. We will then send the inspections to OPA to complete the contract. And then we are in business. 

Insurance adventure

After we got close to installing the hardware we felt it was time to procure some insurance. This project was eagerly tackled by Linda, my wife. She called 5 new insurance providers as well as our present one. 2 did not return quotes after discussing our needs. 2 did return our call but explained that they could not provide us with any coverage. One agent stated it was the wording of the Hydro One contract that prevented them from covering us, the other agent said underwriters would not cover it.

Our old broker said our old insurance company would not cover us but she had another company that would. We received a verbal price from her. Our home insurance was the same price at $600.00 but the solar panel coverage would be an extra $1000.00. 1 broker returned a quote the next business day. This was W.C. Burgess Insurance Services Ltd. The price to insure our home was a little less for more coverage, and the solar coverage was $9.00 for every $1,000 of solar cost as replacement value. This put them at a better price than our old broker.

While waiting for more responses, we received a registered letter,  from our old insurance company. This was notification of termination of coverage in 15 days. Reason stated was operation of commercial business near the home. This prompted us to move forward with W.C.Burgess. We signed on with them within a week.  A bumpy but a successful conclusion.