groar's solar panels thread

[groar]

During last two days, 3kWc of solar panels have been installed on our roof.

Edit: here is its yearly and monthly production since 2008/11/21:




Misc data :

• Surface : 23.37 m² (3.64 x 7.53).
• 25 poly crystalline panels of 120W (+/-3%) each.
• The irradiation is around 1428 kWh/m²/year.
• The panels should generate 3170kWh/year.
• Panels' efficiency is guaranteed at 80% for 25 years.
• The panels are used for watertightness of the roof.
• Aeration at top and bottom sides permit to cool down the panels.
• Panels organized into two strings (12/13)
• The inverter has 2 independent trackers to manage the two asymmetric strings.

The system has not been switched on as when connected to the internal network, the circuit breaker opens. It seams I have a problem on my internal network

Next step in a few weeks/months/... when ERDF, to whom I will sale my production, will connect to my inverter

Costs :

• Panels + inverter costs (material + install) : 22k€
• ERDF install cost : 600€
• Government aid : 8k€ in 1 year
• Sale price : ~0.57€/kWh, ie around 1800€/year
• Taxes : 60€/year to ERDF and 40€/year to government
• Inverter : 1500€ every 10years

The project should have paid for itself in 10 years.
Loan : 8k€ for 10 years at 2% : monthly payment = 75€

Notes :

• The high sale price is because the panels are integrated to the house, here they permit the watertightness of the roof. Else it would have been 0.33€/kWh. These prices are guaranteed during 20 years for all sale contracts signed before the end of the year. Next year, new contracts will be signed with sale prices gone down...
• The government aid is valid for all install done before end of 2009. It covers a part of the material price. For photovoltaïc it's 50% of the material price. This amount is limited to 4000€ by adult and 200€ by children. It's limited in time for the period 2006-2009 for all the ecological projects. In this single project we are using all our possible ecological government aid.
• The loan has a small interest rate as this is a "validated" ecological project, else it would have been 7%.

(unsorted) pictures are here : Album: install

Denis.

[Daox]

Nice install. I like how its integrated into the roof. Keep us updated on the progress.

BTW, what is ERDF?

[groar]

EDF (Électricité de France) is the governmental company producing and selling electricity. There exist a few other companies since a few years but EDF is always the main one.

ERDF (Électricité Réseau de Distribution de France) is the company who manages the distribution network of electricity, ie the grid. Its length is about 1.2 million of kms = 0.75 million miles. ERDF is currently a subsidiary company of EDF.

Currently I have a contract with EDF as a buyer.

To sell, I will have a contract directly with ERDF. They'll create a new connection from the grid directly to my inverter through 2 meters : one to count how much I sell and one to count how much I use from this line.

Denis.

[groar]

You know what ? I'm happy

ERDF installed his counters Wednesday and the panels' reseller connected the inverter to the counters one hour ago

So the counters are increasing... By now : 235 Wh in 53 minutes (weather is very cloudy) and I'm saving CO2 (400kg/yr) and uranium

A few additional photos later...
and I have to change my sig

Denis.

[Daox]

Awesome! Definitely keep us up to date on this.

[groar]

Two months (*) after the PV installation, ERDF (in fact private electricians mandated by them) came to install different counters :

Above from right to left :

• my consumption counter owned by EDF, not connected to the PV installation
• my selling counter owned by ERDF, with the telereport box on its right so they can ask the counters from the street
• my consumption counter owned by ERDF, with the main switch on its right

Under is a big box with big fuses inside. On that box is written 200A/60A.

(*) It seams that in my region half people installed during the 3 months before my installation are always not connected... so I will not complain about this 2 months delay.

Then Friday the inverter got connected to ERDF's system


and after a few minutes to pass the initial auto-configuration, the inverter was producing some electricity

(sorry for the poor quality of this photo)
Puissance sortie = Power out

The green LED and the 8 LED on its right are lighten proportionally to the production. At that moment only 265 W was produced, while the installation's nominal production is 3 kW, so only one LED was lit.
On the left of the green LED is a red LED which means the inverter isn't producing electricity when it's lit.

Here are more photos with captions : Album: connection in high resolution.

Next, the first figures...

Denis.

[groar]

Here are a few figures, noted this after noon (second day) during very cloudy weather :

• Power out : 122 W
• Total production : 1.719 kWh
• Day production : 1148 Wh
• Network tension : 233 V
• Network current : 0.88 A
• Network frequency : 49.98 Hz
• Network impedance : 0.3 Ohm
• PV Tension : #1 212 V / #2 197 V
• PV Current : #1 0.4 A / #2 0.3 A

Maximum values :

• Out AC : 677 W - 3.394 A - 238 V
• Entry 1 : 421 W - 1.835 A - 279 V
• Entry 2 : 396 W - 1.877 A - 260 V

I have 25 panels. One of inverter's entry has a string of 12 and the other a string of 13. Each entry has an independent tracker, maximizing current production from PV.

Next, the daily/monthly/yearly productions...

Denis.

[groar]

I will regularly update this message with :

• daily production until 2008/11/30
• monthly production from 2008/12
• yearly production once a year

I will also log my monthly production there :

You'll be able to see pretty graphs there

Here is my daily production until 2008/11/30 :

• Wh(I) : daily production by inverter (Wh)
• kWh(I) : Total production by inverter (kWh)
• kWh(R) : Total production by reselling counter (kWh)

Day	Wh(I)	kWh(I)	kWh(R)
21	571	0.571	0
22	1234	1.805	1
23	2370	4.175	4
24	3362	7.537	8
25	532	8.069	8
26	879	8.948	9
27	2366	11.314	12
28	4146	15.460	16
29	774	16.234	17
30	1984	18.218	19

Notes :

• 11/24: Fun, the total production reselling counter is going faster than the inverter
• 11/29: The reselling counter was displaying 17kWh while the inverter wasn't at 16 yet, ie a 6% bonus
• 11/30: 2008/11 (9.5 days) average : 1.9 kWh = 0h38 of 3 kWc and 53% of 3.6 kWh (November forecast).

Here is my monthly production since 2008/11/21 :

Period	kWh(I)	kWh(R)	Wh(R)/day	Forecast	%over forecast	Wh(I) min	Wh(I) max
2008/11 (21-30)	18	19	1900	4.10	-53.66%	532	4146
2008/12	55	58	1871	2.97	-36.96%	232	3627
2009/01	59	65	2097	3.39	-38.10%	74	4604
2009/02	131	143	5107	5.25	-2.72%	823	8173
2009/03	241	261	8419	8.55	-1.51%	1327	11753
2009/04	237	253	8433	10.87	-22.39%	1254	13792
2009/05	325	344	11097	12.35	-10.18%	3432	15270
2009/06	349	378	12600	13.47	-6.44%	2619	15575
2009/07	346	379	12226	14.23	-14.06%	5967	13916
2009/08	303	333	10742	12.26	-12.37%	xxx	xxx
Total	2064	2233	7863	9.10	-13.58%	74	15575

Denis.

[Daox]

Ohh, daily updates. I look forward to it!

[groar]

Here is the forecast production for my PV solar panels system in kWh per month/day :

  Jan  Feb  Mar  Apr  May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov  Dec Year
   95  148  256  316  427  440  427  388  290  201  108   74 3171 cumulative
  3.1  5.3  8.2 10.5 13.8 14.7 13.8 12.5  9.7  6.5  3.6  2.4  8.7 average/day

From EDF's 2007 yearly report, here are the CO2 & radioactive wastes generated by kWh produced in 2007 :

• CO2 : 59.1 g/kWh
• long life (>100,000 years) : 0.9 mg/kWh
• short life (<300 years) : 10.0 mg/kWh

Looking at EDF's monthly reports, here are the CO2 generated in g/kWh :

  Jan  Feb  Mar  Apr  May  Jun  Jul  Aug  Sep  Oct  Nov  Dec Year
   81   68   54   57   45   43   46   33   55   61   36   47 2002
   63   61   46   58   40   42   50   51   54   56   44   42 2003
   42   49   63   52   45   46   38   45   43   34   40   45 2004
   49   73   69.4 52.8 33.2 41.3 51.7 28.3 44.9 50   55.8 71 2005
   68   75   62.5 22   18   31   46.5 31   44   42   44   48 2006
   42   41   49   57   45   34   35   28   44   59   68   63 2007
   49   40   44   53   27   42   33   24   45   61           2008

As you can see they are fluctuating a lot...
From a 2005 study, this is because they are mainly using coal power plant (900 gCO2/kWh) to reply to quickly fluctuating demand. While European average is at 340 gCO2/kWh, the French production can be separated by use :

• heating : 180 gCO2/kWh (129-261)
• lightning : 100 gCO2/kWh (64-151)
• intermittent use : 60 gCO2/kWh (38-93) (cooking, washing...)
• continuous use : 40 gCO2/kWh (20-72) (cold, cooling...)

Based upon EDF's 2007 yearly report, our 3kWc photo-voltaic solar panels should save :

• CO2 : 187 kg/yr
• long life radioactive wastes : 2.85 g/yr
• short life radioactive wastes : 31.7 g/yr

The reselling price is currently at 0.57187€/kWh, so the income for the first year should be around 1813€ (2284$ at 1,2595$/€).

Denis.