Solar Panel Questions

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Lizardking13@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

I have recently purchased a home with solar panels. The previous owner didn’t have a ton of information on them as she inherited the house from her mother who passed away. She has the purchase agreement, but the company that did the installation in 2014 has gone bankrupt (in 2020).

I’d like to somehow figure out how much energy I’m getting out of the panels. I got information from the previous owner on their electric bill, which shows me I won’t be paying much. But that doesn’t really answer my question about electricity generation.

Looks like I have 14 solar world Mono Black panels with model number 275.

Any advice on how I can go about figuring out exactly how much energy generation I’m getting?

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mosiacmango@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Looks like the model name is the wattage. Your panels are wach making 275w. With 14 of them, the max power they will generate is 3850w, or 3.8Kw.

That means if you have one gour of full sunlight hit your panels, it will generate 3.8kw of power. If you go to this site it will estimate how many sunlight hours your roof will get per year. Multiple the sunliht hours by 3.8Kw to find your total possible power generation per year.

To find out how much you’ll save, you need to know how much a Kwh costs from your local power company, likely between $0.10-$0.30/kwh.

So just with made up totals, if you get 1000hrs of sunlight/yr, you will generate 3,895kwh. At $0.10/kwh, you’ll save $389.5/yr.

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- Lizardking13@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Thank you! This is very comprehensive. I have a place to start now.
  
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  - mosiacmango@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Glad to help. I’ve been investigating my own solar install, so have been digging into the specifics a lot.
    
    Note that the above are the “best case” numbers. Panels can put out less power for lots of reasons. They tend to lose a little bit of efficiency when they get older. Think 1%/year, but that’s just a rule of thumb. Being dirty can affect them, cloud cover, angle and position, and hilariously counterintuitively, if they get too much sun. Solar panels get less efficient the hotter they are, so an especially sunny day will lower the power output.
    
    Leads to some complex math to optimize, but honestly its power that just hits your house for free. That’s a fine thing in any circumstance.
    
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Brkdncr@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Pictures of the system and any identifying stickers would help. There should be an inverter somewhere between your panel and the solar panels.

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ozoned@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
I know my panels connect into a box on the side of the house that I can connect to and check data on power generation. Do you have any kind of box like that on the house that you can’t id?

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AdamEatsAss@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
As others have mentioned look for the inverter. It is also a good idea to call an electrician, it’ll cost you, but they can double check everything is still in good working order and can answer all questions.

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- TwiddleTwaddle@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Call the inverter manufacturer first. As others said, they most likely can help you connect it to the internet and check to see what’s working and what isnt. With their help, even if you do need to call an electrician, you’ll at least know what the issue is and can make the electrician’s job easier, faster, and probably cheaper for you.
  
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  - Lizardking13@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
    Good idea!
    
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- Lizardking13@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Thank you. I will ultimately get a professional in and am hoping to do some… Homework first. This helps.
  
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Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
Around here it is common that the inverter collects such data and makes it available in a mobile app or on the manufacturer’s website.

So you would look for the make and model of your inverter first.

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- Lizardking13@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  Great idea will do.
  
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Robin@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
The 275 number probably isn’t (just) a model number but the max generated wattage. That’ll give you some idea of the generated power. In practice you’ll never hit that number but I just got a peak of 315w at noon on my 355w rated panels.

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- TwiddleTwaddle@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨52⁩ ⁨minutes⁩ ago
  Yea most roofs are unfortunately not positioned ideally for PV.
  
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- Cybermatrix1@slrpnk.net ⁨14⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Indeed, it’s actually Wattpeak. For my work I make a difference between actual Watts and solar Wattpeak. I normally multiply by 0,75 to get the MAX power. This max power only occurs around noon as the sun goes up and down again. For energy in my home (Lithuania) I hope to get in the summer with 1kwh/M2 of solar panel.
  
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