Does solar work in winter? In this video, we compare data of 3 of our customers plus my very own solar to see how the solar panels perform during winter, as this is a common question and concern from those who are researching solar! I hope you enjoy this video and find it useful!!! Thank you as always for watching and please don't forget to leave a comment below with your experiences of solar, and any questions you may have! Look out for lots more informative videos to come, and please hit that subscribe button!!! :)
Very helpful, thanks. Consider including deviation from the mean as a percentage for each month as a way of clearly illustrating the relative performance of each month.
Hi thanks for the comment! They say you learn something new every day and that is the first time in my life I have heard 'deviation from the mean'! Had to google it haha! Honestly, I spent way too long on this video as it was, hopefully gives folk some idea, but thanks and I will try to look at 'deviation from the mean' on the next one! Glad you found it helpful :)
Great video Andy, obviously fewer daylight hours in winter but Wed 22nd May was probably the wettest, dullest day if the year. I still managed production of 3.1kW and charge batteries to 87% with nothing drawn from the grid. Proof of the Yorkshire pudding is in the eating... Keep em coming as I'm looking forward to learning more about my system.
Thank you very much for the comment and for watching! Great to hear your system is performing well. I will be sure to keep the videos coming, I have loads of content to deliver, its just finding the time! :)
Wow, there is somewhere with worse weather than us here in the UK? Thats a large system, you must see the benefits of it, or I am sure you wouldn't have had it installed? Not sure if you guys also have cheap evening tariffs like we do to be able to charge your battery storage etc which helps with winter periods? Do you have batteries? Must do with that size array??
@@alpselectrical For now we have 16kWh of LiFePo4 storage. Also we run HVAC on it, mostly heating at this moment It's very windy and cold 8°C this morning and only 14°C right now. We are planning for big boilers to store heat. During winter we mainly use our four woodburners for heating. Our water supply system and in summer irrigation pumps also run a lot. Most electricity is used during daylight as we handle our horses and run the workshop machines. The PV system produces 34MWh over the year, we use about 40% of that directly. When our boilers and more batteries get installed that number should go up a lot.
In winter I charge my Powerwall up at 7.5p per kWh and then run the house off the battery. You need to make best use of off peak tariffs to maximise your savings.
can you install a > 4kW inverter on a grid tied system? i thought it was only upto 4kW without needing to go to a different application process that was more of an arse to do..
3.7KW is the max via a G98 (post notify DNO route) and above that would be G99 which is a pre-approval DNO application. It isn't much of a ball ache to be honest, it usually goes through in a matter of weeks without an issue in our experience!
in the 5 years ive had my solar and powerwall last winter was the worst , my battery was never full for weeks i went away for 2 weeks over Christmas and i looked everyday to see if the battery was full but it didnt fill up until sometime after i got home but it did stop me from drawing from the grid .
Hi thanks for your comment! That seems like something isn't quite right if it wasn't full for weeks. I mean in the winter the sun is out less and you will be constantly using the battery so it will struggle to fully charge, but I would expect it to have least charged once or twice in two weeks, unless the weather was totally pants that whole time, which wouldn't surprise me in this country! What is your orientation, and what size solar array do you have? Lastly, what size battery storage? Is it just one Powerwall? Im assuming from your comment that you are not charging your batteries from the grid at night?
@@alpselectrical Hi thanks for your reply i have 4kw panels Facing E S & W , it was just the weather as i live alone i didnt go on the night rates but i will soon as im having Air 2 Air heating and the gas meter is being removed on Friday .
@@alpselectrical Thanks for you reply , i have a powerwall but as i live alone i didnt go on the night tariff , it was just bad weather it went on for weeks ,
We have solar data going back to 2011 for a small number of 3.86kw systems, ground mounted in West Devon. The weather plays a big part of how much solar we can generate at anytime of year and we are in a pretty wet area. When cloud cover is really heavy we can have very little generation. Our average generation is about 4000kwhs/ system/ annum. With the particularly cloudy weather of the last 12 months we are currently down to 3600kwhs/ annum. The poorest months are November to January inclusive. Typically solar will generate between 9-10% of annual production over those 3 months. Our best months are May- July when we will generate up to 40% of annual production in those 3 months. Our figures appear more extreme than yours but that could be down to our wet climate. We do get significant generation on cold clear days in winter but typically we get cloud and rain
Hi, thanks for the comment and sharing your system! It certainly would be the case that varying locations in the country/world would have an effect on seasonal performances, orientations and even pitches and of course height above sea level
Does solar work in winter? In this video, we compare data of 3 of our customers plus my very own solar to see how the solar panels perform during winter, as this is a common question and concern from those who are researching solar! I hope you enjoy this video and find it useful!!! Thank you as always for watching and please don't forget to leave a comment below with your experiences of solar, and any questions you may have! Look out for lots more informative videos to come, and please hit that subscribe button!!! :)
Very helpful, thanks. Consider including deviation from the mean as a percentage for each month as a way of clearly illustrating the relative performance of each month.
Hi thanks for the comment! They say you learn something new every day and that is the first time in my life I have heard 'deviation from the mean'! Had to google it haha!
Honestly, I spent way too long on this video as it was, hopefully gives folk some idea, but thanks and I will try to look at 'deviation from the mean' on the next one! Glad you found it helpful :)
Great video Andy, obviously fewer daylight hours in winter but Wed 22nd May was probably the wettest, dullest day if the year. I still managed production of 3.1kW and charge batteries to 87% with nothing drawn from the grid. Proof of the Yorkshire pudding is in the eating...
Keep em coming as I'm looking forward to learning more about my system.
Thank you very much for the comment and for watching! Great to hear your system is performing well. I will be sure to keep the videos coming, I have loads of content to deliver, its just finding the time! :)
Here in the Netherlands our 27500Wp PV does near nothing on grey sunless winter days. Sometimes such weather lasts near the whole winter here.
Wow, there is somewhere with worse weather than us here in the UK? Thats a large system, you must see the benefits of it, or I am sure you wouldn't have had it installed? Not sure if you guys also have cheap evening tariffs like we do to be able to charge your battery storage etc which helps with winter periods? Do you have batteries? Must do with that size array??
@@alpselectrical For now we have 16kWh of LiFePo4 storage.
Also we run HVAC on it, mostly heating at this moment It's very windy and cold 8°C this morning and only 14°C right now.
We are planning for big boilers to store heat.
During winter we mainly use our four woodburners for heating.
Our water supply system and in summer irrigation pumps also run a lot.
Most electricity is used during daylight as we handle our horses and run the workshop machines.
The PV system produces 34MWh over the year, we use about 40% of that directly.
When our boilers and more batteries get installed that number should go up a lot.
thanks
No worries :)
In winter I charge my Powerwall up at 7.5p per kWh and then run the house off the battery. You need to make best use of off peak tariffs to maximise your savings.
Absolutely!!! 100%! Thanks for the comment :)
Short and sweet took 4 mins b4 it kicked off
haha! thats my idea of short and sweet :)
can you install a > 4kW inverter on a grid tied system? i thought it was only upto 4kW without needing to go to a different application process that was more of an arse to do..
3.7KW is the max via a G98 (post notify DNO route) and above that would be G99 which is a pre-approval DNO application. It isn't much of a ball ache to be honest, it usually goes through in a matter of weeks without an issue in our experience!
in the 5 years ive had my solar and powerwall last winter was the worst , my battery was never full for weeks i went away for 2 weeks over Christmas and i looked everyday to see if the battery was full but it didnt fill up until sometime after i got home but it did stop me from drawing from the grid .
Hi thanks for your comment!
That seems like something isn't quite right if it wasn't full for weeks. I mean in the winter the sun is out less and you will be constantly using the battery so it will struggle to fully charge, but I would expect it to have least charged once or twice in two weeks, unless the weather was totally pants that whole time, which wouldn't surprise me in this country!
What is your orientation, and what size solar array do you have? Lastly, what size battery storage? Is it just one Powerwall?
Im assuming from your comment that you are not charging your batteries from the grid at night?
@@alpselectrical Hi thanks for your reply i have 4kw panels Facing E S & W , it was just the weather as i live alone i didnt go on the night rates but i will soon as im having Air 2 Air heating and the gas meter is being removed on Friday .
@@alpselectrical Thanks for you reply , i have a powerwall but as i live alone i didnt go on the night tariff , it was just bad weather it went on for weeks ,
Ahh ok, no worries! Well we could definitely do with some good weather! :)
@@alpselectrical i posted my message and it disappeared so i wrote again .
We have solar data going back to 2011 for a small number of 3.86kw systems, ground mounted in West Devon. The weather plays a big part of how much solar we can generate at anytime of year and we are in a pretty wet area. When cloud cover is really heavy we can have very little generation. Our average generation is about 4000kwhs/ system/ annum. With the particularly cloudy weather of the last 12 months we are currently down to 3600kwhs/ annum. The poorest months are November to January inclusive. Typically solar will generate between 9-10% of annual production over those 3 months. Our best months are May- July when we will generate up to 40% of annual production in those 3 months.
Our figures appear more extreme than yours but that could be down to our wet climate. We do get significant generation on cold clear days in winter but typically we get cloud and rain
Hi, thanks for the comment and sharing your system! It certainly would be the case that varying locations in the country/world would have an effect on seasonal performances, orientations and even pitches and of course height above sea level