Why Your Solar Panels Aren't Producing Rated Power
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- Опубліковано 11 чер 2024
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When getting started in DIY solar it can be a bit confusing sizing your system and trying to understand how many PV panels you actually need. I will run you through an example that will show that just adding out each panel power output might not work so well when you are trying to right-size your system.
Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:56 What Are Standard Test Conditions (STC)
3:37 Getting The Right System Size For Your Home
4:35 Power Output Factor 1 - Panel Mounting Direction
5:08 Power Output Factor 2 - Panel Mounting Angle
6:28 Power Output Factor 3 - Wire Gauge Sizing
7:35 Power Output Factor 4 - Dirty Panels
8:15 Power Output Factor 5 - Shading From Trees or Structures
DISCLAIMER: This video and description contain affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, I’ll receive a small commission. - Навчання та стиль
Been a bit overly critical of you in the past but have to say --- this is an amazing video that will truly help others. Thank you for taking time to put this together and educating.
Thanks! Keep the feedback coming critical or not 👍
The 6th factor is that the Chinese always overstate performance of batteries and solar panels.
We need to setup a 3rd party testing where we run all the panels through the same testing to get the real ratings for each panel.
I picked up a few of those HF 100w panels last year and they put out well over their rating when brand new even in the low 80s outdoor temp. Of course in clear full sun. I was impressed but idk how well they last in constant use.
Yeah, we shall see if they hold up over the years but I also think the construction of the frame is solid 👍
I have portable panels, the type you can fold up. I have used that angle tool you linked to help get the best angle. Thanks for the tool!
You bet and thanks for the feedback!
This video was great. I was thinking of doing exactly what you said. Permanently mount and Connect 3-100W panels to my super shed and use them to power/charge my eco and other things. AWESOME STUFF! Thank you.
Oh nice, I am basically going to do a few different options for that exact setup this year. One will be more plug-n-play probably leveraging an EcoFlow Delta 2 and the other will be DIY where I mix and match the components. Just bought the shed, will build it on Everyday Home Repairs channel and then will do the solar setup. I am hoping to get it done in Feb if I can get some warm days in Illinois 🥶
@@everydaysolar Awesome. Cant wait to watch it and see it all come together. Love the plug n play vides to make life a little easier. I have a great shed just want to put solar on it to charge my ecoflow pro and other tool batteries, lights, etc. for emergency. Wishing you luck. Will go to your other channel too. Wish you were closer to us, would be fun to do it together for the channnel for other to see.
This video is informative and right to the point.
Under 400 likes and over 12k views !?!?
Come on people, its just a click away !
😂 thanks for the support.
That wire gauge chart isn't correct for power transmission. It looks like a normal non-power-transmission ampacity safety chart (actually not even that since there aren't any temperature ratings on the chart). Amperages are a lot lower for continuous power transmission. Basically as a rule of thumb, for solar wiring, use 10A @ 12 AWG and 15A @ 10 AWG for power transmission to keep things simple.
15A @ 10 AWG drops about 1V at 30ft. So with e.g. a 56V operating voltage (roughly 3 panels in series) you have 1.7% in losses. Less if the actual amperage is lower, of couse. But don't think in terms of actual amperage.
I recommend sticking with 10 AWG for any serious panel wiring because, generally. Once you've wired a number of panels in you'll be wanting to wire more in a month later. And maybe more after that. Even for short distances because you will be slowly collecting cable as you mess around and if you try to optimize it too much you'll wind up with a lot of cable that you can't use later on.
And going 10 AWG will also help cover mistakes as a lot of people wind up not getting the correct type of wire. For example, super-flexible "poofy" 10 AWG wire with 200+ strands has so much tin-plating on the copper that tin actually makes up a majority of the cross sectional area.
Beyond that, good video. Series is almost always better (as long as the charge controller can handle it), but parallel has some application too. Always go through a combiner box with proper fusing when paralleling. Do not use those MC4 paralleling connectors unless the system is super-small, they suck and are a fire hazard.
-Matt
Very good video to learn future electrical skills
Thanks!
Everything you mentioned, i'd call "obvious", but i guess there are a lot people out there not knowing this. ;)
In addition the STC 1000W/m² are neither constant, nor a maximum of light radiation, the actual value also depends on your location. I don't know values for the US, but in germany this value already varies between 900-950W/m² in the north and up to almost 1200W/m². So in south germany i actually get ~100% of the power rating of panels even with the loss due to temperature. With the effect on cloudy days where the panels cool down in the shadows of clouds, my panels even overshoot their powerrating by 10-15%.
Another thing you didn't mention is the loss by power conversion. Either the voltage regulation to charge the battery of your powerstation or conversion from low voltage DC to 230V AC causes losses. So even if your panels pump ship 300Wh, you won't get 300Wh of usable power.
Very informative video. Thank you. I been thinking about solar panels but with solar tracking. Have you been thinking about doing any testing/comparing with some of the tracking system available? I would be very interested in that. Thank you for sharing.
Yeah, I am trying to get a small piece of land near my house so I can do a few ground mounts. I would like to have a few different examples I could collect data on and tracking is on the list 👍
@@everydaysolar Great. Looking forward to all of that.
Thanks
You bet!
Good info.
Thanks! I appreciate the continued support 👊
Over paneling is always a good idea as long as you use a current sensing device and a relay to restrict or divert excess current.
Solar panels rarely put out their rated power due to clouds.
Some days (and weeks) I get less than 1A out of 2200A of panels.
Advice please. I need 15kwh a day to power for power outages that can last from a couple hours to a few days. I'm in Michigan so my solar hours is 4.48, 1,278 Kwh per 1Kw, says need 4.24 Kwh array
I'm looking at a 400w, 36v panel, says output DC 39V, 10.25a max, transfer efficiency greater or equal to 21%
A MPPT Charge controller of 100a, says 12/24/36/48v Auto, Max Input 100v. Max charging current 100a. Max Input volts of panels should be 30v-45v (for 24v battery). Max Input power of panels should be 2000w. Output voltage DC5v/1.5a
Inverter of 4000w/8000w Peak, Pure Sine Wave Power Inverter, DC24v-AC110
And Battery is LiTime 24v 100Ah, LifeP04 Lithium Ion, Build-in 100a BMS, 2,560 Wh Energy. Up to 4P2S (don't know what that means) 48v battery 400Ah of 20.48 Kwh
It's only 1000sq' apartment, 2bd/2ba. Old Kenmore Fridge, elec range, micro, dishwasher (which I'd forgo during an outage), a couple computers and tvs, wifi, lights, a mini-fridge, that's about it. No washer/dryer and if I did use my hair dryer, it's 5 mins or less, but I don't use it every day (and my housemate is bald). For obvs. reasons I wanna keep the heat on and the fridge. We'd unplug things we don't need for a few days, but I'll stick with what we've averaged over the last year anyway just to be safe at the 15Kwh a day. Obvs. in an apartment, I can't do anything permanent, but that's good as I'm hoping to build a mostly off-grid place in a year or two and can take whatever I get for here with me. This setup, if I'm not mistaken, has a good amount of room to grow as well as the 400w panel can be added onto with another 400w, etc. and the other components if I calculate correctly also have a good amount left to grow?
Am I on the right track here? Too much, too little, just right? Any part of this not work with another or could be downgraded or done better/easier/cheaper? Any part of it I don't need? Anything I do that's not here? What I have here is about $1,450. Thanks for your time!
Ha! Ha! You might as well say I CANNOT live without power or I'll die. 15Kwh in a extremely small area where sunlight is few and you want to run "a couple" of computers. Laptops I'll understand but pc WILL consume quite a bit. Best bet is most likely investing on battery capacity than solar generating.
Thank you does anyone have any tips for wiring up a high voltage array I bought the Schneider Electric 100 amp 600 volt charge controller my understanding is the VOC is 53.58 * 8 would be allowable for one string in series then I can parallel another eight
8 residential panels should be fine for a 600V charge controller. That's 429V VOC. Double check. The charge controller has absolute maximum ratings (that's the 600V probably), but it also has an operating MPPT range which is typically a bit lower than 600V (e.g. it might be 550V). De-rate by 20% relative to maximum ratings or by 15% relative to the rated MPPT operating range to handle bright conditions.
600V - (600V * 0.20) = 480V panel VOC (very important limit)
550V - (550V * 0.15) = 425V panel Voperating (less important suggested limit)
So your 8 x 53.58VOC = 429V is just fine and you could even go to 9x if you wanted to goose it (482V which is over 480V but close enough). But you would NOT want to go 10x.
Stay as close to the de-rated high side limits as you can because you want any diode bypasses due to shading to keep the panels inside the MPPT range of the charge controller.
--
I'll look up the Schneider Electric data sheet for you. The data sheet says: 600V Maximum VOC, MPPT range is 195V to 510V and PV array operating voltage is 195V to 550V. If you have Q-cells with 53.58 VOC, the operating voltage is 44.54V. So:
44.54V x 8 panels = 356V operating (429 VOC)
44.54V x 9 panels = 401V operating (482 VOC)
Controller 600V - (600V * 0.20) = 480V VOC (best practices maximum)
Controller 510V - (510V * 0.15) = 433V operating with optimal MPPT operation.
Controller 550V - (550V * 0.15) = 467V operating
So you are good with 8 or 9 panels in series. With 9 the panel VOC is 2 volts higher than best practices, but it is still just fine I would say.
-Matt
Matt, very good feedback. Thanks so much!
are you gonna do a video on your shed profect from start to finish?
Shed build will be on Everyday Home Repairs and then I will probably do 2 solar setups one plug-n-play (EcoFlow) and the other DIY solar. All 3 of those videos will be start to finish
My 16 canadian solar 400w bifacials were producimg over 7k watts yesterday :) yes it was cold and the voltage was spiking higher than normal when the sun popped out of the clouds
Dang, not too shabby.
That's a good amount of overage. Is the rear rated @100w on those? I'm getting some 400 +100 bifacial arriving next week from Signature solar. Going to create 2 small , ground mount arrays for my delta pros with them.
I have them mounted 4 per brightmount array on a top post mount from ussolarmounts dot us each 8 in series per string into my 6000xp and 2 280ah powerpro batteries. Has been working perfect for my off grid cabin
@@tjmooney4181 I plan on using brightmount racks along with bifacial panels as well. Can you list what model post mount you used from ussolarmounts? Thanks.
I have 12 260 Watt panels 260 watts for a total of 3120 watts 38.10 voc the configuration is 3s 4p for 114.3 to 80 amp charge controller.This system is 24 v. I have tried everything and i can get no more than 38 amps from the mppt. 1000 watts out of 3000 . Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
Have you tested out each string independently with 3 panels in series? To confirm each string is putting out close to 650W - 750W in full sun (assuming mounted facing south at correct angle for your area).
I get 100 watts all the time with one harbor freight panel on sunny days, but when I hook 2 together I only get about 165-175 watts for some reason. Still haven't figured that out. I already have 10 gauge wire. I bought a new charge controller, so maybe that will take care of it.
Huh, that is confusing. I have put 2 of those panels in series many times I got over 200 👍
@@everydaysolar I was using a cheap charge controller someone gave me, so I'm pretty sure that's the problem. I'll know this summer when I hook the new one up at camp.
👍👌❤️🇨🇦
Thanks for the support 👍
With the crap in the sky you are lucky to get 50%