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  • Author Author: ralphjy
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Home Solar System reaches 25 MWhrs Total Production

ralphjy
Solar System Description
Home Solar System Performance - Year 1
Solar System Performance - 2 year review
Solar System Performance - 3 year review
Solar System Performance - 4 year review

My solar system installation just achieved a significant milestone.  The total lifetime production has reached 25 MWhrs.  The system was commissioned on December 29, 2017, so it's taken 55 months.  The reason that this number is significant is that it is my break even point for ROI.  

The system production has been pretty consistent relative to yearly average (5.4 MWhrs) over that time. I lost a panel in November 2018 due to a faulty bypass diode and it took a while for warranty replacement, so the numbers were lower for 2019.

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Here's what my production looked like yesterday.  It crossed through the 25 MWhr number just past noon.

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This year has been a bad year from an energy perspective.  We had a very wet spring, so solar production is well behind last year.  At this point it's probably around 500+ KWhrs short.  I actually had to pay for electricity for the first time in 4 years Frowning2.  And this summer we have had some long periods of excessive heat, so our energy consumption was up due to running the AC and solar panel production was down about 10% on the high heat days.  Overall production in July was above normal, but there were a few days where consumption exceeded production.

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This year will be below average for production due to the weather and I don't think we will have enough excess generation to cover next winter, but I'm extremely happy to have achieved this milestone.

  • Very good blog.

    This is the first good report I have seen from a solar panel installation.

    Usually I just see hype, but it is nice to see actual results.

    We get more clouds than sun where I live plus my wife thinks the panels are ugly and does not want them on the house.

  • in reply to genebren

    I was very fortunate back then because there were State and Federal Tax credits and Energy Trust of Oregon was doing a direct to installer rebate on installation cost.  My older son was working for Solar World US (now defunct) doing installation designs and we cost rather than performance optimized the system plus got a good price on the panels and hardware from Solar World.  My total installed cost was less than $3K (State tax credits were spread over 4 years).  One issue that I've had is that my panels are somewhat unique to Solar World (transparent on the backside) and no longer available.  When the panel failed in 2018, those panels were no longer in distribution and it took a while to spec match the replacement.  Has been working fine, but you can spot the different panel in the array.

  • That is great news!  Four and half years seems like a pretty short period for meet your ROI.  I hope the sun continues to shine favorably on your panels.