Anyone Else Able to Share Some Solar Panel Figures

[sizbut]

... and doing that does give more mystery for the installers to explain/fix. The inverter had as of last night reported a cumulative 1.6kWh in running since Tuesday. The two meters they installed report 0.66kWh and 29.08kWh so a clear mismatch somewhere.

... and having the installers explain to me what the two meters are for is also on the list.

[thirdcrank]

Perhaps you would benefit from reading whatever paperwork you were given when you signed up for this to see if your concerns are answered there.

eg That should explain the purpose of your meters.

I tried to highlight the importance between the technical aspects and what I'll term the regulatory regime. As I read your post, you don't seem to understand what you have signed up for. I'm an inveterate worrier so I get answers to my worries before I'm committed. In my case, the salesman - who dealt with the regulatory side - stuck closely to the rules, helped by the fact that the Feed-in Tariff principle had been explained to me in detail by an acquaintance who worked in financial services ie I knew a lot of the important answers before we started.

The people who did the actual installation were knowledgeable, but only to a certain extent. eg They initially installed the invertor (?) without making allowance for the up-and-over garage door. Then, the chap i/c was convinced that British Gas weren't bothered about the ordinary electricity meter going backwards, simply because their application form didn't ask about it. OTOH, he accurately explained the effect of the shadow of the scaffolding which was inevitably still in place when they had just finished the installation. When it was removed, the system behaved exactly as he had said it would.

[[XAP]Bob]

... and doing that does give more mystery for the installers to explain/fix. The inverter had as of last night reported a cumulative 1.6kWh in running since Tuesday. The two meters they installed report 0.66kWh and 29.08kWh so a clear mismatch somewhere.

... and having the installers explain to me what the two meters are for is also on the list.

What's the make of inverter?
Can you see where the meters are installed in terms of where the cable goes?

[rjb]

If you have a smart meter it can tell you how much you have exported to the grid. Smets 2 meters show this. You may be able to cross reference this to your meters to see if one agrees.

[wheelyhappy99]

PV array 3.6kW, very similar aspect, angle, latitude and recent weather. Annual output consistently 4MWh. Output for recent days:
31/3 5.49kWh
30/3 13.1kWh
29/3 5.28kWh

Hope this helps. Send PM if more data might be useful.

[sizbut]

The inverter is from Solis. As well as using its own data and that from the other meters to decide where it gets/sends power, it reports all that data back to a data warehouse. That is the main data that I've been looking at and querying.

The installers have now looked at that data themselves (I gave my permission) and they have agreed that its wrong. And since it will affect where the inverter sends power when we get to the sunny times of exporting to the grid or charging batteries, they're coming back next week to fix it. Something screwy in the data sharing between components of the system or an inverter setting set to the wrong meter type.

Meanwhile, from the cumulative kWh figures displayed on the meters, I'm now much more confident that the panels are actually working in the right ballpark for their rating and the time of year. Thanks to all who shared their recent system performance to help with that.

Thank you folks for helping me prove my suspicion that something was wrong was right.

[sizbut]

...and on Thursday the engineers came to call - and did an excellent job.

My 300W consumption on the smart meter display (I work from home) has suddenly plummeted to under 30W. On the solar system's own display, I can now see the panels generating 2.23kW rather than the previous constant 50W and excess power currently going to the batteries.

So once again thank you all for helping reassure me that I wasn't being a total novice misreading things and reporting a non-issue.

...guess I'll have to pay them now.

[Jdsk]

Thank for adding the outcome.

Jonathan

[thirdcrank]

...and on Thursday the engineers came to call - and did an excellent job.

My 300W consumption on the smart meter display (I work from home) has suddenly plummeted to under 30W. On the solar system's own display, I can now see the panels generating 2.23kW rather than the previous constant 50W and excess power currently going to the batteries.

So once again thank you all for help reassure me that I wasn't being a total novice misreading things and reporting a non-issue.

...guess I'll have to pay them now. :)

Did they explain what had caused the problem?

[rjb]

Well done, the sun shines on the rightous.

[sizbut]

Did they explain what had caused the problem?

They said that component that goes in the smart meter and allows it to talk to the inverter about what's being consumed where (using a protocol called RS485) was faulty. I'm prepared to believe them, as I watched them swap it and then following a simple off/on of the inverter, all the figures being reported were more sensible to the size of the system and the sunny state at that time.

(I also suspect an element of too many ongoing installs - so many being done by hired in contractors who don't have enough experience if that hits a snag - whereas today I got the experienced permanent hands - small clues like their wearing company branded kit and very quickly working out the part to replace unlike the original duo).

[thirdcrank]

Did they explain what had caused the problem?

They said that component that goes in the smart meter and allows it to talk to the inverter about what's being consumed where (using a protocol called RS485) was faulty. I'm prepared to believe them, as I watched them swap it and then following a simple off/on of the inverter of the system, all the figure being reported were more sensible to the size of the system and the sunny state at that time.

(I also suspect an element of too many ongoing installs - so many being done by hired in contractors who don't have enough experience if that hist a snag - whereas today I got the experienced permanent hands - small clues like their wearing company branded kit and very quickly working out the part to replace unlike the original duo).

Thanks for that. IMO, the next step is to try to forget the system and just enjoy the bunce. I fancy it might be all too easy to become obsessed by the readings.

[rjb]

I had an clamp on battery powered Current Transformer to detect when my system was exporting to the grid. The detector sent a signal to a diverter which then turned on my immersion heater to give me hot water. This was installed before smart metering but it's good to know that you can achieve the same thing direct from your smart meter.

[sizbut]

I looked at the immersion options yesterday, something I didn't know about. They seem to have progressed to using the same method as the batteries by being linked directly to and controlled by the inverters. Didn't go far enough to see if you can have both immersion and batteries or whether its mainly one or the other at the moment.

Meanwhile it can't be helped, I will be a data junky for a few weeks at least. Already from midday today when they fixed the system, it has provided 6kWh, half of which went to the batteries. And now at 9pm, those batteries are outputting 300W for my tele and other late evening distractions.

[Cowsham]

You could have both battery and immersion but one will be the primary or preferred load. ie when the battery is charged the water gets heated or vice versa when the water heats to x degrees the batteries get charged. Doing both at the same time brings in too many other problems.