What are YOUR solar PV's generating TODAY?

Kitch

that figure is for the last 7 days.

stephenc

Best May in the 5 years I've had PV, 499.50 kWh

hallanthony

Had 480 kWh for ours in May, worse than last May when it was 528

X DSP

Hi everyone, hoping you can shed some light on this (pardon the pun). Do you think it's possible to go "off grid" or self-sufficient in terms of power from solar and battery back up? I've had a scroll through some of your figures throughout the year and obviously the greatly reduced generation in winter is a concern, but I don't know what size installations you all have. I'm guessing the average 4 kW set up, while a good investment, isn't enough to get you through the year without the grid. So how large do you think it would need to be - would a 10 kW array with a Tesla Powerwall (14 kWh ish?) be enough for the average home?

Say you took it all the way and had electric everything and no gas. So electric heating, water heating, kitchen appliances (cooker/hob) or maybe even an electric car? Is self-sufficiency only possible at lower latitudes than Britain? Just had me wondering if it's worth pursuing or if it's impossible from a physics standpoint given our reduced daylight hours in winter. Thanks in advance.

SteveCritten

I think off grid is totally achievable and I have been planning a small group of say 5 or 6 dwellings with a 6-10kwh wind turbine for all. A 6kwh solar power, ground source heating, Bore hole and reed bed filtration for water. I think you would probably need a power wall backup each but it's definitely feasible. The ground source heating would reduce the electric usage by a lot.

X DSP

Wow, sounds incredible! Wind power is a great direction for the UK to go in, I believe we get 25% of all of Europe's wind making us one of the best sites for it in the world. However in terms of residential generation I find the aesthetics of rooftop solar (or even ground-based solar) less intrusive than having a wind turbine. I just don't think it would be an option for our very average 3 bed detached on a normal street. Your project sounds great though, can't wait to see it all finished.

Kitch

Depends on the house usage of power? My house at idle (everything off) consumes 1kwph, so over the course of the evening that would equal around 12kw, that's the tesla 14kw power wall pretty much done for every Night!
I have looked into this, without wind I can't really see how it's feasible for us.

imightbewrong

Yes it will depend on the house.  Our base run rate is 250W which is 6KWH per day.  Then 'discretionary use' is the sameish again so we end up using around 12-15 KWH per day in total.

X DSP

Yeah I suppose that's hard to meet on an ideal winter day let alone a week of overcast conditions. What about those roof mounted micro wind turbines? I think they are around 1 kW which could be a useful supplement to solar.

Kitch

         Just a catch up here.
Solar generation has been abysmal this year so far, lots of overcast days...