With over a foot of snow landing on my roof this past weekend I do believe my solar panels have generated their last watt of 2008. This was the first full year I had them so I thought I would tabulate their monthly output for the entire year.
I’m pretty happy with this data as it makes up roughly 20-25% of my usage. The downside of course is that there are 2-3 months out of the year where there’s a good chance they’ll be non-functional depending on snowfall totals.
Below is a cool picture that my contractor put together. He actually created this picture for my son, who organized a “Solar Energy” town meeting for his Eagle Scout project. My contractor was NexAmp.
Steve
Steve, this is awesome! I would love to add solar, but am in the same situation as Massachusetts here in Ohio – too much Winter! I’m also surrounded by trees…
My other idea was to go geothermal, but I haven’t done that yet either. There’s a good contractor out here, though!
Steve,
Based on those numbers, what’s the timeframe to get 100% ROI?
Is this inline with your expectations going in?
Rod,
As of summer 2007 I was looking at about an 8 year ROI, which included reduced electrical usage when kids become college age.
Since that time my rates have gone up twice!
Steve
Thanks for the info. By the way I enjoy your blog and your contributions to the industry. I am anxiously awaiting delivery of our first 2 CX-4’s.
Hi Steve,
Great site! Your production numbers look very good, with the exception of the snowy months, like you mentioned. Looks like most of the last 12 months performed higher than the model (PVWatts). Let’s see how it all ends up in December, but it looks like you will end up 5% lower than the model for the year. I’ve seen this pretty consistently across the board based on the heavy snow this year. The good news is that this proves that even during a snowy year the production is only a few percent off!
Happy Solar New Year!
Cheers,
Dan