Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

hike_me t1_iy8e3wy wrote

Reply to comment by metalandmeeples in 6 Month Solar Panels Update by metalandmeeples

November has been pretty terrible for me.

Produced 400kWh, consumed 1mWh (I do most of my heating with heat pumps)

I ran a deficit of 100kWh in October,

On track to offset around 88% of my electricity for the year. Need to thin out a few more trees and/or I think I can squeeze another row of panels using a horizontal (landscape) orientation at the top of my roof where they won’t have any issues with shading.

I run a surplus May-September. April is usually break even, and October can be break even depending on weather. November - March I run a pretty big deficit due to the heat pumps.

10

metalandmeeples OP t1_iy8esvp wrote

Our house is in the middle of an elevated field and the closest trees are about 125 feet north of us. We also live in Durham, so the minimum lot size is 90,000 sq ft which keeps the closest neighbors pretty far away. The only thing that shades our panels are clouds.

11

hike_me t1_iy8ggdt wrote

Tree line is only about 15-20 feet from the side of my house with panels. We selectively thinned some of them last fall, which helped, but we still get a lot of shading on the bottom half of the array in the fall and winter.

5