pgtruspace's blog
about things that interest me.
Solar Project
Posted by on September 11, 2019
A solar PV installation has been a dream from the start of this farm project but HIGH cost and lack of funds has always forced us to just grit our teeth an pay the electric bill. a couple of months ago I came across an offer to sell used panels in bulk an a very low price. These were removed from a 10 year old PV power plant that was being upgraded to increase it’s production and take advantage of tax law changes. This model of Sanyo panels are guaranteed to produce 90% after 10 years and 80% after 20 years. It appears to me that there may be a lot of used Solar equipment that will be available soon.
To do a simple system, gridtie, was selected to get the most bang for the buck in reducing the Utility costs that are scheduled to increase even more from their present high rate.
Sanyo 200Watt MonoHIP-200BA add Gridtie micro-inverters
Enphase-M190-72-240-S12
- The Enphase Energy Micro–inverter System solves solar power challenges by performing Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) at each solar module. MPPT is an algorithm used to calculate and respond to temperature and light changes detected on a solar power system, and to determine how much power to draw from the module.
- The SANYO HIT-HIP (Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin Layer) solar panel is made of a thin single crystalline silicon cells surrounded by ultra-thin amorphous silicon layers. The unique structure produces highly efficient cells capable of achieving more than 18% module efficiency while producing more power even at higher temperatures
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- These panels leads are terminated in MC connectors for a massive series- parallel DC grid so I needed to convert them to MC-4 connectors that would match the micro controllers input leads.
- These controllers are becoming available in bulk, as well. They are too small for more modern higher output panels of commercial system upgrades.
Present system is wired up and lying in the ground, Yield is about 360watts @ 243vac. long way from the 2Kw that it should yield at maximum. but, the poor angle of the panels on the ground
should be that cause. They should be about 40 plus degrees to match the sun angle.
During the next morning the production doubled from the day before. There must be a problem due to uncontrolled boot up,I did some work on the set up and added barrels to prop the panels to a better angle, but then during restart, the panels controllers refused to go online when I tried to reboot them. Their LEDs indicate they are fine but no production. I will see what they do after morning startup. I now have the panels at about 30 plus degrees….pg