Solar journey: Design and predicting annual production. Part 1

How much energy will you make in a year?

Your solar PV (Photovoltaic) system's estimated annual energy productiion should be included in your design plan from your installer. The units are in kwh (kilowatt hours). 

If you forgot high school physics, do not confuse this with the panels/system power capabilty. Power is described by  W (Watts) or kW (kilowatts). Energy is described by kilowatt-hours (kwh).

To understand annual production, first look at production at a moment in time

The number of panels and the panel wattage is one metric of the maximun power that can be produced by all of the panels under peak sun at a moment in time (not in a while day). That assumes all panels are being hit equally. For me that is 14 *340W/panel or 4.76 kW.

There are many reasons you may not achieve that maximun power level:

-split layout (like mine) that has panels in different locations. In this case, the sun strikes the panels vastly different during the day.

-Other shading: trees, clouds, snow, structures, etc.

-Inverter size ( this what converts the DC panel current to AC current and syncs it with the grid). Inverters have a specific power rating...here is the second metric for power output. Depending on your system design, your inverted may have a rating slighty above or below the sum of your panels.  If its below, thats OK, some energy is technically wasted as it reaches maximum capacity.

In my case, my inverter spec is 4 kw and my panels total 4.76 kw. They told me they call this "over clocking".....whatever. Where I come from, over clocking is what you do to an AMD cpu! In my case, this makes sense to do since I have 2.7 kw on the East and 2.7 kw on the South.  

So solar PV system power output (at a moment in time) depends on your # of panes, layout, and the inverter size.

#solarpanel #layout #design #PV #photovoltaic