Sunday, February 8, 2015

Our solar power plant: Two months since the start

Our solar power plant has been in operation for over 2 months now (since Nov. 27, 2014), so here's brief report:


So far, so good.


Everything has been working well. Every piece of equipment is doing  just what it's expected to do, which is great news. With technology based on a lot of complicated equipment, no news - no thrilling reports of breakdowns or accidents - is always the best news. Plus the weather has been mostly good. What more could we dream of. Photons are happily hitting black surface of our panels, cheerfully letting their electrons get transformed into electric current and fed to the grid. They end up consumed by someone's fridge or electric heating, and their mission is over. (What happens with those electrons after that, though?) New electrons seamlessly follow.  I know I shouldn't personify electrons, nor photons, but I can't help, it's so exciting to imagine what's happening on their way from the Sun through the panels and cables up to the the electric circuits of my table lamp. Electrons are so selfless. Well, they are literally selfless. But they could quite well come to life in a Pixar movie about a hero that saves the world, Mr. Superelectron. Coming right from the Sun.


Solar Monitor

The fun part for us is to watch how the kilowatt hours of electricity pile up. Well they don't pile up literally, they're being fed to the utility grid, but on our online "Solar Monitor" we can see how much electricity is being produced at the moment, how much has been generated on that day and on given month and year. And that is, for some reason, interesting to watch.

Here's a snapshot of a Solar Monitor display from about a week ago (31 January 2015). It was a perfect weather day.


20150131_12h17m_374kw_cut_2


Next picture is the same snapshot with English notes (You can enlarge the picture by clicking on it):


20150131_12h17m_374kw_cutwithnote_2


And that's it for now. Enjoy your winter!