Two-day update

I thought I'd update followers on the performance of the panels after two days. I'll give a full week's update at the appropriate time. 

For the time between switch-on and sunset on Tuesday, a matter of roughly three hours or less, strong sunshine produced 4.2 units. Since then, the following two full days have been completely overcast and it's been interesting to see how the panels have performed. On Tuesday night, the inverter shut itself down once it sensed insufficient power was being delivered. I awoke at 5:30 am Wednesday morning and toddled downstairs to see how it was doing. Conditions appeared to be daylight outside but I was just in time to see the inverter power itself back up and tell me it was producing all of 4 watts.

Mid morning, we headed for the West End of town, but before we left, I noted a reading of about 250 watts. By the time we returned home, it still appeared overcast but there was now 750 watts being injected into the house. However, as I watched, it cranked itself up to 1,200 watts. It was obviously brightening outside yet it still appeared overcast. Happily, the retail meter had stopped ticking. The house was running on overcast! On Wednesday, we generated a total of 4.9 units.

Today, Thursday, was also overcast and I was at work all day. The folks at home couldn't remember the Sun having come out all day. However, the meter has clocked up another 6.6 units. Since the average daily figure I need for my target is 6.85, to nearly achieve that on a cloudy day is very pleasing. Given that a cloudy January day will be only half as long roughly, I expect those days will yield barely 2 units. 

So far, I should have clocked up £6.50 in FiT payments. Now all I need is a really sunny day to calibrate the top end of the range. My next blog will be when I have 7 full days of operation.