Solar Report for May

Greetings from the Northern Hemisphere where it’s Summertime, and the wattage is fine. Have I mentioned, the Grehan stronghold is powered by the Sun? But of course! Last May I kicked off this website’s monthly solar report feature.  Here’s the inaugural post. This month, I’ll provide a tiny bit of spec about our solar setup.

The term PV system refers to all of the components required to turn sunshine into margaritas in my blender. PV stands for photovoltaic. Components vary depending on the system. Here’s an illustration to give you an idea of what I’m talking about. I found the pic, where else? On Wiki.

If you were to gaze fondly upward at the Grehan’s roof, you’d see our PV System’s solar array. Twenty-five shiny blue panels manufactured by Canadian Solar. The panels can withstand wind speeds up to 90 mph, and snow loads of 25 psf. Underneath (attached to) each panel, is an Enphase micro inverter. Twenty-five inverters in total, each rated for 260 watts. This setup gives us panel-level converting. A single shady panel won’t impact the entire array. The micro inverters also enable panel-level monitoring through the Enphase Enlighten app. I used the Enlighten app to create the monthly production report you’ll find below. The app also provides realtime monitoring.

Realtime! Holy Sunshine!

In case you’re wondering, our system is tied to the grid. In my locale, you can’t live off grid. You heard right, my prepper friends. Off grid is not permitted around here. You’ll be relieved to know that, if the grid fails, my computer will pull power from a bank of solar-charged batteries. Lack of public utility power won’t disrupt the posting of my doodles.

Perhaps in a later post I’ll describe all the other wires and cables and boxes that comprise the totality of the Grehan’s PV System. For now, let’s get to the stats:

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