First Year Output

Today is the first year output of the 5.04 system that I have installed on the roof. This system has produced over 7000 Kwh. at about 600 Kwh per month on average. I am quite pleased with this system. This does not include the output from the new 1.2 kw tracker system. So far, I am pleased with my solar projects and have been a valuable lesson in the amount of energy we use to live. The energy is there for the taking, free from the sun.

Output Results for the first 2 Days

The first day the output was 6.01 KWh.
The second day the output was 5.6 KWh.
The tracker is working with no problems other than it was tracking slightly ahead of the sun. I had to make a few adjustments and all is well. The parking feature works wonderfully. I highly recommend the Redrok sensor/controllers. So far, I am very pleased with the tracker. Best of all this increased my total daily output by 25 %.

Up and Running (09/25/2010)

A view of my solar tracker and the roof mount that I did last year.

This photo is to show the tracker sensor/controller and how I set it up on the tracker. The housing is made from acrylic that was heated to form the lens shape. The body of the housing was made from a 4x4x4 junction box that was modified to fit the curved lens. Duane's sensor from www.redrok.com was used to control the linear actuator.

The traker is just doing what it does, Track the sun and make electricity that is inverted to AC electricity that is backfed into the grid.

Just so you can see how I wired the panels and sensor.

A view from the back of the panels

Another view

All 6 panels now attached

Today 9/252010 I completed the installation of my solar grid tie tracker. It works very well. Duane's tracker works great. You can get this from him at http://www.redrok.com/. It we entertaining watching the panels track the sun. Check out the rest of the build photo's

Good Work Today

I decided to make my own sensor/controller so I came up with this idea, I do not know if it works or not so don't duplicate this until I test it. Basically it is a 4x4x4 junction box, ($10.00 at Home Depot). I wanted a curved lens so I cut a piece of my acrylic and placed it in the oven at 250 degrees for about 10 min. The sides were supported but not in the middle. It bowed in the middle like you see in the photo. It was super easy and worked fine.

I traced the radius of my bowed acrylic and cut it out on my bandsaw. I was careful to leave some screw contact boss in each corner.

Hey what do you know, that looks pretty good and best of all it is plastic and will not ground out the sensor as recommended by Duane at Redrok.

I used some rigid foam to secure the sensor in the cover, works great. Be sure to orient the sensor as Duane describes. I also drilled 2 small holes in the bottom of the sensor for condensation drainage, here in Louisiana we have no shortage of humidity. I hope it works

Just a photo to show where I am with the install on this date.
KACO 1502xi Inverter Installed per code in my shop.

Nice and clean install with the wires fed from the back of the inverter so that no wiring will be seen (once the wall is sheetrocked.)

I wanted a clean mount and I utilized the posterior mounting holes in the inverter. Nice and clean.

Just a view of the wiring fed through the ground to the panels.

Doing what I do the best! Dig with a shovel.

Today I was off work and was able to accomplish a lot of the installation of the grid tie solar tracker. Check out the photo's especially the sensor cover that I made. I think it is pretty cool, I have no idea if it works or not yet.

Sensor and Actuator

I purchased a sensor/controller from Redrok.com. Duane is always prompt in answering my questions. I ordered a 24 volt linear actuator for the movement.

Installing the Frame

Ok I had to devise a rope and pully system to install the frame on top of the pole. It worked pretty good though.

Frame Build

This is some photo's of the frame that I made to hold the solar panels.

Solar Tracker Build Project 2010

The pole is mounted 5 feet below the surface.
This is a 4 inch pipe about
1/4 inch thick.
Ok, The roof mount has served me well. I now want to build a solar tracking mount, pole mount. I have researched this for the past 4 months and have decided on the following. 6 200 watt GE Panels, Kaco Inverter, Pole and frame mount designed and welded by myself. This will be a 1200 watt grid tie system and will give me a total of 6.24 KW total along with my roof mounted panels.

Electric Bill March 2010

The temps have been milder now in March. I was surprised to find that my total electric bill was $17.40. I have never seen an electric bill that low.

The panels produced 436 Kwh from Feb 20 to March 19. We did not use much electricity with the milder temps. Electricity consumption was 604 Kwh during that same time. No problems with the panels or any part of the system. I am quite pleased with the results.

29.77 Kwh

The days are getting longer and today the meter read a total of 29.77 Kwh. Not too bad. I am still waiting for the landmark 30 kwh in one day. So far I have had no problems with the system, no maintenance, no issues, just making kw every day.

Power Output Update

Ok, today was a very clear cloudless day and I checked the power output at 1:30 pm. The system was producing 4850kw. This is the most I have ever seen the system produce. Total output today was 29.5 KwH. I now have a better understanding as to how the longer days (as opposed to winter solstice) will affect the systems daily output. Overall, the system has only produced 256 Kwh. This is the first truly sunny day since my reading last month on 1/20/10.
If we were able to produce this amount of electricity every day, our energy bill would be essentially zero.

First Month Results

The first month results are as follows: The service meter delivered 757 kwh and 362 kwh were credited from the solar panels. The solar panels produced a total of 493.1 kwh over 257 hours of operation. This saved 838.8 pounds of CO2.

I was hoping for a litte more credited but there was nearly a week of cloudy, rainy weather. It was also a record cold front that persisted here for about 2 weeks. In addition this is the short winter days. Anyway, we shall see about next month.

Numbers Update 3rd Week

After 3 weeks of use the solar panels have produced 350.6 kwh and saved 596 lbs of CO2. Total operational time of the inverter is 189 hours. It has been very cold lately and we have been using the central heat some along with our gas heat. We have used a total of 550 kwh over the 3 weeks and the solar panels have credited 244 kwh to the service meter. So, if the meter were read today, we would have to pay for 306 kwh. Not too bad considering the short winter days and lots of rain and clouds. I have seen that the majority of our kw use is through hot water. My wife takes 2 or 3 baths a day and my little girl takes 1 bath per day (you have to make her), and I shower daily. I think this system is going to do well for our family.