Thursday 31 January 2013

Jan 2013 - Our Worst Month for Solar Panel Output

January 2013 has been our worst month ever for solar electricity generated by our Solar Panels. The total output for the month was 89kWh, way below Jan 2012 at 112kWh and even lower than the 92kWh for Dec 2012.

The month seemed to be continually cloudy either with snow which lost a couple of days to zero output or with rain which just reduced the generation down to under 1kWh for the day. The stats below don't tell the full story as the number of days below 5kWh was virtually identical between Jan 2012 and Jan 2013. Maybe days below 2kWh would show more of a difference.

http://solar-panels-review.321web.co.uk/yearly-solar-panel-stats.php

Fortunately from our experience last year poor output over the winter makes very little difference to annual solar panel generation. 25% lower in January isn't the end of the world - 25% lower in the summer would be a disaster and be equivalent to losing the whole of January's output!

Edit - just seen the stats released by the Met Office. The South East had only 72% of the long term average sun for the month of Jan 2013 which ties in with our solar generation being 25% below last year.


Jan 2013 - Our Worst Month for Solar Panel Output
Jan 2013 - Our Worst Month for Solar Panel Output

2 comments:

  1. We did even worse here in the East Midlands - lost 12 days generation completely due to snow on the panels resulting in the month being 39% below the SAP target!

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    1. Wow thats a massive drop! I've checked the weather and the Midlands as a whole didn't do too badly with sunshine being 89% of long term average but I guess that doesn't take account of snow being on the panels!

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