Thursday 25 July 2013

July 2013 Beats Solar Panel Records for Electricity Generated

July 2013 has beaten all our previous records for electricity generated by our solar panels and the month isn't even over yet.

Up to 25th July with 6 more days to go, our solar panels have generated over 400kWh of electricity. This compares to a previous best for a full month of 395kWh.


July 2013 Beats Solar Panel Records for Electricity Generated
July 2013 Beats Solar Panel Records for Electricity Generated

Although we would like plenty more sun for our solar panels it would be nice to have some rain to fill our water butts and IBC tanks. Let's see what the next 6 days can bring and how the final total for July 2013 will tally up.

Monday 8 July 2013

Rainwater Harvesting using IBC Tanks and Water Butts

As well as our solar panels we have also developed a fairly extensive rainwater harvesting system that allows rainwater to be captured from various roofs and stored around the garden near to where it is needed.


Rainwater Harvesting using IBC Tanks and Water Butts
Rainwater Harvesting using IBC Tanks and Water Butts
Although the setup allows us to save water as we are now on a water meter and to avoid the impact of hosepipe bans for gardening the primary reason for setting the rainwater harvesting system up was to have water available where it was needed so that watering cans could easily be filled instead of using hosepipes.

With 4 water butts holding 200 litres, 2 recycled juice barrels containing 200 litres and an IBC tank that contains 1000 litres of water we have a total rainwater storage capacity of 2200 litres. Despite this apparently large volume we can easily run out of rainwater after a few dry weeks.

IBC water storage tank
IBC water storage tank

2012 was not a dry year so the tanks were at least half full for much of the summer but 2013 is proving to be much drier and with no significant rain for the last 8 weeks the tanks are currently virtually empty. We do have a submersible water pump that allows us to move water around the garden which can be powered using the electricity from our solar panels but with most of the tanks empty this is little use at present.

Monday 1 July 2013

June 2013 Proves to be Best Ever Solar Panel Output Month

June 2013 has proved to be our best ever month for solar panel output. Our 14 Solar PV panels generated 395 kWh of electricity, just beating July 2012 which was 393 kWh. June 2013 also provided 4 of the best 10 days since our solar panels were fitted.

You can view all the stats here for June 2013 and every other month since November 2011.

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

There is also now a page showing the best 10 days output for our solar panels since installation in 2011.


June 2013 Proves to be Best Ever Solar Panel Output Month
June 2013 Proves to be Best Ever Solar Panel Output Month