Monday, May 10, 2010

Energy Production Report

The electric bill for April arrived last week and I'm pleased to announce that the bottom line was...

$37

This was about a third of what it was a year ago!

While I'm excited about the latest energy usage I'd like to say a few words about Tigo Energy. If you've read my earlier posts you will recall that Tigo provides small, individual micro-controllers which optimize the voltage output of each panel. In essence, this prevents a poorly performing panel from pulling down an entire series.

I cannot recommend Tigo highly enough. The product works as advertised and the company worked hard to insure that my 'bleeding edge' system had tender-loving care. Tigo has even automatically uploaded firmware updates to the LMUs increasing optimizer efficiency. The monitoring website gives high-level graphical information giving an instant view of system production. One can also download incredibly detailed information, by the second and down to the individual panel, suitable for low-level analysis using your favorite spreadsheet.

The weather has been too inconsistent to perform a thorough analysis of how the overall system works with and without the optimizers enabled. Later this year, when we have a forecast of several cloudless days, I will alternate days with the optimizers enabled and disabled to see if the boost in efficiency can be better established.

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