We finally got the solar panels up on the garage!
It’s hard to see in that photo up there but that’s the best angle I could get because MrsGF won’t let me up on a roof. (But she has no problem making me climb a rickety old stepladder in the house to clean the tops of the kitchen cabinets) The guys did a very good job. They ran out of daylight before they could get the wiring done but we jury rigged some connections to test them and they work quite well.
They’re 420W bifacial panels. Because they’re roof mounted like that the bifacial bit isn’t going to be very helpful, but at the time I bought them they were the cheapest panels in that wattage range. If I remember right I picked them up for about $107 each plus shipping, which by today’s prices, is ridiculously cheap here in the US.
Anyway we were testing them at the time I took that photo. You can see that not only is it cloudy, but it’s already starting to get dark. Much to our surprise they were still putting out 400W.
Of course the weather had to turn bad right after they were put up and it rained all day today. I switched them in just for the heck of it and the dopey things were putting out 300 – 500w. In the rain. I’m not entirely sure how that’s even possible.
So now we have about 4.2KW of solar up on the roof. Once I put the ground mount panels back in place we’ll have over 6KW total. That’s going to be quite a change from having only about 2KW solar.
grouchyfarmer 