Solar Panel Performance - one year on

We now have one full year's worth of operational data from our five-panel experimental array, rated at 540 Watt-peak (Wp) in total.

So, without further ado, here's the cumulative AC energy graph for the array from 04-May-12 to 03-May-13.  Click on the figures to make them larger and easier to read ...

and here's the output on a month-by month basis.

and on a 'unitised' basis, i.e. per installed Watt-peak of capacity.

Our forecast in my post from 04-Nov-12, on the economics of the array, predicted an annual output of 254 kWhr of usable AC electrical energy, but we actually only achieved 241 kWhr in the period. 

Homemade Axial Flux Generator - Part 2 - The Coils

Following on from our earlier post, quite a while back now, I managed to get around to constructing a stator coil a month or so ago.   This particular project has had a very low priority due to work commitments and the many other projects I'm also on with, especially in the garden.

Firstly, I made a mould to cast the coils from an old piece of timber, using the CNC machine to generate the internal disc profile.  Using the CNC wasn't strictly necessary, a simpler but equally effective mould could have made up from plastic strips or similar.

on the CNC machine....

Greenhouse Irrigation / Watering System.....

Apologies if the title makes this sound rather more than grand than it actually is – it's just a very simple piping system to capture the rainwater falling on the roof and then re-direct it inside the greenhouse.

I started with three 3 metre lengths of 20 mm plastic conduit that I'd bought a year ago for the solar panel installation, before I discovered that I couldn't fit two pairs of cables inside each pipe and therefore ending up buying 25 mm instead for that application.  

Two lengths of the conduit I had were white and one black.  I had a few fittings already to hand, but topped up the shortfall with a few more from eBay.   The inspection covers on the PVC elbows and tee were sealed up using 'Evostik' Pipe Weld adhesive, and then pressure tested by holding my hand over the open end(s) and blowing into the other.

The long lengths of irrigation pipe were drilled every 150 mm or so – I started with 3 mm holes near the feed end and increased to 4 mm and then 5 mm as I progressed further along the pipes, the idea being to encourage water flow along the whole length of each pipe.  The open ends are temporarily sealed with blu-tack until I get around to making some proper plugs.

Building a greenhouse.....

This unplanned major project all started because I was looking for glass panels to build a simple cold frame to start-off vegetable plants under glass.  

However, one listing on eBay was for a shower panel (singular), but it was very poorly listed and described.  After a couple of emails to the seller I established that there were actually 18 panels for sale in the lot, all of the same height but in batches of three different widths, and all of them brand new !

I put in a bid and was lucky enough to get all the panels for the starting price of £20.  It meant a 160 mile round trip to collect them, but we hooked-up the trailer and set off.  When we saw the panels, they were very much more substantial than I'd initially thought – all 6 mm toughened glass within a polished aluminium frame.  They must have weighed around 400 kg or so, but with half in the trailer and half in the back of the car, we got them home OK.

glass panels in the foreground....

So, after measuring up, we decided we could build a new 12'x6' greenhouse using fourteen of them.

Preferences and Prejudices - a personal trading strategy....

If what follows could ever be described as a 'strategy'....

Financial Advice ?

Note that I'm not a financial adviser and nor would I recommend that you shell out your hard-earned readies in seeking so-called 'professional' investment advice.  Do your own research.

(There's a proviso to this, however, in that I wouldn't be averse to asking my accountant for information on how a particular financial instrument would be treated for tax purposes.   Trading accounts, ISAs and SIPPs etc are simple enough vehicles for most people to readily understand their tax treatment, but there are many things out there that aren't – the UK tax code runs to several thousand pages, and like most tax 'rules' they are not designed to be definitive but are deliberately left open to interpretation....generally though, if you can't fully understand an 'opportunity' yourself, without taking external advice, then it may be more prudent not to pursue it at all.)

Having established and understood what are the particular tax advantages or otherwise of the investment type or wrapper in which they're held, there's absolutely no-one out there who is qualified to advise you in which particular industry sectors, shares, funds, bonds, trackers, commodities etc you should invest.

Domestic Solar versus Domestic Wind ? Solar wins, every time....

I still see people on eBay bidding hundreds of pounds for 300W domestic wind turbines.  Some of the sales sites use terms such as '..free energy...' and '...save money...'. but these claims simply don't stack up....

Given that you can buy 170W solar panels on eBay for around £80 or so each, let's do a very simple comparison based on real data from my own experimental installations of both solar and wind (see my previous posts for more details on each).

Since 300W is a common-enough domestic turbine rating (based on a 1.4 m blade sweep), we'll do the numbers based on 300W. 

Let's assume that whatever installation materials / batteries / controllers / inverters / instrumentation / cabling etc you'd need for one system would cost exactly the same as for the other.

Let's also assume that you've bought your 300W turbine on eBay for £160, the same price as two 170W panels.  To make it even simpler, we'll also de-rate these solar panels to a combined 300W watt-peak output.

Planting the bare-root hedging....

After a rapid thaw, in just a couple days, all the snow that had been hanging around for a few weeks disappeared and so we took the opportunity of the break in the weather to get our new hedge planted.

just a couple of days earlier....

We initially measured out the spacing with a marked length of timber (we've planted a double row at around 5 plants per metre), and then tried to sink the spade fully into the ground at each individual plant location.  Around 75% of them were fine, which meant we would just need to sink the spade to its full depth, wiggle it back and forth several times to make a rectangular slot, and then ease the roots of the plants down into position before closing back the soil using the heel of a welly.

an easy stretch, just used the spade to open up a slot.....