Actual solar performance Archives

Starting May 1st 2023 I wanted to see if I could generate enough credits to make an entire year without a power bill. I was super excited when I reached the end and Spot Power gave me my credit balance.

Here is my 12 month bill showing the credit.

During the year I never paid for my monthly fixed charges, the charges for grid electricity, the distribution or transmission or anything else. It is like having my own little energy reactor on my room making money.

Something to be aware of if you want to try this is you have to specifically ask the power company to not credit back your micro-generation credits. Generally they are required to this if you have a >$200 credit or so. That probably would have been smarter, but this seemed like more fun. My peak credit was $1350 which is how I managed to get through the winter with a bill.

Regardless it was another way to look at return on investment other than pure financial like in my 2023 performance post.

One of the things I was told when I bought my panels was that snow didn’t make a major impact on production. I have heard this story from a number of other folks that have purchased solar panels as well. This position is always based on this NAIT study from 2018 https://techlifetoday.ca/articles/2018/solar-shines-in-dead-of-winter-even-in-edmonton

The approach appears scientific, and I’m sure it was, however, the conclusions simply aren’t what you’ll actually experience. I can say with two winters experience you will get absolutely ZERO production with snow on a normal 4/12 pitch roof. I have experienced wet snow, dry fluffy snow and blizzards. In ALL cases my production was effectively zero until it warmed up enough to melt the snow off the panels. Anyone who tells you differently is not telling you the truth.

Below is a picture of a recent snow followed by warming. You can exactly when the snow came, and when the Chinook came that melted it off.

In this example with a poorly written finger label, we hear a loud “whump” as the panels shed their snow as they warmed up. The time of the production jump – right after the snow slid off.

So what can you do? Nothing – but don’t be disappointed that you won’t be getting any production for as long as you have snow on your panels.

Sorry NAIT, your study doesn’t stand up to the real world conditions the rest of us live in.

Tag: Actual solar performance

One year without an electrical bill

Solar Panel Performance in Snow