April has been the lowest month this year so far with the month being nearly 50 kwhr's below April 2012. There were very few nice days with most being cloudy or overcast even though there was virtually no rain during the period.
The month generated 181 kwhr's from the photovoltaic system and the core slowly reduced during the month to be at 25 degrees at month end.
The year is still well ahead as a result of the first three months all exceeding last year.
January Results
So what has it been like living in a sustainable home..... Well the results have proven themselves to a large extent... with the house never getting below 17 degrees C at any time during the year and with the DSHH system now having stored quite a lot of heat in the core this coming year we shouldn't get below 22 degrees all year round.
The photovoltaic system has been churning out power on a regular basis and we have generated nearly 3 megawatts over the year.The house has been cosy and warm all year, low humidity and hence feels really healthy and while we have had a few minor hiccups with the systems they appear to have now settled down.
January was an excellent sunny month with the best month yet in power generated with 354.6 Kilo watts generated with over half the days getting close to the 15KW per day.
Look out for the full analysis of the first year including comparisons against the original specifications and cost benefits later in the month.
A wet and windy December didn't do a lot for the months capture of the sun. In the end we had a lower yield than November even with the extra day and daylight.
The month's total was 314.7kWh quite a way down on Novembers 342.6kWh.
As of the end of December we had harvested 2,618.3kWh not a bad return with the last three months all giving us credits with Meridian. A full year analysis will be available at the end of January when we will have completed 12 months.
Results for November
A great month for even more sun and as a result we averaged over 11 KW per day for the month.
As can be seen from the following chart November has been our best month yet and still two more months with the potential for longer sun days to come.
We have received our first big credit for October and at present we are generating close to the same amount of electricity as we are using. Still three more months to go before we can look at the year usage and generation figures.
Results for October
A great run of sun for October with the last day being our first 15KW run for a long time. Averaged over 10KW per day for the month.
The run for the year shows the trend expected with a great month with still two more months until the longest day, so we should see a continuation of the increased KW's as the days lengthen.
Results for August and September
Interesting to see the dip in power generated in August and the steady rise through out September. The longer days are now seeing regular runs of over 12KW per day and with three months to go to the longest day it will be interesting to see what we can achieve from now through to February when the system started. I'm predicting that we should exceed more than 3MW by then.
Results for end of July
Again a very slow month not a lot of daylight, but very slowly seeing an increase as the daylight hours slowly grow. You can certainly see when we have had a very dull period of rain. Toward the end of the month a few better days and a little better than earlier in the month.
The year to date shows that we have hit the bottom of the cycle and it should now start to head toward the December/January peak.
Results as of End of June.
Well we have hit the first megawatt of power generated from the PV system, however its clear that mid winter isn't the best of time to bank lots of credits. The low for the month was only 0.8KW and the high a measly 7.38KW. Roll on the slowly but surely increase in daylight hours in the weeks ahead.
Well as we get further into autumn the daily run slows down but still with the odd good day. The peak days were just over 9 KWHrs well down from the 15 KWHrs in February.
The weekly run is also showing the same trend downwards as we head toward the longest night.
RESULTS AS OF END OF APRIL
The first thing to notice here is that the scale has changed to 12 KWH max compared with the previous months which had a maximum of 16kwH. The lowest reading was only 2.5KWH for the day and the maximum for the month was only 11.39 KWH
The results for the 14 weeks to date also show a marked turn down per run week as we head into autumn and winter. We are now averaging less that 50KWH per week and still slipping. To a certain extent this shows the lack of fine days even in autumn but also the significant reduction in daylight hours.
RESULTS AS OF END OF MARCH
The March results are a clear demonstration of the poor summer that Wellington has had this year. The total KWH for the month was 271.6 KWH, slightly less than February even with the additional days. I suppose this shows that the daylight hours are slowly but surely reducing as we head into autumn.The lowest daily run was on the 20th with a run of 2.42KWH and the highest was on the 14th March with 13.58KWH.
The weekly run is still averaging over 50KWH per week but has come of the late summer highs of over 70 KWH per week.
FEBRUARY RESULTS
Well the first month has flown by, very little summer and lots of cloudy days and rain.
The photo voltaic system has been on since 31 January so we have a full month of connection to the system and the grid. By the end of the month of February we had generated 272 KWh from the system with a mixture of strong days where we got to a peak of 14.68 KWh and wet days where we had a low of 3.1 KWh.
The weekly record confirms that February was a terrible month for summer and March hasn't been much better.
The DSHH system was finally turned on on the 13th February and the system is slowly getting up to heat, albeit not helped by the poor summer weather. Not a single summers day registered over this summer.
The core is now up to 20 degrees (started at 14 degrees) and is expected to get to 40 degrees before Easter. The floor slab is set at 21 degrees and has been at that figure since day one. The hot water system for the house is now fully heated each day from the solar system.
