September Results

Another month goes by and the days get longer and the sun starts to get more hours in the sky.

In September we had a very wet month and as a result we only achieved 221.5kWh compared with last year when we had 263kWh.

Year to date we are well ahead of last year with 2.0148 MWh and 4.654MWh since turn on.

The Digital Self Heating Home system continues to perform well with the core now starting to slowly climb. as of end of September the core is up to 23 degrees and I expect by the end of this summer should be in the high 30's.

The garden is doing well and here is a couple of photo's of the front garden, the Chatham Island Forget-me-nots and the tulips.

August Results

We are now past the winter solstice and the results are again trending upwards as expected.

We have now upgraded our system so that the system can continue to operate in a power cut and hence the system is now fully redundant for power during daylight hours.

The results for August are as expected with nearly 10kWh mid month but overall an updward trend compared with previous months:

I'm expecting to see a steady climb in the next few months as we get longer days and a better angle to the sun.

July Results

Well we are now slowly climbing out of winter and getting a few sunny and longer days.
This last month has seen 144.57KwHr's produced slightly higher than June with 105.62KwHr's and with a peak on the 30th of 8.79KwHr's

Here is July's power run for the month.

We are now more than half way through the year and the total power generated each month compared with last year is displayed below. We have now generated 1.6MwHr's this year and over 4.2MwHr's since turn on.

During the month we have also had installed an extra solar panel specifically to run the DSHH water pumps in a power outage. The 250w panel is enough to run the two small pumps that move the hot water around. This now means that in a power outage we have full cover as long as the sun is out, but recognising that this is when the water also gets heated.

During the recent major power outage which was also during a very cold southerly the house was off the grid for over 24 hours/ There was no sun during the outage and thus the house slowly cooled from 22 degrees to 18 degrees so never got cold. A good test for the thermal seal of the house. As a result of the drop in temperature we are replacing our front door as most of the heat loss was due to poor sealing of the standard door against the uPVC surround. We are now installing a uPVC door which will provide a full thermal seal (should have done this originally!!).

May 2013 Results

Well the pundits got the weather right during May with a lot more rain than previous years and hence little sun to benefit from.

The house continues to perform as expected albeit that the core temperature has now reduced to 23 degrees at month end. 

We have now started the install of the self reliant power system for the DSHH system with an additional 280 watt panel being mounted on the roof just to power the pumps and the back up system in a power outage. This will protect the water system from reaching over 100 degrees and turning to steam.

The results for May are as follows.

The month was very patchy with no good days and with the top power run being less than 10kwhr's.
June is likely to be similar and then we start the climb back up to the peaks.

April Results and promotions

Well another month slips by and the results are still on track with expectation.

This month has been time for my regular lecture to Victoria University third year Architectural Design students. The presentation covered the sustainability drive for the Department of Conservation and our sustainable home. We are also providing a talk to Johnsonville Lions at their regular monthly meeting on the features in the house.

April was a quite month as we ease into autumn, with the month delivering 181 kwhr's nearly 50 kwhrs less than the same month last year. There were not many really good fine days with very patchy and overcast weather albeit virtually no rain.

Annual Report on the House now Completed

Go to the new page on Annual Results to see the written report on the analytics for the 2012 year. This data is also being used in presentations to community groups.

 

Grant

Results for March

Well the weather in Wellington continues to amaze with excellent daily weather conditions for early autumn.

The month has provided a significant increase in the daily Kwh that have been produced with 304.4 Kwh in total compared with March a year ago when we had 280 Kwh produced.

As you can see from the chart the power generated from the PV system has performed extremely well and is currently tracking above last years results.

The results for the month showed a consistent collection rate albeit slowly declining as the days shorten.

The daily run is now down to around 12 -13 Kwh for a good day and will continue to decline as we head into early winter.