I recently had a solar array installed on my roof with four different sections connected to three inverters - the total array includes 56 panels for a total of 13.44 kW.
However, I'm not seeing anywhere near that much production, even during the peak of the day. I obviously wouldn't expect to product 13 kW, as the panels aren't 100% efficient, there are clouds, the inverters lose 10% or so, etc. However, what's a reasonable expectation for the system production or an array that size?
What I'm seeing is that production will rise pretty quickly in mid-morning to 6.68 kW, and then sit there (at that exact number) until late morning. Then it will jump pretty quickly to 7.38 kW, hang for a while, and then up to 7.7 kW once all banks of panels are in the sunlight, and then it will sit there until early afternoon - however, that's only 57% efficiency for the system, and that seems a bit low.
Here are some questions I have:
- Maybe I mis-understand how the panels work. I'd thought that they'd produce more power when the sun is directly over them, as opposed to at an angle, but the production numbers don't seem to support that. Is that correct?
- Obviously the panels have a maximum production level, but could my inverters be limiting total production? If my panels are making 10 kW but the inverters can only process 8 kW of it, is that something I can see happening?
I realize there a lot of variables to get my exact number of reasonable production, but I'm just wondering what's reasonable and if it's something I should dig into a bit more to ensure that they were set up correctly.