all right so today we have a pretty
cloudy day it's been overcast all day
long but I wanted to show you what we're
getting for power so I have some 400
watts or so coming in and one and a half
kilo watt total that's come through but
if I show you here let me see I think
it's here yep
today we produce one and a half kilo
watts as you can see there and but if I
look at yesterday I think it's not
that's 128 days ago so - one day
yesterday we had Sun and we had ten and
a half kilowatts of power going out and
so we produce ten and a half kilowatts
here on this one here we produce let's
see 1.8 1.8 kilowatts total so that's
1.8 on this one and 10.5 on the other
one that's 12 kilowatts total more or
less twelve point so much kilowatts of
electric power that were produced by the
solar panels so what happened and the
way that these odd back inverter works
although it's meant to work as standby
power using those batteries the way that
it works is that when he senses that the
batteries are at full voltage it will
begin selling the excess power that are
being produced by the solar panels onto
the grid so power comes from the solar
panels to the charge controllers power
goes to the connections to the battery
connections on the out back inverter it
charges the batteries
there's also an AC connection on that
out of a converter which comes from
these breaker box so I can simulate a
power failure by turning the inverter
off and then this thing will beginning
birding power from the batteries up
until the point that they get discharged
to the point that I set them but in
normal operation like we are right now
we're working off of commercial power
from the street
the batteries are topped off and we are
selling power constantly so all the
excess goes out to the grid so what
happens is as the solar panels have been
producing power and the power has come
through the charge controllers since the
batteries are falling still instead of
charging the batteries this guy here the
Ottawa converter is actually converting
that power is coming from the charge
controllers I'm inverting it out to the
house and so we get our power that way
you know there's some days that we'll
get more than others but I can usually
figure and twelve to fifteen to
seventeen kilowatts a day of power being
produced by my solar panel not including
the wind and so we're going to I'm going
to take inside the house I'm going to
show you that there's another set of
panels that are not tied to this and
that's another 1.6 kilo kilowatt array
and those use micro inverters from a
company called and they're always
producing powers out to the grid so the
great Todd constantly now what would
happen if I actually lost power all the
time well the way that it works the way
that I would set up I can simulate a
power failure to end this breaker off or
turn the main breaker off and this guy
will provide power to the house to the
entire house also my micro inverters on
the other set that it's not coming here
will also produce power howdy is how
right is the question because normally
great timer is when they sense a power
failure they stop inverting power so you
don't fry allowing someone out there
that may be fixing the problem so what
we're doing here insane
we're faking the N phase grid tie
inverters into thinking that the power
output from the Outback inverter is
commercial power from the power company
and so because they see other AC power
coming in they'll regulate themselves to
the phase of this inverter to the output
of this inverter and we'll get the
benefit of all the powers coming in from
these two solar panel arrays but plus
the third power solar panel array that
is on the micro inverter so let me take
you in the house and show you how that
works
all right so here is the in-phase page
where I can see the other eight solar
panels and what kind of power they're
putting out so this is today we've
produced one point seven kilowatts
for the past seven days we produce
twenty five point four kilowatts in a
month today is also twenty five point
four because obviously you know this
must have started and then the lifetime
performance is we've generated four
point eighty eight megawatts almost five
megawatts of power and through these
eight panels and so we can also look at
the status and it will tell us that we
have a micro inverters operating
normally and everything is working fine
so we can actually look at past
performance so if I look at a lifetime
let me show you something I don't always
have this thing connected to show what's
going on so if I look at the graph of
you know what's what I've been putting
out over time well this is past seven
days sorry so let me give you the life
time graph the life time graph shows you
from 2011 you know we were producing
just from that one point six kilowatt
set of solar panels we're putting now
you know on one day ten point five
kilowatts for example some days nine
point four kilowatts so if we
you that here you can see you know four
point five kilowatts and you can kind of
see you know throughout the seasons of
the year what kind of power now you can
see that there's holes in here because I
don't have that in face
they call it enlightened device always
connected so you know once I kind of
know what's going on I you know I get a
good feel for it so there's a lot of
times that are disconnected so the five
megawatts of lifetime production doesn't
include any of these holes that you see
there are a year long right so we
produce double that so if it's telling
me it's produced by megawatts about
really actually produce about 10
megawatts now I can also change that to
you know a month today actually was just
good year today
see what he says as you can see I didn't
have the system hooked up for this time
I hooked it up here in March and then
you can see the spiteful here here
what's uh useful when it comes to this
you could do graphs of different kinds
you could do daily graphs for example
and show that that kind of output but if
you go into the power so this is the
energy where you go to the power you'll
see a very different graph shows up and
this is what it looks like so this is a
daily graph of how much power is being
produced and you can see as a Sun rises
right you produce power and then it
comes back down and so on
so when I look at this in a different
way and I look at it for example today
you can see actually that you know it's
a cloudy that you can see when the
clouds roll in and out right clouds roll
in boom power goes down and then it goes
back off excuse me I'm holding the
camera by hand so excuse me for that but
that's essentially what the FX
controllers are telling me as to you
know what the power production has been
so that's on average
I can't expect in my lifetime in the
lifetime of this device probably on
average of 8 kilowatt today if you just
kind of you know move that across so if
I can expect from January for example
actually this is from October 2010 going
all the way to November 2011 so a whole
year went by right there some days that
production is very low 1.7 kilowatts in
there for example but most of the time
you can draw a line here in the middle
and so you would think that's probably
eight and a half to nine kilowatts from
that one single array so if you think in
terms that I can produce a 15 kilowatts
from the other panels and I can produce
another if I can produce another thing
you know or 9 kilowatts here you know
that's 15 and 9 is 24 kilowatts of power
per day and you can certainly live off
the grid with the system like that and
not have any worry so anyways I hope
this has been useful again this is a
system call from a company called and
face and they have a box and a
subscription service that you you know
you buy the box and buy the subscription
and it uses the web to report this kind
of data and you can graph it on and you
can do kind of records you can do all
kinds of stuff on it but it'll it'll
show you all kinds of different data
that you want to see in different ways
power production reports energy per
module specified they take it from
yesterday for example submitted it'll
tell me how much each one has produced
you know for that one day but it's a
good way to manage your systems and so
if you have growing your system over
time like I have there is a way to kind
of manage the whole thing and understand
what you're doing and understand if you
need more power in order to apply it
hope this has been useful to you
everybody thanks for watching
god bless