Monday, May 24, 2010

Meter Readings for Last Month (or So)

I haven't posted any numbers for a while, so here goes. I don't track everything on a daily basis anymore. It was too much work, and I ended up losing my data when my computer crashed anyway.

Now I just look at the electric meter once in a while. To me this is the most important number because it summarizes the balance between power generated and power used.

[These are all a.m. meter readings.]

April 12: 17,510
April 13: 17,475
April 14: 17,493
April 15: 17,454
April 19: 17,353
April 21: 17,300
April 25: 17,213
April 28: 17,251
May 5: 17,294
May 17: 17,118
May 24: 17,140

A decrease from the previous reading means that a surplus has been generated and exported to the power grid. An increase means the opposite.

The reasons for fluctuations is obvious -- on cloudy days we don't generate as much power. On hot days we use more power (A.C.)

2 comments:

Jack Jennings said...

Hi Dave.

If your have an inverter like the one shown in your diagram (An SMA- German model) or some others, you can read the actual generation from the digital readout on the inverter.

Dave Conifer said...

Thanks, Jack. Ours does have a digital readout and I used to record those numbers religiously. Then I realized that for me it was more trouble than it was worth. I just like seeing the end result on the electric meter.

Most of the information that comes up on the inverter readout is stuff I don't really understand anyway...