Baasch Residence, Oregon USA Description
System History
The system was installed by Mr. Sun Solar and powered up on 3 June 2003. This was the first system in the Portland area to receive Energy Trust of Oregon funding.
The Energy Trust of Oregon is chartered by the State to partially fund energy conservation and renewable energy projects in the State of Oregon. They have been instrumental in market development here. See their website at www.energytrust.org
for more information on their programs.
06 June 2006: Sunny Webbox added and Sunny Portal connection established
21 April 2015: The original inverter failed in March 2015 and was replaced with an SB4000-US
Technical notes
The system was originally configured as a textbook example 3 kW installation, with 18 Sharp 165 watt panels (two strings of nine) providing about 3 kW of DC power to the 2500 w inverter. Exposure is due south, with a 23 degree roof pitch and virtually no shading between 9AM and 5 PM.
After a year of observation, some system modeling, consultation with system installers and the engineers at SMA America, another six identical panels were added, increasing the DC power rating to 3960 w. Configuration is as two strings of 12 panels. Though this is more DC power than usually recommended with the inverter, it does not exceed the inverter's voltage limits at either high (104 F) or low (14 F) temperatures.
Since the inverter would now be running at peak power many hours of the year a 5w PV powered fan was added.
The expected changes in system performance have been noted.
