Review of Canadian Solar 305 W - 72 cell Poly-crystalline Solar Panels

23 March 2015

Introduction:

I am a retired Professional Engineer with an Ontario Microfit solar panel system.  I try to review various solar products to give the general public some feed back on the different panels out there.

First Impressions:

The panels arrived over 12 days ago, all in good looking condition.  The first thing that I noticed was a center support bar that added point load support in the center of the panel.  This panels look professionally made with screws in the ends holding the rails together.  The backing material is most likely EVA which may or may not give us some problems in the future.  I would have preferred Kynar or equivalent backing material.  They are warrantied  for 25 years.  It doesn't cover installation or shipping.  You can read my other blogs on the best backing material to use.

We have some 300 W. Heliene {H} Panels which we like, one mono Silfab and the rest 250 W poly.  The CS panels have been on the roof for over 10 days so the initial burn in should be over.  The Heliene panels are about 1 year old.

Sunday was finally a great solar day with very few clouds.  I positioned 3 CS and 6 H panels on the south roof and 3 CS panels with 2 H panels on the West roof for comparison.  Our roof pitch is only 22.5 deg so we are about 20 deg from perpendicular at this time of year.  I observed a peak of 304 W from one of(t)he CS while one H panel produced 270 W located at the roof line in the best location. All of the CS panels performed well and close in output to each other.

Results:

The Canadian Solar (CS) panels harvested as follows:  South:  2.21, 2.05, 2.15 kW. 

                                                                                         West: 1.68, 1.62 1.53 kW (first 2 panels get more sun as the sun slowly moves around our array in the am.)

 Heliene (H)  harvested:  South 1.96 (best position), 1.94, 1.91 kW

                                 West: 1.35, 1.4 kW

Discussion:

As you can see, the new CS panels blew away the H  panels.  Compared to the 300 W H panels, the 305 W CS panels are making about 330 W.  The H panels compare well with our other 250 W poly panels.  The improved performance is due to the fact that the CS panels are using the next generation poly-crystalline materials (according to my seller).  These panels are truly rated on the PTCUSA standard as all panels should be.  That would be the H panels at around 270 W(300 W STC) and the CS at 305 W (PTCUSA).

The low light harvesting of these new CS panels is outstanding.  The average output on south is 2.137 kW and for H is 1.937 kW  Or CS averages 10.3 % better on South exposure and 13% on West exposure.  This may decrease in time but that equates to a 330 W equivalent for South.  I will repose this in one month.  The day was cold which helps to keep the sky clear and the panels working great.  I want all of my panels to do this great.  For fixed roof applications, these are the best that we have seen  If other are also using the next generation poly-crystalline material, expect equal results. It is my understanding that CS have 3 plants that make their own crystalline.  That is a big advantage.  I have been waiting to see some type of improvement in poly for the past 3 years.  Off axis light is IMHO normal for all panels, especially east and west orientated.  IMHO, for most applications mono is out, it is too directional except for trackers.

The peak power production, low light and total kW harvested is just fantastic.  They are exceeding all of my expectations except for the backing materials.  You may be able to get a different backing material at a slightly higher price.

Poly-crystalline panels are generally the preferred type of panels except possibly when using a solar tracker.  So for fixed roof installations, the low light properties are outstanding for these CS panels.  The CS panels on the west roof produced the same amount of harvesting as did most of our 250 W south facing panels.  

 I can truthfully say: "Just loving it".  They help us even more to do our part in reducing our CO 2 foot print.

BUY Canadian Solar CS6X-305P None Ontario Poly Panels

All power levels from the SolarEdge monitoring system.

Thanks for dropping by.

May 11 2015 UPDATE:  Still seeing the same great results compared with existing panels.  WOW.  IMHO these are the best solar panels that I have ever seen.  Sept 2015 still going strong - Loving It.

On a ROI basis they are the best solar panels currently on the market.

NOTE: You can't buy Sunpower panels and they have a huge up front cost and are tied in with a terrible racking system and an outdated inverter system for most applications  SP have the best cell but it is the total system that counts and ROI.

Currently Strongly Recommended Sept 2015

Update: August 2014

For those people following our blog, I thought that I would give you an update for the summer of 2014.  It continues to be a great solar year.  Enjoy..


UPDATE: AUGUST 2014

The array peaked at about 28% more than south facing panels and approximately 50% more than fixed east panels.  Fixed east panels continue to produce some power up to around 6 PM.  Maximum system peak was around 92 kW hours (one great day). The array adds about 4 kWhrs daily over the year.  That translates to around an extra $12,000 over 20 years so it appears to be a good idea.  Control is via a PLC which I continue to modify the code,  It is programmed for the different months of the year.  I have to still install the auto shutdown due to high winds.  We have the parts.  Wind was only a  problem about 2 days this summer.  I do love how we continue to grab the last rays of sunlight late into the evening and early in the morning.  Again it is all about the ROI and using high quality, Ontario made solar panels.



 2014 due to the cooler weather and more sun, we will expect to harvest 18-20 MW for the year.  All of our testing has basically been completed. 


Being retired, the net income from these panels pay for themselves and pay for our remaining house mortgage which is around $115,000.  So now we only have to pay for the taxes, utilities and up keep.  What a nice retirement planning package.  It also lowers A/C costs by 40% while protecting your roof from the heat and harmful UV radiation. We consider this a Win/Win situation.  

So, provided you can finance at low interest rates, have an good sun exposure with a large roof area facing south or south east, you will do fine. 

Check first with the Flexible Solar people. 

 I am still PO'd with the other guys who don't care about their customers and will basically lie to your face. Some are much worst than others.

If you follow my suggestions you will be fine. You can even use my engineering specification which Mike Holmes would agree is a good idea to specify the work to be done.  Pay when the product arrives on your site.  A small start-up payment is required first.  You can email me if you have any questions.


It is the best thing that we have done in years. Last month we were paid $860. plus HST.  Yes, some people made more than double this but those days are long gone.  Their investment was normally double that of ours.  We expect a December low of around $400.  This will depend on how bad the clouds are.  

An amazing thing happened this year, the system peaked in July and not in May.

Kirk is a retired Professional Engineer with experience in the Electrical Utility sector.  We have no connection with Heliene, Silfab or Flexible Solar.  We just believe that an informed consumer is the best consumer.  Your results may vary from ours. All monitoring results were obtained from SolarEdge panel monitoring reported data.

NOTE:  Life is Short - Try to Help your neighbours and people in need

Being retired, because of the small income from the Solar Panels, we were able to re-start our support of a child in need from Nicaragua.  If you are better off, please also consider helping those in need though the Christian Children Fund of Canada.

More information:

If you are interested in installing a Microfit or Fit solar panel system, I strongly recommend giving Steve a call at Flexible Solar Solutions in Windsor, Ontario serving Southern Ontario.  They are the best and most honest microfit solar panel installers that I have had the pleasure of working with.  They will give you a straight analysis of your roof and what you can expect to earn.  Don't forget to tell them that Kirk sent you.  See my first post for more information on going Solar.

We expect to earn $6500-7500 per year depending on the weather for 20 years.  That should work out to us having an extra $100,000.00 income for our retirement over and above your system costs.  At that point we grid tie and earn the going rate of power which just might be very close to what we are currently being paid.

 Steve at Flexible Solar Serving Southern Ontario 519-962-9218

My Solar Panel System does not seem to be working very well. What should I do?

I heard a terrible story the other day.  An elderly woman in a wheel chair had a solar panel system installed on her roof in Windsor, Ontario.  She had been taken advantage of by both the Solar Panel installers and a high interest loan by the Tom, Dick and Harry screw you bank.  She is losing money, that is how badly these greedy people are.

IMHO there is a special place in Hell for theses people.

Consumer Alert Against Certified Solar Windsor (Click to see): 

One of the problems in the life is that we can never go back, we only can go forward.

Installing a microfit program in short is a business.  You get a certain rate for 20 years of electrical production.  It is up to YOU to maximize your return of your investment ROI.

If I have a bad or poor install I can get Flexible Solar to analyze my system and to make recommendations.

First and foremost, I want to borrow the money at the lowest possible rate.  Stay away from those 6 1/2% loans.  Instead go with a Home owners loan or line of credit.  Ours is at 3 1/2 %.

The first part of the problem is already done.  You have a contract for either 80.2 cents or 54.9 cents or like us 39.6 cents per kW hour.  Now lets maximize our production.

Most applications have some type of shading issues.  This is where Solar Edge really shines.  Remember, if you have string Inverters installed they are a weak link in your system.  A HUGE one with shading of any panel in the string.  Solution: Remove them and install optimizers and SolarEdge Inverters.  The good news here is that most String Inverters only last 10-12 years so replacing them early and taking out the extended warrentee with Solar Edge is not the huge penalty that you may think that it is.

Hopefully you didn't also get poorly producing panels like some locally produced products.  The great news is that panels today cost 1/4 or so of what they did 3-4 years ago.  If you have a very limited roof area then upgrading your panels to Heliene's 335 W mono panels might be a very good way to go.  Almost all early installs were 12 kW on the DC approved by the OPA.  Some installers actually put in great panels but the wrong inverter system.

You may also be able install some panels on the east or west roof.  East is the preferred roof over the west side.

Example:  One rich property owner in Windsor is reported to own 30 microfit applications at 80.2 cents per kW hour.  He removed all of his panels and inverters and went with 280 W mono panels and Solar Edge.  It is now reported that he earns $30,000 per month from all of the installs.  His refurbishing of his installs quickly paid for itself.  You of course will NOT do as well as the tariff rate is 1/2 of his now but you May see a big improvement in your bank account.

You have to do the math.  If your install is so poor (like on a North roof), you most likely will have a South roof to install panels on.

Kirk is a retired Professional Engineer with experience in the Electrical Utility sector.  We have no connection with Heliene, Silfab or Flexible Solar.  We just believe that an informed consumer is the best consumer.  Your results may vary from ours. All monitoring results were obtained from SolarEdge panel monitoring reported data.

NOTE:  Life is Short - Try to Help your neighbours and people in need

Being retired, because of the small income from the Solar Panels, we were able to re-start our support of a child in need from Nicaragua.  If you are better off, please also consider helping those in need though the Christian Children Fund of Canada.

More information:

If you are interested in installing a Microfit or Fit solar panel system or upgrading your system, I strongly recommend giving Steve a call at Flexible Solar Solutions in Windsor, Ontario serving Southern Ontario.  They are the best and most honest microfit solar panel installers that I have had the pleasure of working with.  They will give you a straight analysis of your roof and what you can expect to earn.  Don't forget to tell them that Kirk sent you.  See my first post for more information on going Solar.

We expect to earn $6500-7500 per year depending on the weather for 20 years.  That should work out to us having an extra $100,000.00 income for our retirement over and above your system costs.  At that point we grid tie and earn the going rate of power which just might be very close to what we are currently being paid.

 Steve at Flexible Solar Serving Southern Ontario 519-962-9218

Does Installing Solar Panels on my Roof Help or Hurt our Roof?

Before installing anything on your roof, it must be assessed of capability to handle the load and the life left in your current roof.  Most truss roofs should be able to carry the load.  Some trusses may be borderline and may need an engineer's assessment.  Normally solar panels only add the equivalent weight of a layer of shingles.

If you current shingles are older than 7 year and look poor, they should be replaced with 40 year fibreglass shingles or long life roofing.  The load of the panel railing system must be supported by your roof's structural members, ie: your trusses or roof 2x4's or 2x6's.  Every point load is then screwed into each truss and the tie point sealed with roof caulking.  In our case, this tie in was verified by the installers, me and then the engineer.  The tie point was further protected by a SS flashing which has a rubber seal where the mounting bracket for the railing goes.  This gives a 3 point protection system which is never removed, even when you may have to replace your roof some 30-50 years later.

Our south facing roof is almost 100% covered with solar panels.  What destroys roofs are UV radiation, heat and high winds. You must also have good air circulation in your attic.  If the shingles are installed during warm weather, then they seal themselves from wind damage.  Basically, the solar panels form a protective roof over our asphalt shingles.

So now you have a roof over a roof.  Our roof is 95% shaded as best as possible.  The temperature of the roof on a hot summer day is the same as that in the shade.  Our Air conditioning load is thus greatly reduced.  Further shading comes from mature trees on the west side of our home.  Most days we may not even require AC

There is a 6 inch gap under the solar panels that will allow air to flow upwards cooling the roof further. Almost no snow accumulates on the roof.  It accumulates on the panels and we remove it so that we can generate energy.  The roof does get wet, but tar will repel water for a long time.

In addition, IMHO, the panel rails help to strengthen the structure by stiffening it.  All components are either stainless steel, aluminium or copper wiring.  These are all long life items.  The panel railing system will outlast our house.  The solar panels themselves can be replaced in 30-40 years if you are not happy with their output.  Their output may decrease 0.5% per year or 15% after 30 years.  Inverters may last 12-15 years and we recommend that you buy the extended warranty to make 20 years.  The new smart inverters do not get hot.  They lower the solar panel production output to maintain it below your nominal 10 kW rating.

Using SolarEdge with optimizers also lowers the voltage to 1 V DC at each panel when turned off.  Fire-fighters will like this feature.

Conclusion:

IMHO, solar panels help you to maintain a cool roof and greatly extend the life of your roof.  At the end of your 20 year contract, you grid tie and get pain 3-4 times what you use in your home.  This should pay for all of your energy needs (electrical and gas).  Electrically heated homes are not included here. You also save on your AC bill.  The panels must be installed properly by an experienced installer.

So, I only see a win/win situation where your return is 100% guaranteed.  Hydro-One put our monthly check directly into our account and we pay them for the power that we use like everyone else. Our last bill for our house electricity was reduced by 10% because of our green energy program.

Kirk is a retired Professional Engineer with experience in the Electrical Utility sector.  We have no connection with Heliene, Silfab or Flexible Solar.  We just believe that an informed consumer is the best consumer.  Your results may vary from ours. All monitoring results were obtained from SolarEdge panel monitoring reported data.

More information:

If you are interested in installing a Microfit or Fit solar panel system, I strongly recommend giving Steve a call at Flexible Solar Solutions in Windsor, Ontario serving Southern Ontario.  They are the best and most honest microfit solar panel installers that I have had the pleasure of working with.  They will give you a straight analysis of your roof and what you can expect to earn.  Don't forget to tell them that Kirk sent you.  See my first post for more information on going Solar.

We expect to earn $6500-7500 per year depending on the weather for 20 years.  That should work out to us having an extra $100,000.00 income for our retirement over and above your system costs.  At that point we grid tie and earn the going rate of power which just might be very close to what we are currently being paid.

 Steve at Flexible Solar Serving Southern Ontario 519-962-9218

Side by Side Mono-crystalline verse Poly-crystalline Solar Panel Comparision

Mono or Poly-crystalline?

UPDATE June 2015:  See my review of the next generation Polycrystalline solar panels.  Unless we see this type of improvement with mono panels, these panels are the way to go period.


This is always an interesting choice that people have to make.  I will discuss the pro's and con's of each type of solar panel for a location in Southern Ontario. I compare my installation - Poly-crystalline Panels with one 265 W Silfab MONO panel.  Individual results may vary.  We are just a microfit customer trying to help others in the Province to have the best and up to date information so that the consumer can make the best educated choice.  We have no allegiance with Heliene, Flexible Solar or anyone for that matter.

Introduction:

I have spoken about getting the highest ROI on your investment before in my opening blog (see Dec 2013). If you have a very limited roof area, then you may get a higher ROI and income by using higher capacity panels which are the mono type.  With no roof area limitation, then poly might be your best choice. Presently, poly-crystalline panels appear to be the best choice for me.  You will pay a high penalty for little benefit to get 10-20 Watt more per panel using mono panels.  I believe that in the past, there was a bigger difference between the two.

Simply put, both work.  Mono crystalline cells use more expensive refined silica.  Poly-crystalline panels use a lower cost silica and look a bit different than mono.

You can check on line what is a mono and what is a poly-crystalline solar panel and what is the physical differences.  It has been reported that Poly-crystalline panels work better in low light situations, off axis production and in hotter climates.  Though-out the winter months you will experience at least 30-40% over cast days with some intermittent sun light.  Panel orientation is not relevant when the day is over cast.  The clouds act as a big soft-box and spread the light every where evenly.  Our testing confirmed these assumptions.

Discussion:

Poly-crystalline panels are increasing in output as the years progress.  You can get 260 W poly's verse 280 W mono's.  Because Mono panels can cost 20-25% more than Poly, Poly will win on the best ROI.  That makes the cost of that small incremental difference of 10 or so watts very high. Panel orientation, south or the angle of the sun of your roof is of much more importance.  Unfortunately we can not change the angle of our roofs.

There is another consideration for mono.  You just might like the look of mono panels better.  You might also like the look of black panels better.  Black panel backing is a great thing to have in winter but gets hotter in summer.  Over all I stuck with the blue panels but it is a personal thing.  My wife likes the blue.

Getting a quality installation is extremely important as it will add  significant value to your property at re-sale due to the income generating ability of the panels.  The Flexible Solar people did a great looking job for us. They don't cut corners and use or offer the best materials for long life project.  Remember that solar panels perform poorly at higher temperatures.  They do great in the cold and not so great in the summer.

Comparison:

We removed one of our poly panels and installed a 265 W mono from Silfab.  We have a 9.9 kW system so we are under 10 kW rule.  So far I have learnt or confirmed this:

1. Low light and early morning light:  Winner goes to poly panels.  I have 250 W Poly panels making more than the mono who should be making the most as it is rated 6% higher by the manufacturer.

2.0 Overcast and over head:  Winner Goes to polycrystalline.

3.0  Bright sun both do well.  Mono does perform well under bright sunlight.  Problem is that this May -2014, we have had very few days with full sunlight.  Winner goes to polycrystalline.  You may see different results from different manufactures.  Perhaps some manufacture's MONO will do better.  Look at the STC and PTC ratings of the panel and the tolerance:  A +1-4% is much better than a +1%.  IMHO, all panels should have a +2-4% tolerance like our poly panels do.

Testing Conditions: - Almost equal to Standard Testing Conditions -STC

On the 19 May 2014 we had a very good solar day.  No visible clouds at solar noon. Temperature around 20 C with a small wind. reported 13 kph.  System would not peak showing that we have high level light scattering occurring.  The angle of the sun hitting the panel nearly a perfect 90 degrees.  Solar harvesting in AM 46 kW hr and 88 kW hr total for the day.  That is best for May to date.  Based on these very sunny conditions, all of my Poly-crystalline panels worked better than the mono when adjusted to equal rating.  We are comparing 250 W poly, 300 W poly and 265 W mono.

These testing conditions are similar to that of the STC or standard testing conditions.  We were lucky as our roof reaches perpendicular to the sun on the 22 May and we got these results on the 19 May.  These panels did not give STC results but rather PTC or PVUSA standard testing results.  STC is at 25 C so these conditions were even better at 20 C.

Several of my poly panels harvested the same as the 265 W mono with no adjustment based on there STC ratings.  All panels were performing closer to their PTC rating and not their STC rating.  Winner goes to polycrystalline hands down.   All of Heline's 72 cell polycrystalline 300 W panels exceeded the 265 W Mono by 5%.. Several of our 250 W CG poly panels equalled the Mono panel.  In addition, the mono panel had not yet had time to burn in.  The Mono panel did work well, but not as well as I expected because of its higher nameplate capacity.  Mono did show more harvesting over the week than my 250 W poly panels but IMHO it should have harvested more.  That could be due to the fact that my 250 W poly panels for the most part do better than the 250 W rating which is expected to decrease annually by 1/2%.

4.0 Comparison between Silfab's mono and our 60 cell CG panels and our 72 cell Heliene panels.  Panel monitoring is a bit addictive.  You must resist using the instantaneous number and wait for the Solar Edge monitoring system to fully report at the end of the day.  The 265 W mono Silfab would be a  good 255 W panel.  It is a very poor 265 W panel. You must be the judge in this matter. That is because some manufactures and Silfab is not the only one over rate the performance of their panels.  I have had days where some of our 250 W CG poly panels produce more than the mono or very close to the mono.  We hope to try the Heliene's mono panels rated at 17.5% efficiency.  My heart skips a beat when you see the power rating of their 72 cell poly panel.  It is a bit unfair as it does have 20% more cells but the numbers do speak for themselves.  The performed on a watt by watt comparison a bit better (5%) than the 265 W mono. Don't mis-interpret what I am saying.  The weekly summary showed that the Mono did in fact do better than the 250 W Poly panels but it IS rated 15 W higher.  It could be in the nature of the beast.  Perhaps Poly due to their intrinsic design have a 1-4% rating naturally.  This means that some panels will be closer to 262 W and others closer to 250 W.  We do see that there is a range of outputs per panel.  You win with the higher performing panels and you still win with the 250 W performing panels.  I have yet to test the two when the temperature hits the high 30's C.  Poly should win as all other indicators have been proven to be true.  Your ROI is just better with poly panels.

5.0  Mono offers higher outputs and better efficiency and the chance to have the backing in Black.  As temperature does effect performance significantly, we kept to the white backing.  You many choose mono over poly if you have a limited roof area as you can get more watts per square foot or you just like the look of mono over poly.  All in all, poly panels are the better choice in a warmer environment for max ROI.  I am not including the SunPower panels in this discussion as it is something you have to pay too much for and most of us can not even get them.  The funny thing is that SunPower take these great panels and sell them with a String inverter system with no optimizers, thus IMHO it appears to nullify the basic design feature of their panels.

6.0  Silfab also use the lower cost PET backing material verse the better backing material used by Heliene and CG.  You can see my posts on suitable panel backing materials.  Personally I would stay away from PET and request Tedlar or Kynar backing be used.  I got the Silfab to replace one of my panels that was producing 30% lower than expected.  Heliene suggested (it is a CG panel) that perhaps one of the diodes was not working.  I tried to check the diode and found what appears to be a loose connection at the back of the panel.  I need to replace the battery in my Multi Meter to check the diode.  The connection may have been all that was wrong.  I will re-install the panel to check it out in the near future. I took the panel outside in the sun and it read 37 V DC showing that all cells are now working.  I still have to check which diode is not  working.

FYI the backing material used for a panel is critical to ensure long life of the panel as it's purpose is to seal it from moisture and oxygen attack.  There is a link on one of my posts showing cracking problems with someone's (?) PET backing panels.  People understandably are using lower cost materials to help them save money.  These materials however must last for a very long time: - 20-50 years.  It is the yellowing of this white backing that reduces the panel's output over its life time.

This is important: Solar Harvesting is a long term investment and you must use the best materials available so that you don't have to replace your panels early.

This chart show the daily output of 3 different solar panels. 300 W  Poly- from Heliene, 265 W Mono from Silfab, and 250 W CG Poly panels.  Can you find the 265 W Mono Panel?  A 265 W panel should produce 6% more than the 250 W Poly panels.  Likewise, the 300 W Poly panel should produce 13 % more than the Mono Panel.  

The Mono Panel produced 1.8 kWhr

What you see then, all the 250 W poly panels should have produced 1.69 kW hrs.  All except 2.20.11 which has a known problem are exceeding that value.  Accordingly, based on the 265 W Mono, all of the 300 W Heliene Poly panels should be less than  2.03 kW hrs.The fact is they are producing 2.125 kW hrs, much more than an equivalent Silfab 72 cell Mono based on this testing.  Also the Mono panel is not yet burnt in, so we are seeing the good side of this panel.  The Silfab panel is 2;20;19  These results were taken on a good sunny day without visible clouds when the sunlight was perpendicular to the panels based on the time of the year.  The Heliene 72 cell panels are 5% over and above this 265 W  Mono panel.  It is all about ROI and Poly is winning here.  If the Mono is really a 255 W panel, then poly is still the clear winner.  I would like to have other manufacture's Mono panels to test, but we are not going to buy their panels just to test them.  It is always best to get a random panel test.  A single panel taken from a larger order would do the job well.

August 2014 Update: The mono panel is producing some where around 255-260 W panel as compared to the 250 W poly panels.  Rating is poor to fair.  If it performed at 265 W I would give it a good rating.

For us, Poly-crystalline panels win over mono-crystalline because we have a good roof area and are most interested in ROI.  If we didn't have a 10 kW limitation, then it is quite likely that high output mono would be the way to go.  The best would be SunPower Mono but you can't get them or the price is way too high.  All of these things can change over night.  Many times products are prices not on cost but on how much one can get.  That is why we must always look at ROI.  Pay strict attention to quality build and quality long life components.  Look at the type of backing being used.  Stay away from PET backing and stick with Tedlar and or Kynar.

Thus we have verified that Poly-crystalline panels do a bit better than Mono-crystalline panels in all conditions.

What about the ROI?

Based on our one day test, I calculate that we would lose the output of two panels over twenty years using the Silfab panel verse our Polycrystalline panels on a 10 kW system.  There is no reason to believe that the panel will produce more power and it is likely to produce less power as it burns in.  All of the poly panels have been burnt in for months.  We harvest about $150-160 per panel per year.  Losing two panels because some one wanted to make more money would have cost us over $6000 over 20 years.  IMHO, panel manufacturers need to under rate and not over rate their panels.  They need to make money so charge accordingly.  Panels will lose about 10% over 20 years, so starting at +3-4% is a good way to rate the panel.  You will sell more panels under the 10 kW microfit limitation any way.  That IMHO is a no brainer.

Our recommendation:  Heliene 60 or 72 Cell polycrystalline panels.  Note:  We have not yet tested the Heliene 60 cell mono but make the inference that they are identical minus the 12 extra cells.  Heliene have NOT over rated these panels making them the best buy for the microfit program.

Kirk is a retired Professional Engineer with experience in the Electrical Utility sector.  We have no connection with Heliene, Silfab or Flexible Solar.  We just believe that an informed consumer is the best consumer.  Your results may vary from ours. All monitoring results were obtained from SolarEdge panel monitoring reported data.

More information:

If you are interested in installing a Microfit or Fit solar panel system, I strongly recommend giving Steve a call at Flexible Solar Solutions in Windsor, Ontario serving Southern Ontario.  They are the best and most honest microfit solar panel installers that I have had the pleasure of working with.  They will give you a straight analysis of your roof and what you can expect to earn.  Don't forget to tell them that Kirk sent you.  See my first post for more information on going Solar.

We expect to earn $6500-7500 per year depending on the weather for 20 years.  That should work out to us having an extra $100,000.00 income for our retirement over and above your system costs.  At that point we grid tie and earn the going rate of power which just might be very close to what we are currently being paid.

IMPORTANT UPDATE:  See my review of Canadian Solar's next generation poly panels

 Steve at Flexible Solar Serving Southern Ontario 519-962-9218

Masters' Microfit Solar Panel Harvesting April 2014 Summary

April 2014 Solar Harvesting Summary Results

April again proved to be a great solar month.  The Polar Vortex kept temperatures below norm which helps your solar panels to produce more energy along with the longer days and improved angle or attitude of the sun in the sky..  We reached a new daily peak of 90.4 kW hrs.  We only had 3 days below 20 kW hrs, two of these days was due to snow and because we were in Florida we couldn't clear the panels.  They cleared with the next days intense sunlight, but it did reduce our overall harvesting. For April, we produced 1.7 MW hrs.  I predicted that 1.7-8 was possible.  With one more great sunny day we would have made it and or if we did not take our 10 day vacation that for safety reasons, we shut down the moving array in case of high winds which did occur on one day. 

Early morning sun saw big changes. The easterly location of the sun rise moved northerly by quite a lot to the point that our north facing bay window gets the early morning sun.  We designed our system to harvest some of this early morning and late day light.  In order to maximize your solar harvesting, you do need to have some east and west facing panels along with your south facing panels.  We did this by building an array on the east and west side of our garage roof and dynamically moving the panels to follow the sun.  These panels now produce 50% more energy than statically east facing panels.  They also produce 20% more than our south facing panels.  We shut down the array for the 10 days that we were on holidays to protect us against high winds.  This was a good idea as with the unexpected snow we also had 45 mph wind gusts.  This was another reason why we didn't reach 1.8 MWhrs.  We do have a sensor for high wind speed but it is not yet connected to the system.

For April we only had 7 days below 20 kWhrs and most days were above 60.  Our monthly average was 57 kW hrs well within our 50-60 kW hrs forecast.  Morning maximum harvesting reached 46-47 kW hrs on a sunny day.

May's Forecast

We will gain an extra hour of sunlight in May and May has 31 days.  Temperatures will remain cool making a 2 MW hrs of harvesting possible.  It always depends on the cloud cover. The sun's attitude will increase by 6.8 degrees to 69.7 degrees.  That means the sun will be perpendicular to the panels on May 22.which will give maximum solar intensity, sky cover willing.  We still have two panels not producing well.  I hope to replace one shortly. I can't stress enough that you must have a panel monitoring system to discover problems like this.  We use SolarEdge Optimizers which prevent total system disasters from occurring.  If we had straight string inverters, we would be producing 40% less power and our system would not work.  

May historically is the best harvesting month due solely to the cooler temperatures.  June should be the best month except for the higher temperatures.  I have thought of using a water mist system to cool the panels but I would need rain water or RO water to do this to prevent hardness spots on the glass and a pump to push the water up the 40 feet to reach the panels.  I might test water cooling out one day with tap water to see if it helps and how much it helps.

NOTE:  Life is Short - Try to Help your neighbours and people in need

Being retired, because of the small income from the Solar Panels, we were able to re-start our support of a child in need from Nicaragua.  If you are better off, please also consider helping those in need though the Christian Children Fund of Canada.

We do not work for Flexible Solar serving Windsor and Southern Ontario.  I do however promote any honest person in their business where I have had the pleasure of working with them.  That is really hard to find in the solar business.  These guys use the best components for a long system life.  You can even ask them for a copy of my engineering specification that you can use to outline the work specification.  I am 100% sure that Mike Holmes would say that is the way to do things to protect yourself.  They also use the best guys out there to install your system.

Do you want to have an extra $60,000 to $100,000 to spend over the next 20 years?

If you have been wondering whether or not to go solar, I strongly recommend that you give

 Steve a call at: 

Steve -519 962 9218

He will give you an honest analysis of your house to see if it is worthwhile to install a microfit solar panel system.  For what we earn, we will payoff our mortgage on our retirement house. We still have to pay utilities and taxes but we are way ahead of where we were and we are lowering the carbon dioxide levels as best as we can.  A basic system will produce about $5,000 per year with straight string inverters.  Stay away from that and go with optimizers.  With a few tweaks, you could produce $6-7000 per year.  I still don't trust microinverters to last much more than 12 years with a horrible replacement cost as they are under the panels. Read all of my posts, starting from the beginning to get a better understanding of solar.

Fun watching the sun.

How the sun keeps changing the angle that it hits our roofs.

I had been waiting for April to arrive so that the sun light would hit our east/west and south panels perpendicular to their orientation.  Our house sits almost perfectly east/west giving us a south facing roof and the garage an east/west orientation.  We do not have the best pitch of our south roof for the winter months. That turned out to help the east west facing panels.

I have watched almost daily to see the sun rise northerly each day at different locations on my neighbours houses.  Early in April I was some what surprised to see the first light coming through our kitchen's bay windows on the north side of our house.  It cast a S-E shadow on the light pole across the street from us. By 8:30 am it had changed to due west and one hour later to N-E.  All of this is good news for our east panels as they start to produce 4 times as much as the early morning south facing panels.  We produce over 4.5 kW by 8:45 am  That is 45% of our maximum 10 kW.  The south shifting direction helps to turn on our main generators which are our south facing panels.  We are trying to maximize our harvesting of solar energy by widening the curve or by grabbing those early morning and late afternoon rays.

The reason that the angle change so much at this time of the day is because we are looking at spherical objects and the path that the sun follows is called a great circle.  We are at 42 degrees N Lat. and the sun never reaches more than 23.5 deg N Lat on 21 June.

The negative impact of our poor roof pitch now has all but disappeared.  An interesting fact which I had over looked is now helping us.  A low pitch roof offers some benefits to east/west facing panels as the east panels harvest energy much later in the afternoon than I originally thought they would.

How is our Dynamic Positioning Array Working? 

Those of you who have been following this post know that we move our east and west panels throughout the day to maximize the harvesting and utilization of our system.  As they are east/west facing we are seeing an approximately 50% increase over statically mounted east panels.  As compared to south facing panels we are seeing a 22% increase. We don't see high power outputs from east/west but we do see it happening for the entire day. All of this is occurring at the peak harvesting time of the year.

Our goal is to maximize our ROI.  We want to bring up the inverter output to near maximum but not over the maximum for as long as possible.  This can be achieved by blending the east and west inputs.  Exceeding the inverter output really only means that we are wasting power.  Some inverter peaking is desirable but to date, little is occurring and is not a problem.

Conclusion; the array is working great and will pay for it self many times over.  Remember, if we can harvest just 1 kW hr more each day, that is 0.5 kW hr in both am and pm we will earn 39.6 cents per day.  Or $144 per year or $2892 over the 20 years.  Now we are talking money and not pennies. In 2014 we pay less than $1400 for our electrical bill.  That 1 kW hr per day will give us 2 years of free electricity.  We are using 21-22 kW hrs per day in our home.  

Remember to check visually for any fouling of your panels.  We feed the birds and they then sometimes leave the food on our panels.  I have not yet had to clean the panels but I am keeping an eye on them.  I am hoping the rain will do that job for me.

NOTE:  Being retired, because of the small income from the Solar Panels, we were able to re-start our support of a child in need from Nicaragua.  If you are better off, please also consider helping those in need though the Christian Children Fund of Canada.  For the small cost of your daily Tim's Coffee you can make a big difference in a family's life.

Do you want to have an extra $60,000 to $100,000 to spend over the next 20 years?

If you have been wondering whether or not to go solar, I strongly recommend that you give

 Steve a call at: 

Steve -519 962 9218

He will give you an honest analysis of your house to see if it is worthwhile to install a microfit solar panel system.  For what we earn, we will payoff our mortgage on our retirement house. We still have to pay utilities and taxes but we are way ahead of where we were and we are lowering the carbon dioxide levels as best as we can.  A basic system will produce about $5,000 per year with straight string inverters.  Stay away from that and go with optimizers.  With a few tweaks, you could produce $6-7000 per year.  I still don't trust microinverters to last much more than 12 years with a horrible replacement cost as they are under the panels. Read all of my posts, starting from the beginning to get a better understanding of solar.

We do not work for Flexible Solar serving Windsor and Southern Ontario.  I do however promote any honest person in their business where I have had the pleasure of working with them.  That is really hard to find in the solar business.  These guys use the best components for a long system life.  You can even ask them for a copy of my engineering specification that you can use to outline the work specification.  I am 100% sure that Mike Holmes would say that is the way to do things to protect yourself.  They also use the best guys out there to install your system.