ElectroRoof™ Analysis

	Solar Energy Data

Performance to Date of ElectroRoof Solar Energy System at Live Oak Business Park

A “Real World” Examination of PV System Design and Performance [pdf] by Allan Gregg and Terence Parker of United Solar Ovonic LLC, Auburn Hills, Michigan 48326, and Ron Swenson of SolarQuest®, Santa Cruz, CA 95061 at IEEE's 31st Photovoltaic Specialists Conference and Exhibition, January 3-7, 2005, Coronado Springs Resort, Lake Buena Vista, Florida.
An earlier report depicts system performance for the first three months of operation: ElectroRoof™ Data Analysis, March 2004 [pdf] (See graphs at right and below.)
You can see the monthly output of each type of solar panel using SolarQuest's rMeter^™ online energy monitoring system.

Month ElectroRoof#1 ElectroRoof#2 UniSolar 116 Kyocera

January 59% 60% 100% 84%

February 69% 70% 100% 88%

mid-March 73% 74% 100% 89%

As the sun approaches the summer equinox, the horizontal ElectroRoof™ panels approach the power output of the tilted arrays.
Compare panels 1,2,3,4

The ElectroRoof™ experiment has been designed to compare the innovative thin-film solar panel system applied directly onto SPF roofing created by Central Coating Company with the assistance of Uni-Solar^®. In addition to power output, the experiment measures temperature and horizontal solar radiation for each array. To see the performance of each component, go to the SolarQuest® list-builder page and select "ElectroRoof Pilot Project" from the drop-down menu. Then accept the default date or select an alternate interval of dates up to 5 days. In addition, from the adjacent drop-down menu you can "Choose a Substation" -- any of the four arrays -- to see the performance of each panel type.

This chart shows daily output of each panel for one month. Note the convergence which occurs on cloudy days. Compare panels 1,2,3,4 Daily

Compare panels 1, 3 with Temperature This chart shows two days of electrical output and temperature for panels #1 and #3.
Minor jaggies on Solar output curves are due to round-off error in instruments. Larger jaggies on 3-18 are actual dips in solar output due to whispy clouds.
Temperatures of ER#1 are slightly higher than temperatures of US116 panels, as expected.