My System + solar supplier excel sheet

[kbtengineer]

Hello all,

I hope it is allowed to share the information of my system by mostly a link. I have installed a solar system two months back and i learned alot about the solar system and put all calculations in an excel sheet to see my return on investment and all calculations that are important for deciding what system to choose. I did this because it was so hard to compare suppliers and the too good looking offers they made.

Since the excel sheet really helped me to make a decision i like other people also to use it and the knowledge i gained form my experience.
For your information i chosen for a solar edge system with optimizers and monitoring with 15 JA solar panels of each 260Wp. The total system is about 3900Wp and it facing mostly west. I don't have all results yet for how good my system is working because for that i will need to wait for the summer. But i posted also the results of my last month on the "blog" i share my experience with.

Please see my page and at the bottom of it you can see the download link. I hope this will help more people with comparing solar configurations. And i hope it is allowed to post a link to a personal blog on this forum.

[kbtengineer]

Since i cannot send a pm or anything i will post it here. It is just a blogspot and the excel is free of download. Yes there is an add before you can download and you can just skip it in 5 seconds. If that is not allowed im sorry for reposting this link. Otherwise i really hope people will benefit from this excel sheet.

[sensij]

Since i cannot send a pm or anything i will post it here. It is just a blogspot and the excel is free of download. Yes there is an add before you can download and you can just skip it in 5 seconds. If that is not allowed im sorry for reposting this link. Otherwise i really hope people will benefit from this excel sheet.

The spreadsheet appears to be limited to european systems. The way in which net metering or feed-in tariffs work in the US is not consistent throughout the country, and would be difficult to generalize into a single spreadsheet. You might consider using the PVWatts API to build in performance estimates into the spreadsheet, instead of relying on the coarser sun hours estimate.

Your blog has a lot of nice information about residential solar, and looks like a good read for those who want to get a better handle on how these systems work. However, I wouldn't call it comprehensive and there is plenty of opinion mixed in with the facts.

Regarding the financial analysis, I don't see any indication that the time value of money is considered, or support for anything except a cash purchase. I wouldn't recommend using this over more complicated tools like NREL's System Advisor Model, despite the shortcomings of that application.

[J.P.M.]

The spreadsheet appears to be limited to european systems. The way in which net metering or feed-in tariffs work in the US is not consistent throughout the country, and would be difficult to generalize into a single spreadsheet. You might consider using the PVWatts API to build in performance estimates into the spreadsheet, instead of relying on the coarser sun hours estimate.

Your blog has a lot of nice information about residential solar, and looks like a good read for those who want to get a better handle on how these systems work. However, I wouldn't call it comprehensive and there is plenty of opinion mixed in with the facts.

Regarding the financial analysis, I don't see any indication that the time value of money is considered, or support for anything except a cash purchase. I wouldn't recommend using this over more complicated tools like NREL's System Advisor Model, despite the shortcomings of that application.

FWIW, pretty much + 1 on that.

[kbtengineer]

Well i'm not sure how it works in other countries but yea it works for european systems. Off course it is based on my personal experience and i don't plan to compete with the professionals. The formulas are all from the internet and used by all suppliers. Although i hope people find it useful for a comparison between suppliers since i found this hard in my own country.

I think it will give a approximate indication what you can expect from your system but mostly to make sure you can compare offers.
But i agree on your reaction it is still limited if you compare it to those tools. I just hope maybe some people benefit from it who just want a plain and hopefully simple excel sheet.

[J.P.M.]

Well i'm not sure how it works in other countries but yea it works for european systems. Off course it is based on my personal experience and i don't plan to compete with the professionals. The formulas are all from the internet and used by all suppliers. Although i hope people find it useful for a comparison between suppliers since i found this hard in my own country.

I think it will give a approximate indication what you can expect from your system but mostly to make sure you can compare offers.
But i agree on your reaction it is still limited if you compare it to those tools. I just hope maybe some people benefit from it who just want a plain and hopefully simple excel sheet.

I think the same sun shines in Europe as elsewhere. I'd start with figuring out what I wanted to accomplish, what my electrical loads are, both current and planned, and how best to attain those goals. Solar may or may not be the best way. If it is determined solar is the best way to attain the goals, there are existing tools to estimate output and the economics of residential, industrial or commercial solar applications. What's presented here may be useful, but it seems to be long on opinion and short on originality and rigor. I'd suggest learning methods that have been around for awhile and have been derived, vetted and peer reviewed by professionals before running off in new territory with some stuff found on the net used in what is admittedly not up to professional standards.

For U.S. and many other users, there are better, probably more accurate estimates to be had for less investment in a learning curve. Perhaps this material may be of some academic interest. As a practical tool it's a bit short, IMO.

[Mdm99]

Since i cannot send a pm or anything i will post it here. It is just a blogspot and the excel is free of download. Yes there is an add before you can download and you can just skip it in 5 seconds. If that is not allowed im sorry for reposting this link. Otherwise i really hope people will benefit from this excel sheet.

Your download wanted flash enabled and then I received an .exe file (in using a Mac). I suggest you using another host.

[kbtengineer]

Thanks for your feedback, your probably correct. Well i hope you at least enjoyed the read.
And i will see if i can tune and tweak although i will not expect or aim to compete with the other tools.
I find solar panels really interesting and i enjoyed figuring things out and i will see i can learn more.

To the person above me, oo im sorry but yea im using a mac as well. But you can skip add on right top of page after 5 sec.
It just a link to mediafire download service witch is safe.

[Mdm99]

Thanks for your feedback, your probably correct. Well i hope you at least enjoyed the read.
And i will see if i can tune and tweak although i will not expect or aim to compete with the other tools.
I find solar panels really interesting and i enjoyed figuring things out and i will see i can learn more.

To the person above me, oo im sorry but yea im using a mac as well. But you can skip add on right top of page after 5 sec.
It just a link to mediafire download service witch is safe.

As far as I can tell, this is the direct.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/hsuddd1fkfkm35l/Compare_solar_panels_EN.xlsx

Your link inserts the adware for some reason:

[kbtengineer]

As far as I can tell, this is the direct.

http://www.mediafire.com/view/hsuddd1fkfkm35l/Compare_solar_panels_EN.xlsx

Your link inserts the adware for some reason:

Correct

[russ]

Correct

Why? Or should I just delete all posts with the link?

[russ]

He is history - along with his links.