Solar Log

This page is currently not working. I may bring it back to life one day, but don't hold your breath.

The graphs below record the power generated by a small solar panel fixed to the wall of my house in Cambridge, England. My aim is to collect some useful data about the likely output of solar cells in a real climate, to compare with the nominal numbers given by manufacturers. The nominal output of my panel is 4.8 Watts.

For now these numbers should be considered as approximate. For a start, since mid September the sun has been low enough in the sky that it goes behind the top of a tree from about 1230 to 1400. The instrumentation is also imperfect: my dummy load is trying to behave like a 12 V battery, but it's only an approximation. Also the graphing process tends to exagerate the output during rapidly-changing conditions. The time axis is also a bit wonky. I plan to improve this.

If you're interested in the technical details of the logger, it's all described on this page.

If you want to correlate this with another view of the Cambridge weather, have a look at the Cambridge Weather Snapshot.