I enjoyed using the solar design tool, up to a point. I must be doing something wrong as I’m getting a payback period of 12yrs. The calculation doesn’t seem to include the savings on charging my EV at home v commercial charging. It’d also be good to include the savings from moving from a diesel SUV to an EV, as that’s all part of the rationale for putting in a large solar system. The calculator also indicates I’ll get less than 5kw per day in May to July from a 40 panel installation. I already had a small 5kw installed for 10 years and it has historically done better than the calculator is suggesting during winter. Further, the calculator suggests I’ll get a max of 7.5kwh during the best time of year. This also can’t be right, as I already get 3.5kwh from a system that is 10 years old and only has 20 panels compared to my new design of 40 panels. Any suggestions welcome
@Litmus, that’s very strange. Something is clearly going wrong. (There was a bug in the software but I believe it is now fixed, can you check again.)
Also, which state are you located in? Could you please post a screenshot of your panel layout if you have done your own design?
Hi @Litmus
Thanks very much for your feedback.
Can you please send a link to the design? You can get it by clicking the “Share” button at the top right corner of the Summary page.
Thanks Marty [and Jason]
I’ll have to redo the modelling as I closed my browser.
I’ll do that over the weekend and send you the link and a screen shot.
The other matter you’ll discover is that in the tool the aerial view of our property shows the East side of our roof to be much bigger than the West, when in fact, both sides are exactly the same. I had to extend the footprint of the proposed are for panels on the west side beyond the indicated picture, so as to duplicate the East side.
Will other EVs be added to the list, or doesn’t this matter? We are getting the most popular EV currently being a BYD Atto 3.
Regards, Peter [aka Litmus]