Charging Stations with Overperforming Solar is Great to See
Once the sun angle in the frozen north makes it viable to recharge my stations with solar panels on a regular basis, I use my stations a lot for running household items. Last week I was recharging a Delta 3 Plus and Delta 3 Max Plus on a partly sunny day. Because of the conditions, I was unsure if they would get charged all the way. The rigid panels I have on my shed are 320w each. Each panel is run with its own wiring to its own connectors. That means I can I can use the panels however I like, depending on what station(s) I am charging; run individually, some in series or some in parallel. In this case, each of the stations had 1 panel hooked into each of the PV inputs (both stations have 2 inputs). So, each station had the possibility of getting 640w input in perfect weather conditions. However, with the cloudiness, much of the time they were only getting 130w-200w total.Shortly before 3 pm, I looked on my app and some some outstanding numbers. Over 700w were going into both stations!!! Now, this was a short term effect, when the sun had broken thru the clouds, but it was awesome to catch. The overproduction of the panels was caused by several factors; colder air temperature at 40*F, there was a fresh snow fall to create some reflection, and the "edge effect" from the sun interacting with the clouds (this was probably the biggest factor). Can't complain with an 18% overage of production from the panels, and it certainly helped get the stations fully charged that day.