That said 800w will be the nominal amount under near perfect conditions, 80%- 90% of the time it won’t be anywhere near that.
We (m and f couple) lived of grid for 10 years on a 2kW solar system and batteries with ease no generator for backup but a gas oven, 1 * induction cook top, 2x pedestal fans and 1 x celing fans, toaster, kettle, microwave and a no electrical boost solar system. Mid size diesel truck we used minimamilay (lived way out in the bush growing our own stuff etc) We’re naturally energy thrifty though. At S30° latitide, awesome for solar.
We’ve since moved to S41°, terrible for solar in winter (short days and thats the wet season). We have 8kW solar but are on grid (feed excess solar into the grid) and charge our mid sized e-truck (use minimially) off solar, and have a heat pump for heating, so we use more electrons but no fossil fuel.
As I’d replied to a sister comment of yours, I didn’t even consider that the author could be talking about actually available power, so that’s on me. I did go re-read it and I really don’t think that’s how it is meant though. I do think they are just ignorant on this point.
That being said, “balcony solar” isn’t limited to 800 W in panels. It’s limited to an 800 W inverter, but 2 kW for the panels. So you can have quite a bit more capacity in solar compared to the inverter, which also means that worse weather impacts you less. When you got a full sunny day, you can have the full 800 W for much longer, if not most of the day, as it’ll essentially be limited further down the chain. On the other hand I do think the most common size actually installed is much closer to also only have 800-900 Wp (basically 2 panels), which is the most commonly offerend (and presumably sold) kit size.
We also have roughly 8 kWp installed, and obviously on cloudy or dark winter days we’re an order of magnitude away from that number. There are days where we break 40 kWh in production, and there are days where we barely make it to 1 kWh. That low is very rare, even in winter or on dense, cloudy days, so I’d consider 4 kWh a more realistic minimum value. We have relatively detailed monitoring of most (relevant) consumers, which is why I have a somewhat good idea of how much our house consumes in practice. Before this full size installation, we had a 2 panel balcony solar “test setup” for quite a while. It was actually quite a (positive) surprise on how many days we essentially covered the majority of our daylight usage with these panels. Obviously not for the big-ticket consumers, but even a washer/dryer will be mostly covered.
Or running HVAC or an air pump for heating.
That said 800w will be the nominal amount under near perfect conditions, 80%- 90% of the time it won’t be anywhere near that.
We (m and f couple) lived of grid for 10 years on a 2kW solar system and batteries with ease no generator for backup but a gas oven, 1 * induction cook top, 2x pedestal fans and 1 x celing fans, toaster, kettle, microwave and a no electrical boost solar system. Mid size diesel truck we used minimamilay (lived way out in the bush growing our own stuff etc) We’re naturally energy thrifty though. At S30° latitide, awesome for solar.
We’ve since moved to S41°, terrible for solar in winter (short days and thats the wet season). We have 8kW solar but are on grid (feed excess solar into the grid) and charge our mid sized e-truck (use minimially) off solar, and have a heat pump for heating, so we use more electrons but no fossil fuel.
As I’d replied to a sister comment of yours, I didn’t even consider that the author could be talking about actually available power, so that’s on me. I did go re-read it and I really don’t think that’s how it is meant though. I do think they are just ignorant on this point.
That being said, “balcony solar” isn’t limited to 800 W in panels. It’s limited to an 800 W inverter, but 2 kW for the panels. So you can have quite a bit more capacity in solar compared to the inverter, which also means that worse weather impacts you less. When you got a full sunny day, you can have the full 800 W for much longer, if not most of the day, as it’ll essentially be limited further down the chain. On the other hand I do think the most common size actually installed is much closer to also only have 800-900 Wp (basically 2 panels), which is the most commonly offerend (and presumably sold) kit size.
We also have roughly 8 kWp installed, and obviously on cloudy or dark winter days we’re an order of magnitude away from that number. There are days where we break 40 kWh in production, and there are days where we barely make it to 1 kWh. That low is very rare, even in winter or on dense, cloudy days, so I’d consider 4 kWh a more realistic minimum value. We have relatively detailed monitoring of most (relevant) consumers, which is why I have a somewhat good idea of how much our house consumes in practice. Before this full size installation, we had a 2 panel balcony solar “test setup” for quite a while. It was actually quite a (positive) surprise on how many days we essentially covered the majority of our daylight usage with these panels. Obviously not for the big-ticket consumers, but even a washer/dryer will be mostly covered.