Passing 10Mwh

I'm not that into arbitrary milestones but figured it was of note passing 10Mwh of solar generation this Labor Day weekend. We're about 19 months into our install. Performance has been notably above the estimate provided by the installer (I think he sandbagged so he didn't get calls asking why it was low) and 10-15% below optimal for the area (it's well below optimal for the latitude but that's pretty irrelevant as it doesn't take weather into account).

That 10-15% down was expected based on the solar pathfinder the installer did. We have one big oak that we wanted to save to the west of the house and from Sept through March it gives partial shade for about 60-90 mins each afternoon. Production Oct through mid-Feb was also below expectations as the low sun clipped some of the surrounding trees. I've been doing some thinning of the evergreen hemlocks to the south and west so we'll see how that helps. Fortunately, this summer was hot and dry so Apr-Jul met or slightly exceeded optimal (with July providing a new high point at almost 800kwh).

I have about 1100kwh banked with our utility. My estimate is I need about 1700 to be net zero for the year. Its a Sept+Oct race as Nov will start us back to being net positive for the month. I think my new heating strategy will both allow me to bank more in Oct and use less which I imagine will be the difference.