Solar Production Calculator by City
So, we do quite a bit of sizing for commercial or large domestic class installations, we are also in process of launching Solarkom which basically allows a user to pay for a solar system by just continuing to pay their electricity bill. We put up the system for them at no charge and get paid by their normal monthly payments. They get to benefit by no Eskom increases, tariff discounting (if requested) and depending on what type of system they choose, no more load shedding. (Read more here) Its a great idea, but in order to know what size system is required to take someone off grid, we needed to be accurate as to how much power a solar array will generate.
Fortunately we use overpriced solar modelling software for our systems and I figured since most of you will never purchase it, that you may find this information useful for determining how much power your solar pv array will generate based on which part of South Africa you are in. This is useful for both your own personal sizing or checking whether a quote you have received will actually give you the ROI (return on investment) you are being pitched. On this point it, its important to understand a bit about how these models are created.
The system we use draws from known data collected from multiple meteostat sites all over the country. It records everything that is happening atmospherically from temperature to solar radiance and then says, okay, if I were to take a solar panel (in this case Canadian Solar 410wp) and put it at this exact location how much power would it have generated based on historical data. Now obviously your location is not exactly at the metering site but it will in the very least provide you with a lower bound of what you can expect to generate of per 1kW of installed solar power.
Note: If you want me to add your town or city to the calculator please just drop me mail.