Is the wildfire smoke impacting Bay Area CA solar production? Aug 6

[holeydonut]

I’m not at home this week… but the last two days have seen solar production down like 20%… peak production kW AC is down as well.

Is it the smoke? Or maybe I’m having micro inverter issues?

 

[h2ofun]

I’m not at home this week… but the last two days have seen solar production down like 20%… peak production kW AC is down as well.

Is it the smoke? Or maybe I’m having micro inverter issues?

I am down like 50% in the foothills. We hit like 450 air quality today, still terrible at like 250

 

[BGbreeder]

Yes, it isn't good. Worse up in the Central Valley and Auburn area.

 

[h2ofun]

Yes, it isn't good. Worse up in the Central Valley and Auburn area.

View attachment 693251

Auburn, thats me

 

[dareed1]

We're down about 8%, and should have less smoke than the East Bay, so I doubt you're looking at a hardware problem.

 

[jboy210]

Down to 5.8 kW noon today. Was around 8 kW 2 days ago. The smoke is definitely having an effect.

 

[aesculus]

I am down like 50% in the foothills. We hit like 450 air quality today, still terrible at like 250

Same a little lower down. 50% production.

 

[getakey]

Down 40% east of Sacramento

 

[woferry]

About 10-15% down for me yesterday in San Jose. Yesterday walking to lunch I noticed you could barely see the mountains through the haze, and the sky was more grey than the blue it was a day earlier. Clearly not as much sunlight getting to the ground.

 

[wwu123]

About 10-15% down for me yesterday in San Jose. Yesterday walking to lunch I noticed you could barely see the mountains through the haze, and the sky was more grey than the blue it was a day earlier. Clearly not as much sunlight getting to the ground.

Down about 10-15% here on the lower peninsula as well. Can still see the mountains in the distance though - the haze today seems more diffuse and high up, as the air quality at ground level is still pretty good.

 

[warjcowski]

San Mateo... compared to Thursday's peak, Friday -15% and Saturday -8%

 

[Electrph]

down about 18% yesterday (8/7) due to smoke in tulare county area of central valley

 

[GJones]

Be prepared to clean your panels once the smoke (and ash) clears. With the smoke and ashfall from the Napa fires last fires, my production was down 25%. The exact improvement on consecutive cloudless days (before and after cleaning) was either 25% or 26% when measured as peak kW production or full day kWHr production. The other aspect of cleaning is that the ash will quickly become a concrete-like cake when you combine morning dew and afternoon heat.

 

[sorka]

In Merced, where PA was 160ish, I was down about 25% on Saturday. Yesterday PA was in the 60ish range and I was down about 4%.

 

[cwied]

In Merced, where PA was 160ish, I was down about 25% on Saturday. Yesterday PA was in the 60ish range and I was down about 4%.

One interesting thing to note is that the AQI doesn't necessarily correlate to solar production since it only is a surface measurement. In last year's Blade Runner event (9/9/2020), AQI ranged from 75 in the morning to 130 in the evening, and I had basically no production. Two days later the AQI ranged from 285 to 190 and I got 16.6 kWh (down about 55% from normal).

 

[bryan995]

Y’all need to move out the Bay Area and head down to lovely lovely San Diego.

No issues here.

 

[h2ofun]

Even with smoke, not too bad.