By Charles Kennedy, Oilprice.com

The record-breaking installations of solar panels in the U.S. continues with an eye-popping 2 gigawatts installed in just the second quarter of this year, according to new data from GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA).

The solar industry installed 2,051 megawatts between April and June, marking the eleventh consecutive quarter in which the U.S. saw more than a gigawatt of solar capacity added to the grid. The volume of installations also marks 43 percent growth from the same quarter in 2015.

Yesterday we went to visit two clients and one enthusiast in Oworo.

The enthusiast is a young man that has followed Dr Solar on Nairaland for a while. He got someone to install a small solar system for him and he could not understand why he was not getting the expected yields from the system,

After a brief inspection of his system; some conclusions. We are not 100% sure that his panels are 130 W each. Two: the cables from the controller to the battery need to be shortened and three: he needs to keep the same size cable on the positive and negative from the controller to the batteries. We did a firmware upgrade on his charge controller and gave him a history of his production. We also suggested he add additional panels to compensate for the poor yields during the rainy season.

His system: 2 130 watt panels, 1 12V 200AH battery, a 30 amp Fangpusun 100/30 MPPT controller and a 1.5 Kva inverter. How does he use the system? (I have a led TV 32inch, gotv, charge my phone, standing fan and occasionally use my laptop)

We talk daily about the power challenges that face Nigeria. The challenge has existed for more than 40 years. I am not sure that our current minister of power has a true handle on how to resolve the power issues. He keeps talking about regional solutions to a national problem. Talks about concentrating wind and sun resources in the Northern part of Nigeria.
New Jersey a state with average of 95 sunny days a year has over 1632 MW of installed solar capacity. In 2015 New Jersey installed 415 MW and the industry created over 7000 jobs.

Read below about China’s experience in 2015. They installed more wind and solar in one year that is twice of what Ireland consumed

China is drawing more and more power from renewables

In May 2016, we got a call from a prospective client in Sparklight Estate in Magboro, Ogun State right by Mountain Of Fire Church. He moved into his home in 2011 and there was no grid connection. He had purchased a Mercury 3.5 kva Inverter with 4 200 AH batteries. He spent two thousand Naira every day to charge his batteries. He was referred by his colleague and neighbor who was a happy AWPS Renewable Energy customer. #Solar Power.

After doing load calculations we sent him an estimate and did not hear from him again. In July he called and asked us to look at the solar power solution that a competitor had installed for him to see why it did not work.