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This concerns my building plot. I'm planning solar PV, ground mounted. I face some administrative hurdles that are still preventing me installing this, but in the mean time I'm still planning what's best.
We have lots of trees, so I'm planning ground mounted solar PV rather than in or on roof as that gives me more scope to seek out the bits not shaded.
Initially I was thinking of just putting the array in one place all together on the south side of the plot in a clearing between trees. But that spot is not ideal. It's shaded by trees to the east and west of it, so really only gets full on sun from about 11AM to 4PM.
I've been looking at an alternative location on our eastern boundary. That will get full on sun from sunrise to 1PM (summertime). I could perhaps extend that to nearer 2PM with some pruning but not beyond that.
Working on the assumption we will have a fairly ordinary 4KW G83 system, that will usually come as two strings of panels.
What do you think of the idea of putting one string on the E facing area, and the other string on the S facing area?
The E facing ones would probably be at a fairly low angle, say 20 degrees so they are still working reasonably well when the sun is due S at mid day before it goes behind the tree. I could even arrange a compound slope to improve that a bit further.
The S facing panels would be quite a steep angle, say 45 degrees particularly to catch the mid day low winter sun.
The E facing panels just might get some late evening sun from the W in summer so another reason for keeping their angle low.
Is there any tool that can model the power collected from shaded arrangement like this? I've seen tools to optimise your elevation angle but nothing to deal with shading.
I'm trying to work out if splitting them would increase the overall yield rather than have them all S facing and accepting they won't perform well in the morning and evening.
As well as considering total power collected, I want to try an optimise power that can be used in the house.
It will be a well insulated low energy house heated by an air source heat pump.
My gut feeling is the split system while it might only deliver 2KW at any one time, it will deliver a usable 2KW for a much large part of the day which is much more likely to be useful to help the ASHP. Crucially I feel good generation as early in the day as possible is important.
By comparison it will be 11AM before you get much usable power from the all S facing only option. That's a long time if you are wanting the ASHP to heat the house and some water "for free" and I feel the higher power but shorter generation of that option would be less useful.
Your collective thoughts please.
We have lots of trees, so I'm planning ground mounted solar PV rather than in or on roof as that gives me more scope to seek out the bits not shaded.
Initially I was thinking of just putting the array in one place all together on the south side of the plot in a clearing between trees. But that spot is not ideal. It's shaded by trees to the east and west of it, so really only gets full on sun from about 11AM to 4PM.
I've been looking at an alternative location on our eastern boundary. That will get full on sun from sunrise to 1PM (summertime). I could perhaps extend that to nearer 2PM with some pruning but not beyond that.
Working on the assumption we will have a fairly ordinary 4KW G83 system, that will usually come as two strings of panels.
What do you think of the idea of putting one string on the E facing area, and the other string on the S facing area?
The E facing ones would probably be at a fairly low angle, say 20 degrees so they are still working reasonably well when the sun is due S at mid day before it goes behind the tree. I could even arrange a compound slope to improve that a bit further.
The S facing panels would be quite a steep angle, say 45 degrees particularly to catch the mid day low winter sun.
The E facing panels just might get some late evening sun from the W in summer so another reason for keeping their angle low.
Is there any tool that can model the power collected from shaded arrangement like this? I've seen tools to optimise your elevation angle but nothing to deal with shading.
I'm trying to work out if splitting them would increase the overall yield rather than have them all S facing and accepting they won't perform well in the morning and evening.
As well as considering total power collected, I want to try an optimise power that can be used in the house.
It will be a well insulated low energy house heated by an air source heat pump.
My gut feeling is the split system while it might only deliver 2KW at any one time, it will deliver a usable 2KW for a much large part of the day which is much more likely to be useful to help the ASHP. Crucially I feel good generation as early in the day as possible is important.
By comparison it will be 11AM before you get much usable power from the all S facing only option. That's a long time if you are wanting the ASHP to heat the house and some water "for free" and I feel the higher power but shorter generation of that option would be less useful.
Your collective thoughts please.
