Sun hours

[bcroe]

Melting snow

Me again trying to think outside the box,
Have you looked into radiant heating flooring coils to see if they could be mounted under or around your panels?
I have no idea how efficient they are or even if they could be used outside.

My intuitive feeling, this would be hopelessly complex & energy inefficient. The approach
being considered (another thread, Panel Sensitivity) is to directly heat the panels with
external power to them. I have some doubt that even that will be efficient enough to
be justified. Next year i might set up a couple panels and try this, the second panel
for comparison. Following summer, see if the heating experiment reduced the
performance of the heated panel, compared to the reference panel. Meantime, the
immediate change will be to get panels mostly vertical, later this year.

Bruce Roe

[FUN4ME]

Solving the snow issues may take years, but getting all panels near vertical should help.
Bruce Roe

Me again trying to think outside the box,
Have you looked into radiant heating flooring coils to see if they could be mounted under or around your panels?
I have no idea how efficient they are or even if they could be used outside.

[inetdog]

Yes it only took me 5 months to increase panels that way. Here in northern IL, with snow and E-W panels, Monday production calculated out to 7.8 equivalent sun hours (117 KWH). Solving the snow issues may take years, but getting all panels near vertical should help.
Bruce Roe

Very impressive and giving some additional hope to those who are not all that far north.

[inetdog]

That is interesting. My post is missing, but SOMEBODY else quoted part of it, commented
on it, and its all credited to me. Bruce Roe

Mea Culpa. I hit the wrong button when trying to comment/reply.
Not sure how to fix it up again, but I will try.

OK, I think it is all better now.
Sorry about that....

[bcroe]

quote who?

That is interesting. My post is missing, but SOMEBODY else quoted part of it, commented
on it, and its all credited to me. Bruce Roe

[bcroe]

Instead of a tracker, just use more panels to take advantage of the prime solar-insolation hours you do have. Off-prime hours when the sun is low during the early morning and late afternoon are weak, so that's why it may seem incredible in places where there are 8 hours of daylight, that according to calculations only has 2 hours of *quality* usable sunlight power.

Increasing your stationary panel wattage would probably be cheaper and easier to implement.

Yes it only took me 5 months to increase panels that way. Here in northern IL, with snow and E-W panels, Monday production calculated out to 7.8 equivalent sun hours (117 KWH). Solving the snow issues may take years, but getting all panels near vertical should help.
Bruce Roe

[inetdog]

I
Increasing your stationary panel wattage would probably be cheaper and easier to implement.

Except for the part about getting the snow off....

[PNjunction]

Instead of a tracker, just use more panels to take advantage of the prime solar-insolation hours you do have. Off-prime hours when the sun is low during the early morning and late afternoon are weak, so that's why it may seem incredible in places where there are 8 hours of daylight, that according to calculations only has 2 hours of *quality* usable sunlight power.

Increasing your stationary panel wattage would probably be cheaper and easier to implement.

[Naptown]

Is that for tracking, or for vertical angle, or for anything past vertical? Here nothing is under warrantee
for very long, interferes with activities. Bruce Roe

If it exposes the back to the sky going beyond vertical would do that.

[russ]

Here nothing is under warrantee for very long, interferes with activities. Bruce Roe

I like that!

[bcroe]

Panel angle

I don't think you would need to turn the panel upside down if you
had 2 primary tilts both of them say 20deg off of vertical one to the east and one to the
west, how much snow could accumulate while chancing positions?
also i wasn't suggesting that you change your whole array, just the panels you were
planning on adding. good luck

Even my near vertical panels pick up some snow, though much easier to clear than the others. Thinking
that tilted a bit more to just past vertical ought to be enough to keep them clear. I suspect once the snow
is on, it won't slide off so easily. Running out of good unshaded places to put any more panels; would only
need them to boost overcast days. I am not above rearranging everything, if for a good enough reason.

Don't know about any one else's warranty but that would void the Sunjpower warranty

Is that for tracking, or for vertical angle, or for anything past vertical? Here nothing is under warrantee
for very long, interferes with activities. Bruce Roe

[inetdog]

I guess I should have called my idea a horizontal tracker.
I have no idea what wire does when it is -20deg you would know better than me.
I don't think you would need to turn the panel upside down if you had 2 primary tilts
both of them say 20deg off of vertical one to the east and one to the west, how much snow could accumulate while chancing positions?
also i wasn't suggesting that you change your whole array, just the panels you were planning on adding.
good luck

A lot of wire insulation loses too much of its flexibility at -20F to be reliable. Finding an insulation with the right combination of sunlight resistance and flexibility could be interesting, but the bending radius would not be particularly small if you laid it out correctly. A long horizontal run properly supported would allow the wire to twist rather than bending, which should put far lower demands on its flexibility.

[FUN4ME]

I guess I should have called my idea a horizontal tracker.
I have no idea what wire does when it is -20deg you would know better than me.
I don't think you would need to turn the panel upside down if you had 2 primary tilts
both of them say 20deg off of vertical one to the east and one to the west, how much snow could accumulate while chancing positions?
also i wasn't suggesting that you change your whole array, just the panels you were planning on adding.
good luck

[inetdog]

Don't know about any one else's warranty but that would void the Sunjpower warranty

Putting them on a horizontal axis tracker at all, or just turning them so far that the back of the panel is exposed to weather and snow load?

How about just turning them far enough (even partially inverted) to dump the snow after it has stopped snowing and then turning them right side up again?

[Naptown]

A horizontal axis tracker might be the most likely for the future, simple, and able to
dump snow. How about, the panels look somewhat at the ground while its snowing,
then come around clean later? Guess there would need to be some cameras out there,
so I could see what is going on. Bruce Roe

Don't know about any one else's warranty but that would void the Sunjpower warranty