What range of direction should you face your solar panel to even out the spikes?

[miogpsrocks]

What range of direction should you face your solar panel to even out the spikes?

Let's say you are concerned about going over what your house is consuming or what your inverters are able to handle.

Instead of facing all your solar panels directly to the south. Could some be placed a few degrees South east or South West? I have seen that power production can vary wildly.
So what if each panel was generally facing in the south direction but a few degrees off from each other.

Is that something that people do to even out the power production and reduce spikes?

[organic farmer]

I have read threads where someone installed an array of panels facing East in the hope of producing power from the early morning sunlight.

Any 'over production' is only going to be used to recharge your battery bank, so there is no harm in it.

[miogpsrocks]

What range of direction should you face your solar panel to even out the spikes?

Let's say you are concerned about going over what your house is consuming or what your inverters are able to handle.

Instead of facing all your solar panels directly to the south. Could some be placed a few degrees South east or South West? I have seen that power production can vary wildly.
So what if each panel was generally facing in the south direction but a few degrees off from each other.

Is that something that people do to even out the power production and reduce spikes?

In order to keep things as cheap as possible and make the payback period the fastest it can be, I will try to avoid batteries and tie directly to the house's grid.

I do use a lot of power all the time so it should not be a problem as long as I can sort of even out the spikes.

I am talking about pointing everything in the general south direction but having some a few degrees slightly south east and other slightly south west while some directly south. So there will not be any big spikes and have more time of a smooth power production unless there is some reason why that might not work?

Thanks.

[organic farmer]

In order to keep things as cheap as possible and make the payback period the fastest it can be,...

In my state a grid-tie or net-metering system is much more expensive compared to an off-grid system with batteries.

Also in some cases [I live on a farm] solar power purchases are depreciable. The IRS requires that all of my solar expenses must depreciate over seven years. Every penny I spend on solar gets written off my taxes, spread out over seven years. So there is no way for the 'payback' to stretch longer than seven years.

... I will try to avoid batteries and tie directly to the house's grid.

What is a 'house grid' ?

... I do use a lot of power all the time so it should not be a problem as long as I can sort of even out the spikes.

Since solar power can only be generated during sunlight, the only way to have power in the dark is from a battery bank, unless you want to spend double the money to install a grid-tied or net-metering system.

... I am talking about pointing everything in the general south direction but having some a few degrees slightly south east and other slightly south west while some directly south. So there will not be any big spikes and have more time of a smooth power production unless there is some reason why that might not work?

Thanks.

I have seen systems where they had a quarter of their panels facing East, and a quarter facing West.

[miogpsrocks]

In my state a grid-tie or net-metering system is much more expensive compared to an off-grid system with batteries.

Also in some cases [I live on a farm] solar power purchases are depreciable. The IRS requires that all of my solar expenses must depreciate over seven years. Every penny I spend on solar gets written off my taxes, spread out over seven years. So there is no way for the 'payback' to stretch longer than seven years.





What is a 'house grid' ?





Since solar power can only be generated during sunlight, the only way to have power in the dark is from a battery bank, unless you want to spend double the money to install a grid-tied or net-metering system.





I have seen systems where they had a quarter of their panels facing East, and a quarter facing West.

I have read that panels facing east and waste will have a 15% decrease in the watts hours produced per day.
The difference between facing east, south and west is like 270 degrees rotation? I would want to face everything south with only a couple of degrees away from directly south. So hopefully I won't lose 15% overall power production for the day.

The house grid I just mean the power wires that my house uses internally.

Grid-tie and net metering are 2 separate things.

Net metering is when you sell back to the power company whereas a grid tie is when you backfeed the power back into your own house with both the use of solar panels and the grid. So you have 2 sources of power .

It has the possibility to back feeding into the grid if you are not using up all that power immediately to have the zero export disabled.

Your solar at the farm is considered like a farm business expense? Why can the payback not stretch longer than 7 years? Don't solar panels last like 20+ years?

[organic farmer]

... The house grid I just mean the power wires that my house uses internally.

So you just mean to power your house.

The word 'grid' is usually used to refer to the utility power grid.

... Grid-tie and net metering are 2 separate things.

Net metering is when you sell back to the power company whereas a grid tie is when you backfeed the power back into your own house with both the use of solar panels and the grid. So you have 2 sources of power .

It has the possibility to back feeding into the grid if you are not using up all that power immediately to have the zero export disabled.

In my experience, the terms are used inter-changibly.

Such a system tries to feed power onto the utility grid. When the utility grid goes dark law requires that your household system must also be dark.

You are either off-grid, or else you are grid-tied [hoping to take power from the grid, or else to feed your power to the grid]

... Your solar at the farm is considered like a farm business expense? Why can the payback not stretch longer than 7 years? Don't solar panels last like 20+ years?

Yes, a farm is a method of business. Taxes are filed on a Schedule 'F'.

Expenses to operate a farm, are farm expenses.

Things that depreciate do so on the Schedule F, which then gets subtracted from your 1040.

In my township, one of our neighbors has been off-grid on solar power since the 1980s. After the first 20 years you could expect to see a decrease in production of 2 or 3 %.

Photovoltaic panels should still be producing power after 40 years.