North facing Panels

[rsilvers]

I just saw this today. It is facing North at 7 degrees. They also have panels on the south of this shed and of their house. The installer put conduit over and around their gutter. I am going to guess this is not free solar PPA as I don't think any installer would have put panels on the north as it would eat into their profits.

[SunEagle]

I wonder if that person would be interested in buying a bridge?

[sensij]

At 7 deg tilt, the penalty for north facing isn't as much as for steeper installations. It is possible that the numbers still come out good enough to justify the choice.

[jflorey2]

I just saw this today. It is facing North at 7 degrees. They also have panels on the south of this shed and of their house. The installer put conduit over and around their gutter. I am going to guess this is not free solar PPA as I don't think any installer would have put panels on the north as it would eat into their profits.

On the plus side, all the shade from the trees above the array won't matter as much.

[rsilvers]

7 degrees was the heading. Angle is 40 degrees.

PVWatts says that the south side will make 2.1x as much power as this side.

That makes a $4.50 per watt system act like a $9.45 per watt system that faces south.

But yeah on angle. My west-facing panels are going to be at 15 degree angle, so I am going to lose about 18% vs a south face. Had they been at a 40 degree angle, I would lose 25%.

The western orientation is going to make my 315 watt panels act as if they are 260 watt facing south.

[J.P.M.]

At 7 deg tilt, the penalty for north facing isn't as much as for steeper installations. It is possible that the numbers still come out good enough to justify the choice.

Looks closer to 45 deg. tilt to me. Maybe 7 deg. Az. ? Bet the trees aren't helping much either.

[sensij]

Sorry, misunderstood. Thought the offending panels might be on the car port. Nothing good to say about this one.

[J.P.M.]

7 degrees was the heading. Angle is 40 degrees.

PVWatts says that the south side will make 2.1x as much power as this side.

That makes a $4.50 per watt system act like a $9.45 per watt system that faces south.

On the PVWatts estimate, pretty much/probably, and the trees will reduce output even more, probably in a higher proportion for the south calc'd roof .

To help me out, the array azimuthal angle is 7 degrees ? 40 deg. is the tilt or elevation angle off horizontal ?

Thanx.

[rsilvers]

From above:

[littleharbor]

In the winter the array would likely be shading ITSELF. What were they thinking?

[J.P.M.]

In the winter the array would likely be shading ITSELF. What were they thinking?

Looks like the decision making process what went on might not be best described as thinking.

[ButchDeal]

Looks like the decision making process what went on might not be best described as thinking.

I had extensive conversations with a customer that wanted PV on the north face of his home. He was trying to convince me that the sun was in the north of his home for a significant amount of the year due to his low lat. in San Diego area. I tried to explain things to him and he was quite biligerant that he is in the industry and knows what he is talking about, why are all the installers he talks to trying to tell him what he can clearly see (the sun).
He decided to do a self install.

You can't help everyone.

[rsilvers]

They had two south-facing surfaces covered also. Maybe they were going to stop there, but realized that with the SRECs, also doing the north was better over 10 years than not also doing the north.

So they probably still made a better decision than the dozens of perfect south-facing wide-open roofs I saw today that had no solar at all.

[J.P.M.]

I had extensive conversations with a customer that wanted PV on the north face of his home. He was trying to convince me that the sun was in the north of his home for a significant amount of the year due to his low lat. in San Diego area. I tried to explain things to him and he was quite biligerant that he is in the industry and knows what he is talking about, why are all the installers he talks to trying to tell him what he can clearly see (the sun).
He decided to do a self install.

You can't help everyone.

If I haven't talked to that guy (I may have - what's his zip ?), I feel like I've talked to a lot of his clones. Some folks have their minds made up and don't want to be confused by facts.

[ButchDeal]

If I haven't talked to that guy (I may have - what's his zip ?), I feel like I've talked to a lot of his clones. Some folks have their minds made up and don't want to be confused by facts.

Well I figured out kind of what was going on. his house faces due North and as he mentioned when he pulls out of his garage in the morning he is staring at the sun in the north. In his area the sun will rise just north of due east and set a few degrees north of west.
The problem is that he is at work all day and in between those two points the sun is on an arc swinging towards due South and then west.
so at the lowest points the sun is north of east west line but much of the day the sun is (obviously) south of the east west line....
was not able to convince him even though his south roof was large enough for the full array.