cybernetics777

Hi Guys, 
I've finally completed the moving of the panels and I am glad to report that facing them North has made a HUGE difference. 
Just to Reiterate... 
I have 8 x 560w Seraphim Panels. 
I've moved 4 to a North Facing roof about 35m away from the inverter. (PV2) I do loose a little bit of production here... I guess this is because of the cable length. 
I've moved 4 onto a North Facing frame just above the inverter. (PV1)
 
Pics for stats attached. These were taken now... 09:58. 

Hi Guys, 
I've finally completed the moving of the panels and I am glad to report that facing them North has made a HUGE difference. 
Just to Reiterate... 
I have 8 x 560w Seraphim Panels. 
I've moved 4 to a North Facing roof about 35m away from the inverter. (PV2) I do loose a little bit of production here... I guess this is because of the cable length. 
I've moved 4 onto a North Facing frame just above the inverter. (PV1)
 
Pics for stats attached. These were taken now... 09:58. 

Yes any length of cable we loose power. Running 50m of 4mm cable could loose 5% or 6V at a 10A current. You could end up far worse and loose 25% of PV power having shade or a direction with lower irradiance. 
As to knowing where and what extend of shade can easily be done with a phone and camera APP that takes pics every say 15min. 

yes. my other option would be to build a frame onto the Awning... fit the 4 panels there and ask politely to chop down my neighbours tree that blocks the sun from about 2pm now in winter. That way I would also use very very little cable.

Hmmm... I don't think that's that good, though there are variables IE your latitude and the angle of your panels. The angle at which your panels works best varies with the time of year. IOW, your panels are at the perfect angle only twice a year.

BUT you have potentially 4.48kW of PV. I have 6 panels facing NNW and 6 facing ENE. These are on separate strings. My total theoretical PV is 3.9Kw. My peak production is usually round about 11:30. At 11:05 today I was producing 3.09kW, then the battery was fully charged and the system drew just enough PV to service loads. But the loads went up again at 12:00 and I can tell you that 12:40 I could still get 2.7kW from the panels, and at 13:15 2.36kW. 

I was able to get 80% of theoretical capacity (maybe a bit more), whilst you got about 50%. So I think you could do a bit better, even given the variables we discussed.

South-ish facing is never going to work that well in South Africa, but I wonder if you won't do better just splitting this into two strings. That way you won't have 4 underperforming panels pulling the other four down.

I don't have a lot of north facing roof (none in fact, but NNW is close enough) and I wonder if you can't fit 4 panels onto your NNEish facing roof. Look at mine

You want some tilt on them... In Gauteng, in the summer, you can have them nearly flat, but in the winter when the sun is lower, you want the tilt, probably more than I actually have. So go for some tilt and accept that they will not be optimal mid-summer or mid-winter, but you are not losing as much in the winter.