16 minutes ago, PsyCLown said:

This would obviously change the angle.

 

For interest sake, what would the ideal angle be in summer vs in winter?

About 45 degrees IIRC for mid winter and about 5 degrees mid summer. 

Around 28 for Gauteng a good compromise. 

Edited May 19, 20233 yr by Scorp007

1 hour ago, PsyCLown said:

This would obviously change the angle.

 

For interest sake, what would the ideal angle be in summer vs in winter?

This is for Cape Town, look for similar for JHB

 

by

Edited May 19, 20233 yr by Eurard

Johannesburg is at a latitude of 26 degrees. So, if panels are installed at that inclination, that will give the maximum energy production.

I see there are a few online calculators which tell you optimal angle per month and all year round etc.

 

 

 

But now, how much of a difference would it make to ones production if we were actually able to adjust the tilt on our panels per month or season?

 

Let's say I have 5000W of panels and I face them true north. In June any idea how much of a difference my daily production could be if the panels were at 25 degrees vs 40 degrees tilt angle?

Then the same for December, 25 degrees vs 10 degrees?

 

I have seen some mounting kits which allow you to adjust the angle, I have a flat roof so which I imagine would make it a bit easier for me to adjust the angle.

The question is whether it would be worth spending a bit more on the mounting kit and taking a bit of time to adjust the panel angles?

 

Any ideas or is there perhaps a calculator for this too?

LeRoux_Optimum_2016.pdf

Above study done by Department of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering, 
University of Pretoria, South Africa.

21 minutes ago, PsyCLown said:

I see there are a few online calculators which tell you optimal angle per month and all year round etc.

 

 

 

But now, how much of a difference would it make to ones production if we were actually able to adjust the tilt on our panels per month or season?

 

Let's say I have 5000W of panels and I face them true north. In June any idea how much of a difference my daily production could be if the panels were at 25 degrees vs 40 degrees tilt angle?

Then the same for December, 25 degrees vs 10 degrees?

 

I have seen some mounting kits which allow you to adjust the angle, I have a flat roof so which I imagine would make it a bit easier for me to adjust the angle.

The question is whether it would be worth spending a bit more on the mounting kit and taking a bit of time to adjust the panel angles?

 

Any ideas or is there perhaps a calculator for this too?

A thumb suck would be in the order of 10-15%. Only an option if you can in fact use the extra power and you don't have panels already idle during the day. From what I can see of members results is that about 25% of possible PV is "lost" during the day due to batteries fully charged before 12h and not enough load connected. Not easy to use all the PV power. 

The one point that is way out for most forecasting webs is that some show up to 75% less generation in winter than summer. My thumb suck if you use all the PV winter can be as little as 20% lower. Here we find panels at over 30 degrees performing very well in winter vs the summer yield in Gauteng. 

Your month by month tilt differs by up to 10 degrees from The Solar Handbook figures. 

An option is to fix the panel angle,  not adjustable, and then compensate by increasing your number of panels. Compare cost of static panels to adjustable panel rail cost.

1 hour ago, FixAMess said:

An option is to fix the panel angle,  not adjustable, and then compensate by increasing your number of panels. Compare cost of static panels to adjustable panel rail cost.

It’s a good exercise.  I’ll try crunch the numbers.  
 

however maybe I just throw a 2kw element into my geyser and then be happy I can get a constant charge out of the current panels.  May be a cheaper option.  

1 minute ago, Savvoh said:

It’s a good exercise.  I’ll try crunch the numbers.  
 

however maybe I just throw a 2kw element into my geyser and then be happy I can get a constant charge out of the current panels.  May be a cheaper option.  

As per the university of PTA study, JHB, PTA 26 Degrees from horizontal is best static fit, slightly E of N (If DBN is 8 degrees, I imagine JHB is 4 degrees) ...

Unfortunately most people are limited by their roof pitch, diretion and space..

On 2023/05/18 at 5:54 PM, Savvoh said:

Hello everyone. 

Just installed a 8kw SunSynk, 5kw battery and 6 x 550 or 555 watt panels in a line on my north facing roof. Its two stories up so not much shading.  

The battery and inverter seem to be working well and playing with the settings to try minimize grid power has been much fun. 

However during the day my panels at any stage only seem to reach max 2.2kw. I even try and force more load onto them to peak higher, but cant seem to get more juice. 

Question:

- Is there a chance that 2 of them are faulty?
- Is there any limiting factor that could be preventing them from performing on my inverter?
- Did i get hoodwinked and get sold 350w panels even though they seem to big for those :0
- Or is there something that I am missing completely?
This is a graph of what i am trying to explain, between about 11:30 and 12:30 i ran my geyser to try and see if i could suck more watts out of the panels. 

But to no avail. As u can see my general PV output is never more then 2.1 kw all day. 

Any advice would be amazing. 

Thanks, Sav

I have 8x 555W panels on a 8kw SS. Current production is 3000W just a month ago it was 3300W.

Yours are working fine. It's just winter

2 hours ago, Chris_S said:

I have 8x 555W panels on a 8kw SS. Current production is 3000W just a month ago it was 3300W.

Yours are working fine. It's just winter

Weird question.  Is there anyway on the app or dashboard to see ur PV production for a day in the past.  
 

just as a matter on interest ? 

2 hours ago, Savvoh said:

Weird question.  Is there anyway on the app or dashboard to see ur PV production for a day in the past.  
 

just as a matter on interest ? 

Yes. On generation section click on month then you can see per day. More detail on the webpage though

On the Web dashboard you can search date ranges

Every year the same trend, winter almost arrives and a flood of "my panels are underperforming" post arrive almost as if they have been ordered. 

It is getting closer to winder people, the angle of the sun relative to your panels are decreasing daily, days are getting shorter as I type, peak Sun hours are getting less and less.

60% to 70% of installed capacity is pretty normal depending on  panel orientation and location. Move on. 

 

On 2023/05/20 at 5:51 PM, I84RiS said:

Every year the same trend, winter almost arrives and a flood of "my panels are underperforming" post arrive almost as if they have been ordered. 

It is getting closer to winder people, the angle of the sun relative to your panels are decreasing daily, days are getting shorter as I type, peak Sun hours are getting less and less.

60% to 70% of installed capacity is pretty normal depending on  panel orientation and location. Move on. 

 

Can't move on can only add more panels ☺️

 

49 minutes ago, Chris_S said:

Can't move on can only add more panels ☺️

Since I’ve only had this setup for a week.  hahaha. Now that I’m becoming more knowledgeable . I won’t ask anymore stupid questions. 😉

Will just try and let other know what I learn. 
 

shot everyone.  

2 minutes ago, Savvoh said:

 

Since I’ve only had this setup for a week.  hahaha. Now that I’m becoming more knowledgeable . I won’t ask anymore stupid questions. 😉

Will just try and let other know what I learn. 
 

shot everyone.  

Keep asking questions, that is what the community is for.  Not everyone starts at the same time and things that I know now I didn't know 6 months ago, and to wade through all posts on the site will take ages and then you might not even get your answer.  Always good to do a quick search to see if there are obvious answers, but otherwise just ask.

@Savvoh Have a look at this topic, it may help? 

https://powerforum.co.za/topic/19328-optimal-solar-panel-wiring-configuration/

ie: Are your panels all in series? In which case you need to split them into a couple of parallel strings.
A series panel in the shade will impair the whole string.

Edited May 22, 20233 yr by TonyB