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Forum Index : Solar : North South Track
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Gill Senior Member  Joined: 11/11/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 669 |
I was talking to one of our regions major solar installers some time ago and I happened to mention the sun would be directly overhead twice in summer. I was astounded he had little to no idea of the suns movement during the seasons. He felt that pointing the panels to 16 degrees was all that could be done and that was it. "I'm the expert here.What would you know. 16 degrees is the only choice, adjustable tracker or not." end of argument. I shouldn't have put so much detail in that sketch when I went back to show him "yes, it was overhead twice in summer". Too much detail is overwhelming for some I guess. I sometimes get too carried away by the wonder of it. Never mind. I came across that same sketch the other day and thought some of you blokes might see some value in it. Shame to waste it, so here it is. 
Better detail in the .zip 2008-05-31_161117_Sun_Cycle__large.zip It could be used as a rough guide to aiming panels. Say you wanted to maximize for mid August because that was the most overcast time. Well for then, the sun is overhead of 6deg North, so add that to your own latitude and there you have it. There are angles that a tracker can be manually adjusted to over a year. I reckon one adjustment for summer and winter and 3 for Autumn and Spring. That's 8 adjustments during the year for higher solar performance. Too much for my mate, I guess set to 16deg and walk away and forget it. was working fine... til the smoke got out. Cheers Gill _Cairns, FNQ |
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Tinker Guru  Joined: 07/11/2007 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1904 |
Gill, the sun "directly overhead" bit does not happen for those who live south of the tropic of Capricorn. Perhaps your installer grew up at a higher latitude? 
Solar panels tend to be installed at the angle of the local latitude here (31 deg. S) but I never bothered to check if that is indeed the optimum. Tinker Klaus |
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| Gill Senior Member Joined: 11/11/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 669 |
Exactly Klaus, he may have moved to the tropics but his understanding is still in the south. At least he accepted the months of cloud cover in Summer knocks hell out of a systems solar input. So in this area instead of a mean of the sun angles that gives a sun over the equator or for panel angle, your latitude, he has been told 16 deg which would be about right for the Cairns area and it's cloud cover. But rather than fixed panels, an East/West tracker is better for max sun with the day movement, but one with tracking(adjustment) North/South as well gives an even better output by tracking the seasons too. was working fine... til the smoke got out. Cheers Gill _Cairns, FNQ |
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GWatPE Senior Member Joined: 01/09/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2127 |
As a note, when I lived in Darwin, lat 12.?, the sun passed overhead. There was more of an issue with dust settling on the flat pannels during this time. East/West tracking did help with this aspect. The panels still had issues with wind loadings on the pivot mechanism, so fixed arrays angled to the North still ended up as the compromise. Gordon. become more energy aware |
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