Re: Do soalr panels have to be “aimed”?

[revinger]

Yes. I am at about 40 degrees north and even at this latitude I notice the pronounced northeast sunrise, northwest sunset. I am not so far north though that I losing all that much.

I have really good siting. In the summer time I have nearly 12 hours solar exposure but the leading and trailing hour or two is pretty wild angle.

Trackers are just not an option for me though. Lots of surface error and as elnav notes it gets complicated with the larger trackers. Before I added the ‘big pole’ I would hand track some of my smaller panels but now with 2200 watts of PV summer time I usually have more power than what I need anyway.

The big pole is a 6″ sched 40 pipe with 6 KD205 panels. As I remember shipping weights including the rack and panels there is probably 500 watts sitting on top of the pole. It takes 2 just to adjust the seasonal angle.

I actually left all my panels at equinox settings instead of bringing them back to summer. Did that partly due to getting some 1.5″ (nearly golf ball sized) hail. No damage but I liked the idea of the slightly shallower angle to hopefully help deflect hail that size(if it happens again).

WIth the MPPT controllers I am still getting 10-12 kwh on a full sun day in the summer.

bob

marshall, IL