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

[Anonymous]

There seems to be some confusion regarding panel tracking. I live at lat’ 54 degrees. During summer, If I was not tracking, I would lose almost 6 hrs of sunlight at Solstice, tapering to about 2 hrs at Equinox.(september) and, of course panels do not put much out until the sun angle on them is within about 75 degrees of center, increasing to maximum, at 90 degs, (high noon). There is very little need to track here after about the end of October, although I do because it takes very little to run the tracker and there still is a few amps that can be gained by tracking.Even on the equator, you will loose the low angle radiation, east and west if you do not track. It is easy to prove this for yourself, if you wire a reasonable load resistor, something that will draw/dissipate the rated output of your panels, with an amp meter is series, you will see that the panels will have very little output until the sun reaches 15 to 20 degrees above the horizon of your panels, and, it will increase as the angle reaches 90 degrees. Now, The next morning, as soon as the sun is up, tilt your panels into the sun and watch your amp meter. This is assuming the “tilt” angle is at 90 degrees as well. Hope this helps. Ric,,,,