PV north facing in US [RE-wrenches]

[Joel Davidson]

Sure, there's sunlight in the north, but, as William points out, not much.

I'm located in Los Angeles (34 degrees N) with 24 SP70 solar modules at tilted 10
degrees and 8 SP70s tilted 15 degrees. All 32 modules face 195 degrees azimuth. A
few years ago on July 5, at 6:40 AM PDT with the sun just rising above the
northeast horizon at 9 degrees altitude, 69 degrees azimuth, my 32 70-watt solar
modules produced 54 DC watts. Later the same morning at 9:00 AM with the sun at 37
degrees altitude, 85 degrees azimuth, the array was producing 780 DC watts.

Question: Have any wrenches installed a north-facing PV array in the northern
hemisphere? If yes, care to share some data?

William Korthof wrote:

> It's summer. At summer solstice in the northern hemisphere
> (moderate latitudes) north-facing roofs capture more morning
> and evening sun. At noon, the sun is nearly vertical (north
> and south are similar).
>
> However.... at winter solstice in Arcata, the sun may not even
> rise enough to light a north-pitched array (eg, 30 deg) at noon.
>
> Take data over a year and... surprise... the south side wins.
> (unless you have a Shady Boy inverter   ;-/   ).
>
> /wk
>
> At 08:41 AM 7/24/03 -0700, you wrote:
> >Hey Jay. Right in your own back yard. Arcata H.S. installed two identical
> >arrays earlier this year with the partial intent to test north facing
> >array performance. One faces permanently south, and the other can be
> >rotated north (tilt angle unknown to me). The arrays were performing
> >nearly identically facing south. They recently moved the rotatable array
> >north, and it began out-performing the south-facing one! Go figure.
> >
> >Obviously something is wacko, and they are working to figure it out. But,
> >expect some real-world test data in the future.
> >
> >Jay Peltz, Peltz Power wrote at 07:34 AM 07/24/2003:
> >
> > >I think this issue points out the lack of real field data on how PV systems
> > >really work.
> > >
> > >Is there nobody outhere who has this kind of data?,, real world tested
> > data?
>

- - - -
To send a message: RE-wrenches at topica.com

Archive of previous messages: http://www.topica.com/lists/RE-wrenches/

List rules & etiquette: http://www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/etiquete.htm

Check out participant bios: www.mrsharkey.com/wrenches/index.html

Hosted by Home Power magazine

Moderator: michael.welch at homepower.com
--^----------------------------------------------------------------
This email was sent to: michael_welch at sbcglobal.net

EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bz8Qcs.bz9JC9.bWljaGFl
Or send an email to: RE-wrenches-unsubscribe at topica.com

TOPICA - Start your own email discussion group. FREE!
http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/create/index2.html
--^----------------------------------------------------------------