[RE-wrenches] Off Grid, Cloudy Days, Solar Tilt Question

[Dave Angelini Offgrid Solar]

Kirk,

Can you reference your paper on this? So many variables and each 
location will be different. Most dual axis
trackers can always be left flat or any angle so that does not make 
sense to me.

You have to design for winter offgrid if the location is worth it. Or, 
alot of hours on a genset.

Super large arrays in your area will help give you more days/hours 
before you need the iron genoa.
You have to decide if it is worth the money. The home has to have the 
ability to shed some loads also.

Dave Angelini Offgrid Solar
"we go where powerlines don't"
    [2]https://offgridsolar1.com/ [3]  [2]
e-mail  offgridsolar at sti.net
text 209 813 0060

On 2023-10-25 3:46 pm, Kirk Bailey via RE-wrenches wrote:

> Hi All!
> 
> We don't do a lot of pure off-grid systems and I recently ran across 
> something I wanted to run by folks with more experience in this area: 
> Optimal array tilt for our very cloudy PNW winters!
> 
> My understanding has always been that latitude plus 10-15 degrees was 
> the best tilt to address our winter energy shortage. However a paper I 
> recently read (1), makes a compelling case for a much shallower tilt in 
> situations where the cloud cover is so heavy that "diffuse" solar 
> radiation is all that makes it through. They indicate that under those 
> conditions a horizontal array will produce significantly more energy 
> than even a two-axis tracker!
> 
> Given that the challenge in our off-grid setups always seems to be 
> making it through the really cloudy stretches, and that there is 
> usually enough energy the rest of the time, should we be installing 
> off-grid arrays at a shallower angle?
> 
> Anyone tried this?
> 
> Kirk Bailey
> 
> kirk at abundantsolar.com
> 
> www.abundantsolar.com [1]
> 
> (1) Kelly, N.A., Gibson, T.L, 2011, Increasing the solar photovoltaic 
> energy capture on sunny and cloudy days. Solar Energy 85, 111-125.
> 
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Links:
------
[1] http://www.abundantsolar.com
[2] http://members.sti.net/offgridsolar/
[3] https://offgridsolar1.com/
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