solar panels facing both south and west

49 Posts

Apr 16, 2009 09:45 pm

James from alt-e I hope you read this, I asked questions in the past and here are the results of the power produced by 6 208watt sharp panels facing south on a 30 degree angle and 3 208watt sharp facing west at 50 degrees going into the same combiner box and using the same charge controller outback 60
the date was 4/11/09 in northern Wisconsin.these are average at the times because it fluctuated.
10:14 am all 9 panels on 1010 watts.
only 6 south facing on 988 watts.
11:00 am all 9 on 1213 watts.
only 6 south facing on 1114 watts.
12:10 pm all 9 on 1450 watts.
only 6 south facing on 1230 watts.
1:40pm all 9 on 1650 watts.
3:20 pm all 9 on 1102 watts.
only 6 facing south on 1088 watts.
only 3 facing west on 541 watts.
5:20 pm all 9 on 812 watts.
only 6 facing south on 302 watts.
only 3 facing west on 612 watts.

This tells me its not optimum for all the panel power but
it helps still and in the evening when I use more it charges the batteries nicer. Also the snow melted off the steep west ones first about 1.5 months ago. but snow still was on all them through the winter. I thought you would appreciate the info. Jim A.

James Cormican

578 Posts

Apr 17, 2009 08:50 am

Re: solar panels facing both south and west

interesting.

how were you monitoring the wattage of each group separately?
penta metric or something? if you were measuring instantaneous wattage, did you measure cumulative energy such as watt hours generated per section?

I am glad that it went up okay and you had fun with the data, but i think the two mppt controller solution would provide optimum energy harvest.

cheers,

james
altE staff

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James Anspaugh

49 Posts

Apr 17, 2009 11:15 pm

Re: solar panels facing both south and west

I have the 6 on one fuse and the 3 west on another but in the same combiner box. So I could run to the garage and flip one fuse off then run to the basement and read the mppt controller. Up and down many times. But your right about the 2 controllers working better I just dont like the Idea of running another line to the basement. The one I have we put in while it was being built.

James Anspaugh

49 Posts

Apr 17, 2009 11:20 pm

Re: solar panels facing both south and west

Actually I have enough energy for Fridge, washer, dryer dishwasher chandelier outside lights, well pump.fans, no air conditioner though. and no electric heating: for all summer. Just in winter the generator runs 15hrs a month average charging up the batteries.

James Cormican

578 Posts

Apr 18, 2009 03:06 pm

Re: solar panels facing both south and west

just a few points

when you say fuse, just for those reading, if you mean supplementary overcurrent for series strings in the combiner, those fuses cant be disconnected safely under load. hopefully you opened the circuit with the pv disconnect before any fuse pulling, or you meant din rail breakers in the combiner.

regarding that you ran one "line" did you mean wires or conduit run?. many combiners can have two outputs, such as a flexware pv8, so even if it was one conduit run, a future two controller solution may be possible if you so desired. In order to do that, you would have to do conduit fill calcs, and perhaps do a new wire run from combiner to dc load center. if you used a conduit size larger than 1/2in, it is likely that you could have the setup for two controllers without ripping out the conduit if you wanted it. if not, no big deal, as we discussed, it is a performance issue, not a safety one. and the discussion is fun for the forum, and fun as a design challenge. as always, thanks for writing in.

james
altE staff

AltE
"Making Renewable Do-able"
http://www.altEstore.com/

Tel: 877.878.4060 x107 or +1.978.562.5858 x107
Fax: 877.242.6718 or +1.978.562.5854

James Anspaugh

49 Posts

Apr 18, 2009 09:04 pm

Re: solar panels facing both south and west

thanks for the clarity, it was the breakers. I should have run conduit but only ran a heavy wire I don,t remember the guage but it was heavy. lessons learned, conduit next time. thanks Jim

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solar panels facing both south and west

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