If you’re mounting solar panels, everybody knows the drill, right? Point them south, angled according to latitude. It’s easy. In a video which demonstrates that [Everyday Dave] is truly out standing in his field, we hear a different story. [Dave] has a year’s worth of data in his Solar Panel Showdown that suggests there are good reasons to mount your panels vertically.
Specifically, [Dave] is using bifacial solar panels– panels that have cells on both sides. In his preferred orientation, one side faces South, while the other faces North. [Dave] is in the Northern Hemisphere, so those of you Down Under would have to do the opposite, pointing one face North and the other South.
Since [Dave] is far from the equator, the N/S vertical orientation beats the pants off of East-West facing panels, especially in winter. What’s interesting is how much better the bifacial panels do compared to the “standard” tilted orientation. While peak power in the summer is much better with the tilted bifacial panels (indeed, even the tilted single-sided panels), in winter the vertical N/S panels blow them out of the water. (Especially when snow gets involved. Vertical panels don’t need sweeping!)
Even in the summer, though, there are advantages: the N/S panels may produce less power overall, but they give a trickle earlier and later in the day than the tilted orientation. Still, that extra peak power really shows, and over a six-month period from solstice-to-solstice, the vertical panels only produced 77% what the tilted bifacial panels did (while tilted single-sided panels produced 90%).
Is it worth it? That depends on your use case. If most of the power is going to A/C, you’ll need the extra in the warmer months. In that case, you want to tilt the panels. If you have a steady, predictable load, though, having even production winter/summer might be more to your liking– in that case you can join [Dave] in sticking solar panels straight up and down.
These results probably apply at latitudes similar to [Dave] who is in cloudy and snowy Ohio, which is perhaps not the ideal place for solar experimentation. If you’re not an Ohio-like distance from the equator, you might find an East-West array is the best bang for the buck. Of course if you really want to max out power from each individual cell, you can’t beat sun tracking regardless of where you are.
Some of us live in the Southern hemisphere.. ;)
For USA people, there is only one country in the world. Their.
” [Dave] is in the Northern Hemisphere, so those of you Down Under would have to do the opposite, pointing one face North and the other South.”
One word: wind.
I’ve not watched the video. Keeping large sail like panels vertical in areas with high winds for 20 years will require some major anchoring and very deep foundations. And the risk of shadows across multiple cells from guy wires means that they can not be used.
I attached mine to a pre-existing vertical structure with large sail-like panels, a fence.
” [Dave] is using bifacial solar panels– panels that have cells on both sides. In his preferred orientation, one side faces South, while the other faces North. [Dave] is in the Northern Hemisphere, so those of you Down Under would have to do the opposite, pointing one face North and the other South.”
It’s the same orientation.
Figured that was a joke, right?
whoosh
Welcome to the joke. We hope you like it here
1 ….. i thought it was a great joke (unless it was an error). Not nearly enough humor on Hackaday :(
Look up.
I guess this North/South or South/North orientation only really pays off in the snow. For most of the planet, you are wasting your time putting 50% of your capacity into permanent shadow.
Not totally true – Up here in Finland, during the summer the sun can be in the south from early morning to early evening and in the north the other side of the day.
I have two panels on the roof of a storeroom/workshop/shed with two panels, one facing due south, the other not-quite due north as it faces the big gap in the trees. Both panels are mounted vertically too.
The system works very well.
not watched video either, but the graph that is visible indicated a january day, when the sun would be very low in the sky
You won’t believe it, but in 12 minutes of video there’s (gasp!) more than one graph
I would try adding a mirror for the back side.
The show did ;)
Snow, … auto correct
well. im curious how this scales without making a interesting high building in the process. I saw a similar experiment here in the netherlands in passing by to my work place, but i have no idea what the conclusions were.the group of panels were quite close together, so only the non obstructed panels would have a optimum effect.
i have two 500wp panels installed like a short fence. around 1000kwh/year with peaks at 4.6kwh/day. Setup costs euro 400,- including inverter (with wifi)
I’d like to see more data on this idea, not just one sunny day in January. For example, how do the orientations compare on cloudy days with more ambient sunlight?
The main problem with vertical – apart from the wind – is you’d need a nice empty farm to put them in..
I suspect vertical would also work better at a higher latitude..
I’m in Aus close to the tropic line – so in summer the sun is straight up – and what I’ve done is put panels on the east, west, and north. So at the spring equinox I get power from 6am till 5.30pm. And from 8am till 4pm more power than I can use..
If only we could have a breakthrough in batteries I could get rid of the grid…