Virtual tracking

mountainman

What is the best settings to virtual track.
My main array is at 180.
What degrees should morning or afternoon panels be aimed? 
I get sun from sunrise to about 5 pm summer or winter. Latitude is 32.14 n.

BB.

Play with a solar calculation program and see what the overall harvest is... You will lose some harvest, but the more hours of harvest is better for charging lead acid batteries.

The big problem for many folks is low sun angle in winter and possible shading (trees, structures, mountains)... So tracking may be shaded and not gain much in the way of time on charge.

Pvwatts does give you estimated harvest by day and time... If in winter afternoon sun goes away after 2pm, you can see how much harvest is lost.

https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/

Bill

mountainman

On the shortest days dec pv watts at 62° at 180. 4.71 hours
160 sse and ssw at 200° gives 4.5 hours very little lost.
With such short days and la needing long charge times. Shouldn't it help some.
I understand it would be more effective in summer.
What altitude  does the sun become substantially effective 15° or so?

 

MichaelK

Instead of guessing at the best angles, azmiths, ect, just build an adjustable array and work out the numbers in the real world.  Here is the array frame I built, which is both daily and seasonally adjustable.  You can occupy your time generating all the real-world data you want about what's optimal.