Setting center angle for solar panels
Northwest Angle, Minnesota (49.38457°N) is the most northerly latitude in the contiguous 48. Key West, Florida (24.544701°N)is the most southerly latitude in the contiguous 48. So if you wanted ...
Forum Discussion
There is the mistaken notion that if the panels are not perpendicular to the sun that a great deal of light is lost. The solar panels' cells are designed to maximize the conversion of sunlight and to be as impervious to the angle of entry as possible.
There is not nearly enough of a gain in most situations to bother with tiling the panels as this would not only need to be done based on the latitude of the location but also based on the time of day. Commercial racking will have a computer control to track the sun and adjust the tilt and rotate the panels throughout the day.
I use less than 30% of my panels output and the remaining 70% is shunted away by the controller. Increasing their output by tilting would only mean that more of the output was being lost on any given day.
For my part I focus on reducing consumption inside the RV.
There is not nearly enough of a gain in most situations to bother with tiling the panels as this would not only need to be done based on the latitude of the location but also based on the time of day. Commercial racking will have a computer control to track the sun and adjust the tilt and rotate the panels throughout the day.
I use less than 30% of my panels output and the remaining 70% is shunted away by the controller. Increasing their output by tilting would only mean that more of the output was being lost on any given day.
For my part I focus on reducing consumption inside the RV.
