Tilting Solar Panel
I did a little experiment. I have a new poly 100 watt panel. Before installing I tilted the panel to face directly into the sun. 19.6 volts. I tilted it the same angle, but away from the s...
Forum Discussion
profdant139 wrote:
Interesting discussion! I wonder why home solar panels aren't built to track the sun -- they are almost always stationary. My guess is that the cost and maintenance of tracking outweigh the gain in extra power.
if the panels are facing south, and your in most of the U.S. normal roof pitch of 4/12 to 6/12 gives a pretty good angle to start with, so there isn't much to be gained. And if the panels are layed out to tilt very much you need to take into account a shadow of a lower panel on an upper panel. So in some cases, panel spacing needs to increase which decreases the number of panels so there is little advantage, possibly actually a loss.
Large arrays where area is not a big limitation often do have trackers.
