Useful Solar Data
Next week I'll be dry camping in Q for 3 days and this will be my first "real" solar experience. I've got 3x250W panels and a MPPT60 controller. As a learning experience what data would be useful t...
Forum Discussion
CA Traveler wrote:
BFL,
During the time and location for my chart the sun elevation would have changed from about 47 to 50 degrees elevation. And 50 degrees is the maximum elevation so that the curve is flatter during the time of the chart than earlier.
Also since the sun evelation reaches it's maximum at 12:00 and the ambient temperature was 65F it seems likey that this increase in in sun elevation was more of a factor in the slight increase in amp output vs panel temperature during the time of the chart. However, regardless I have no way to measure panel temmperature or actual radiation levels other that as I have noted it was a blue sky.
At any rate as a solar newbie I'm pleased with this output. My goal was 45A during the summer and perhaps I'll exceed that. My hope/planning was for the 3 flat mounted panels to be equivalent to 2 panels. Nothing would be better than to exceed my conservative estimates.
I also was comparing 11-12 when the Salvo graph is when noon is 13 so it would be 12-13 for comparison. There is a 15 degree change in the sun's bearing every hour though regardless of altitude change in that hour.
I was wondering if there was some sort of flat-topping going on due to controller settings or whatever. Have to wait for more readings later in the year.
Three flat can more than out-do two tilted south. My figures at the time were 56AH flat and 70AH tilted, so two tilted would be 140AH and three flat would be 168AH
To be equal to 140AH, you would need two flat at 112 plus another 28 and 28 is about half 56 so about 2.5 panels flat in that case. Of course the difference between flat and tilted is highly variable over the year and locations, so three flat should do it much of the time if not all the time.
