Any good in the winter

 
 
 
 
 
 
baguette
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Any good in the winter

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Posted: 27.12.2017  ·  #1
Many people wonder how much the will get out of a solar panel in the winter, when the days are short and the sun is low in the sky.

I'm at Mazarron in Spain at N37.56° and have 2X100 watt panels.
Last week on mid-winters day the controller was reading about 45 watts at 11.00 am, it went up to about 60 watts by noon and back to about 45 watts by 3.00 pm. At the time the sky was clear with uninterrupted sunshine.

At home in Ireland on a clear mid-summers day the controller will show up to 190 watts.

The controller fitted is ONE OF THESE


Robbie
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Re: Any good in the winter

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Posted: 28.12.2017  ·  #2
thats interesting, we also have 2 x 100w panels which fed into Alden controllers and did notice the drop in charge at the end of Nov and into dec while in Spain, I bought another SOLARPOD 120W , its a folding portable one which I though would work better being pointed directly at the sun with the low orbit in winter. Its quite heavy though and bulky so contemplating fitting it on the roof on tilting brackets.


Thorn123
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Re: Any good in the winter

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Posted: 28.12.2017  ·  #3
A neighbour of my home place was considering in converting his farm to a solar generation site about a year ago. Nearly everyone in the locality thought that the development would be a folly.
After the farmer discussed the project with a few neighbours, I got an education.
Since about 3/4 of Irish wind comes from the Atlantic ocean, the upper atmosphere over Ireland is very clean of pollution. However most of the upper atmosphere covering mainland Europe has industrial air pollution and dust from Africa in it. At winter time with the sun low in the sky, this pollution affects the efficiency of solar panels. Surprisingly this gives Ireland an advantage in solar power generation.
Just to finish, the proposed solar farm is on hold, because the local council doesn't have planning guidelines for solar farms. It would only happen in Ireland.
Malcolm


baguette
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Re: Any good in the winter

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Posted: 28.12.2017  ·  #4
For the wild campers out there.

Although I'm on a campsite with EHU I have the on-board charger turned off.
However, the solar is easily covering the demand from lighting (all LED), running the Truma heater as required and water pumping. We also have a 12v telly in the bed area which is on for a few hours each night. The sat box and main telly are on mains, but if I were to use the inverter for them I recon the solar would probably cover them too.
The engine battery is also kept full even though we use the dash radio a lot.


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