re: #112 Mattand

I haven’t heard this before. Everything I’ve been told and read agrees with what Philly Pretzel said: the cold makes the panels more efficient, basically like water cooling on a computer chip.

We have solar and use an app to monitor its intake. I would imagine there’s someway to figure out the winter vs summer efficiency of the panels. Given how well it’s working overall, it’s probably not something losing sleep over.

Solar panels are designed to operate with the most efficiency with the sun directly hitting the panel at a direct 90 degree angle. Efficiency is reduced as the sunlight angle is increased due to the sun rising or setting. That’s why the huge commercial solar farms have mechanical devices which will tilt or raise the panels to meet the direct sunlight. The commercial solar farms also are designed to move the panels from east to west to follow the direct sunlight as the earth rotates during the day.

Here in Juneau, in June the sun rises (about 0300) in the NNE and rotates around to NNW to set (about 2230). The path the sun follows is just about directly above us so adjusting solar panels just need to be flat to capture the most sunlight.

In the winter (December), the sun rises from the SSE (about 0930) and sets in the SSW (about 1500). At midday, the sun barely rises 15 degrees above the horizon. To operate the solar panels at this time of year would require them to be almost vertical to operate. And that depends on whether or not the sun is shining. This past winter we had no more than 20 days with any extended periods of sunshine.

So, yes, solar panels will and are operating up here but they will never be the total answer.

Wind and hydro will power Alaska in the future.