Should solar PV panels face west to produce more power to reduce utility peak demand?

Posted by Laura Arnold  /   November 18, 2013  /   Posted in solar, Uncategorized  /   No Comments

Are Solar Panels Facing the Wrong Direction?

Are Solar Panels Facing the Wrong Direction?

New study finds that west-facing panels are far superior for cutting peak demand.

Katherine Tweed
November 14, 2013

West-facing rooftop solar panels produced 49 percent more electricity during peak demand compared to south-facing panels, according to a new study from Pecan Street Research Institute.

The research is the first of its kind to evaluate the energy production of solar panels oriented in different directions. Pecan Street analyzed 50 homes in the Austin, Texas area. Some had only south-facing panels, others had west-facing panels, and some had both.

South-facing panels produced a 54 percent peak reduction overall, while west-facing solar PV panels produced a 65 percent peak reduction.

“There’s no other residential demand response tool generating 60 percent reductions,” said Brewster McCracken, CEO of Pecan Street. “Those are pretty extraordinary peak reductions.”

When the data was normalized for a 5.5-kilowatt system, the panels turned to the west generated nearly 50 percent more electricity during peak demand hours than did their southern-facing counterparts.

Homes with west-facing systems also produced slightly more electricity, with those panels producing 37 percent of total daily electricity use, compared to 35 percent for the south-facing panels.

During times of peak demand, which is defined as 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. in Texas's ERCOT territory, 84 percent of electricity in west-facing systems was used in the home.

The information could help inform utility rebate programs for rooftop solar panels and demand response programs. Most homes currently have south-facing panels. For the research, Pecan Street paid a premium to participants to induce them to turn their panels westward. If more utilities were to move to dynamic pricing models, where power cost more during days of high peak demand, west-facing panels could potentially be more attractive to certain households with high peak loads.

The next round of research will also include information about the pitch of the roof. Panels on flat roofs tend to have higher rates of electricity generation, but most homes in the U.S. have pitched roofs, as did all of the participants in the first study. Pecan Street will also look beyond Austin in the next stage of the study. McCracken said there are plans to include homes in Colorado, Dallas and potentially California.

Most of the world’s solar panels are facing the wrong direction

Quartz • November 15, 2013 • ,,,

By Christopher Mims @mims 5 hours ago

 AP Photo/Franklin Reyes

You’d think it would be easy: the sun is “up,” and, like leaves and basking reptiles, solar panels should face in that general direction. But most installers of solar panels, especially the ones for homes, follow conventional wisdom handed down from architects, which holds that in the northern hemisphere, windows and solar panels should face south.

This makes intuitive sense since it would seem to maximize the amount of sunlight a panel will get as the sun tracks from one horizon to the other. But it isn’t true, at least according to a single study of homes in Austin, Texas. The Pecan Street Research Institute found that homeowners who aimed their panels toward the west, instead of the south, generated 2% more electricity over the course of a day.

More importantly, those west-facing panels reduced household electricity usage during the times when electricity is most expensive—and power grids are most likely to become overloaded—by 65%, while south-facing panels only reduced usage during those times by 54%. In Texas, as in most places, those “peak times” are from 3pm to 7pm, and correspond with the heat of the day.

It’s obvious that west-facing solar panels produce more electricity later in the day, when the sun is setting in the west, but quantifying the way that favoring late-day sunlight helps homeowners save money and utilities flatten out demand could lead to a simple but effective hack for the world’s solar installers: Simply re-orienting solar panels could shorten the amount of time it takes for them to pay for themselves.

 

Post a Comment

Your email address will not be published.

*

* Copy This Password *

* Type Or Paste Password Here *

Copyright 2013 IndianaDG