Solar Energy Yield for Three Mounting Systems
Requires a Wolfram Notebook System
Interact on desktop, mobile and cloud with the free Wolfram Player or other Wolfram Language products.
This Demonstration compares daily solar energy yield obtained with five type of mounting systems: fixed (yellow) , horizontal (orange dashed), polar (blue dashed), vertical axis (red dashed), and two-axis tracker (green), based on solar data and latitude of the SunMine project in Kimberley, BC, Canada.
Contributed by: Michel de Spot (December 2013)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
Snapshots
Details
This graphic is provided in the context of the SunMine project in Kimberley. It compares the solar energy captured by five different solar panels' mounting systems:
• fixed at at an angle normally set to optimize the yearly energy yield,
• horizontal (rotating around an east-west axis),
• polar (rotating around an axis more or less parallel to the Earth's axis),
• vertical axis tracker ( a fixed-slope panel rotating from east to west to follow the sun's azimuth),
• dual axis ( following the sun in both directions (azimuth and elevation).
The graphic shows the total daily solar energy yield for the five systems, based on a clear sunny day, every day. Solar energy is composed of a varying proportion of direct and diffuse irradiation. The efficiencies of the trackers are greater on days with clear skies than on cloudy days.
Permanent Citation
"Solar Energy Yield for Three Mounting Systems"
http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/SolarEnergyYieldForThreeMountingSystems/
Wolfram Demonstrations Project
Published: December 4 2013