Hi! I just now joined this forum as i want to get serious about planning a solar system for our home here in the mountains around Lake Tahoe. Our next vehicles will be electric and we're interested in being part of the climate solution versus the problem. So putting some $ and area to generate power makes sense. We're on the grid so whatever we do will contribute rather than power all our needs (unless we can). I'm a retired design engineer and a project guy so putting together something like this just sounds fun!
Our situation is less than ideal for mounting: pine trees, snow 1/3 the year, an unfriendly house roof. Hence am thinking of a top-of-pole design in our side yard that would be designed for optimum efficiency.
As a senior project towards my electrical engineering degree a million years ago i designed and built a solar tracker using simple digital electronics, a solar cell and a window motor out of a junked Cadillac.
So I'm wondering about building a mechanized pole mount system that would automatically tilt and rotate to keep panels at 90deg to sun. Something like a 16 X 96 C system. So my questions to the forum are:
1) Has anyone built such a system that could provide some guidance?
2) Can such a system be purchased in part or in whole rather than going from scratch?
3) I'm also not sure the added efficiency would be worth the effort, so wondering if there is data out there on optimized panel positioning?
Thanks!
Paul
Our situation is less than ideal for mounting: pine trees, snow 1/3 the year, an unfriendly house roof. Hence am thinking of a top-of-pole design in our side yard that would be designed for optimum efficiency.
As a senior project towards my electrical engineering degree a million years ago i designed and built a solar tracker using simple digital electronics, a solar cell and a window motor out of a junked Cadillac.
So I'm wondering about building a mechanized pole mount system that would automatically tilt and rotate to keep panels at 90deg to sun. Something like a 16 X 96 C system. So my questions to the forum are:
1) Has anyone built such a system that could provide some guidance?
2) Can such a system be purchased in part or in whole rather than going from scratch?
3) I'm also not sure the added efficiency would be worth the effort, so wondering if there is data out there on optimized panel positioning?
Thanks!
Paul