diy solar

diy solar

2nd day overcast sky .........

J

JamesW

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Jul 14, 2023
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Planet X
Here in paradise it's the second overcast day and I'm probably going to produce 500 watts output from a 6500 watt array. What fun, eh?

It occurs to me that an enormous amount of energy is still striking the earth since I have several miles visibility. So, what frequency bands are hiding all this energy? Would it be possible to create or tune solar panels to produce on overcast days -- or -- is this just a pipe dream?
 
JamesW said:
... since I have several miles visibility. So, what frequency bands are hiding all this energy? Would it be possible to create or tune solar panels to produce on overcast days -- or -- is this just a pipe dream?
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It's not frequency bands hiding energy, it's clouds. Luminance on the surface of the earth is significantly reduced. Yes you can still see a long way, but eyes are good at seeing in low light / low energy conditions.

Solar panels produce on cloudy days, it's just that they're only getting 10% of the luminance than on a sunny day.

Only solution is 10x more panel area or move your panels above the clouds.
 
ill admit 500 watts seems very low. We just had 3 cloudy days along with rain. We received 1.5kw,2kw,3kw. Our array is 4000w.

The panels which helped the most were the ones facing west. It seemed around 3-4pm the clouds would clear a little bit.
 
yodamota said:
ill admit 500 watts seems very low. We just had 3 cloudy days along with rain. We received 1.5kw,2kw,3kw. Our array is 4000w.
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You got 3kW from 4kWp of panels during cloud and rain ??? Wow... I want to buy some of those panels :)
 
I think we're all just spoiled. The fact that we can generate any electricity at all, from sunlight, is pretty darn impressive. :whistle:
 
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