Tilt Angle and Spacing Between Rows - Solar PV Plant

Most Installers have a program that you input the info of the project and it gives you the tilt, angle, and how many panels you need to meet your MW value. If you are trying to do this on your own, you may need to work with a panel supplier to help with the program most panel dist. have the program.

Thanks John for your suggestion. I understand that for the preliminary estimation this method will be quite handy.

COULD YOU LET ME KNOW WHAT UNIT SHOULD NE TAKEN INTO CONSIDERATION FOR LENGTH OF THE PANEL WHILE CALCULATING PITCH

Can be practically anything. Just depends what's available.

Typically the spacing between panel rows is 2-3 times the vertical height of the panels above the ground.

I'm trying to build a 1Mw solar farm and asked this question previously here on CR4.

We found it wasn't so critical given all the other factors, cost of land per square foot, cost of panels per watt and watt production per square foot of land, etc (there's more). You plot all these out in a graph and you don't got a pointy peak showing the optimum but a curved range. There is also a point of diminishing returns on the spacing also depending on whether you use crystalline PV or Thin-film. We used thin-film cause it can still be very productive (50%) with the sun at nearly at a very off angle to it, so we didn't want any shading from the other rows, so we could space 3 times the height and not worry about returns cause the land was cheap.

Since you said you were setting the tilt to the latitude I presume you are using crystalline PV, our Thin-film is set to 20 degrees even though our Lat is 35.

Most programs out there to help are based on the performance of Crystalline PV, so they don't really apply very well to Thin-film.

Spacecannon

Remember that a long shadow will be cast early morning/late afternoon in winter.

Any shading will dramatically reduce output, so try for a spot with the longest exposure to unobstructed sunlight, failing that try to keep the panels shade free from at least 8am to 4pm every day.

Here in Australia we have a government site that gives us all manner of azimuths and elevations for the sun at all dates and times through out the year, maybe there is an equivalent site for India?

When I ran my site details through the PVWatts site I got 6º less than my latitude (34º) as my ideal fixed tilt angle (28º).

Good luck, Russell

Rainbow is most correct as you must take into account the shadow produced/cast by the proceeding panel on the Winter Solstice, the day in which the Sun reaches it's lower location in the sky....so take your "latitude" angle and add 23.5 degrees to it to find the final panel angle in order to capture the maximum amount of the Sun's radiant energy on that day, which will be much less than what the panels will receive during the summer months.

In the design of your solar farm make sure you can adjust each panels' pitch either manually or by motorized means in order to maximize your solar radiation capture throughout the yearly cycle. I suggest that you place the Solar PV panels on pole mounted array frames and use automatic sun tracking sensors and electrically operated actuators, etc.

BTW....the 23.5 degrees is the difference in the Earth's latitude between both the Equator and the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

Hope that helps you! Good luck!

Yes Guest, you're correct in your statement, but JohnDG didn't point out where the 23.5 came from in the formula he presented in his posting (#2), ie, it's basic re- valence to the discussion. I just explained in a bit more to expand the OP's knowledge base that's all.

Have a great sunny day!!!

As I said in spacecannon's thread http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/56242

can you build the farm on a slope or build a slope:-

thanks!