Optimising your solar panel design
 

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Your roof is unique. Ensure your solar installation is too.

Orientation, roof pitch, shading, positioning of the panels & optimisers (if needed) and how your system is strung together will all affect how your system performs.


Placement of the panels & which panels to use.

It may seem obvious but identifying where to place your panels and which panels to use is an important consideration.

There are 100s of panels available on the market, they’ll all vary in size and whether or not they can be fitted in portrait/landscape or both. Some important questions to consider…

Which combination of panels and which layout will result in the most coverage?

How will shadows be cast onto my roof as the sun moves throughout the day/year? Which panels are affected? This will vary with your roof’s orientation!

Do I get a better yield by moving the panels to other sections of the roof?

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(left) 4.0 kW 10 x 400W 21% efficient panels. Not an optimal fit.
(right) 4.68 kW 12 x 390W 20.69% efficient panels. Best fit.


Shading

Knowing the levels of irradiation is key to a good system design. Avoiding lower irradiance and maximising coverage where the model shows higher levels of irradiance will have a large impact on your energy production.

In the example (right) you can see how our modelling is able to identify irradiance. Brighter reds are higher levels of irradiance, darker areas have a lower irradiance. This effect is compounded as solar panels are wired in series (think a hose pipe and the shaded panel being a hole in the hose pipe). 

Understanding where the ‘holes’ are is key to identify where to place optimsers.

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Shading makes the south-facing roof less optimal.


Optimisers

Going back to our ‘hose pipe’ analogy, we now know how to identify the holes, now how do we plug the holes or make them smaller?

The key advantage to using optimsers is that it stops an underperforming panel from bringing down the performance of the entire system. We use our modelling to ensure we only use optimisers where it’s necessary and boosts ROI.

  • We use TIGO smart optimisers.
  • You do not need to optimise every panel. (optimisers use power so optimising every panel could actually decrease performance!)
  • Generate up to 36% more energy than an unoptimised panel.
  • 25-year warranty on every optimiser.
     

The two examples (right) show the difference in production when 2 x TIGO optimisers are added to the two panels affected by shading from a chimney.

Once the optimisers are fitted, the system produces:

  • 118 kWh more energy per year. 
  • 2950 kWh over the 25-year life of the optimisers.
  • Worth £162.25 - £501.50 depending on whether you use the electricity. 

Not bad for a £70 cost!

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