Hows your Sky View?
Where you are in the world has a large impact on your solar array.
Tilt, azimuth and sky view are all crucial for the correct deployment of solar photovoltaics and the design of appropriate technical solutions to meet client needs.
SkyView can only be estimated with a physical site visit, during which a full physical site evaluation should take place.
The question posed is “what can you see from where you are?”.
SkyView should never be ignored even if you are installing a very small solar PV system.
Solar Applications
Producing quick solar proposals from a software application is a reasonable way to communicate with customers as long as the proposer understands the ruleset which has been implemented in software.
These quick proposals MUST ALSO BE qualified and quantified by a site visit.
Eyes on the SkyView are essential when installing a solar PV system.
Make sure your installer, electrician or preferably your solar engineer has a clear understanding of the SkyViewFactor before you make your solar PV investment.
Anything else is substandard and should be discouraged. Showing up at the client site for the first time only to take a deposit, or worse still .. visiting the site only on the day of installation should be particularly discouraged.
Case Study: “Special Made in Italy”
The electrician told us the solar mount was “special made in Italy“, which is always nice to hear but doesn’t change the laws of interplanetary motion.
Johannes Kepler had those fully explained by 1609.
Italian made is quality made, no doubt, and “special made in Italy” has connotations of Red Ferrari which should really only apply to a Red Ferrari or something equally beautiful.
In fact “special made in Italy” cannot change the laws of physics, and certainly doesn’t disappear the hill you built your home beside.
The house with the solar array was located in a landscape that looked like a ‘bowl’, ie the house was surrounded on three sides (East, South and West) by a hill which rose to over 50 metres in places and had a forest on one side adding 5 or 10 more metres.
The house never saw the sun until 10am at the earliest, and it was gone again by 4pm at the latest.
Conditions were obviously worse in Winter when the days shorten.
The heavily restricted SkyView was exacerbated further by the shallow tilt-angle of the array’s mounting system made for Italian latitudes.
At best, we estimated the SkyViewFactor at < 50% or < 0.5, which meant that the homeowner certainly received less than HALF what they were told to expect by the electrician.
It was clear from our discussion that the electrician responsible for the installation did not have a grasp of the software that was prescribed by the grant agency to produce estimates for grantees.
Sadly for the customer, nobody is checking in after the fact to ensure the system performs to specifications.
This is just one small project, containing a series of errors, without any oversight or accountability whatsoever, which led to a customer spending €20,000 on a solar PV system that fell drastically short of expectations.
WHERE DOES THIS CUSTOMER TURN?
When you spend €20,000 on your solar PV system, what this means in reality is that you have spent €20,000 on your electricity which you believe the solar PV system is going to produce for you.
If your electricity bills are the same or worse post installation – where do you turn?
Get what you paid for!
One of our services helps clients identify specific issues causing a solar PV system to underperform.
This is a service we are happy to provide for clients as otherwise the system continues to underperform for the 20 – 30 year life of the project.
You’ve installed a solar PV system.
You were told to expect a certain amount in production values but it’s not performing to expectations. What do you do?
We can determine the “why” for your underperformance, and help you determine how fix it.
You’ve already paid for the electricity and you should get what you paid for. Right?
Contact Us today to arrange a site evaluation!
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