Maximising power output from solar panels

Although I am not in the alternative energy industry, I would have to lean towards the MPPT option. For stationary panels, the MPPT option is best for choosing the best location for maximum output.

However, the solar tracker helps keep the direct sunlight on the panel longer at the cost of moving the panel. If the energy used to move the panel can be optimised, then this might be best.

It also depend on the solar cell tech too. Some cells can handle collecting from indirect sunlight.

C

Hi, James.

I think that the loss of productivity is associated with the occurrence of the thermal noise due to heating solar panels.
The solution - is to cool solar panels to a temperature , eliminating the appearance of thermal noise in a semiconductor crystal, if possible.

One big lost  is the use of inverter but lot of thing run on 12v or under. After the wall wart lost power again and they use power when is not in use. Lot of home electronic use 12v but have internal power supply to use 120v ac. maybe we need 12v line in the new(green) home.

do and wind solar ,water wheel if ur near a river or look in to hh2 gen

Sounds good to me, but the amount of copper would be more to use 12v since you lose more power in the line for a given power transmission. Think about it, to send 100watts through the line you would need a current of 100/12amps. To send 100watts at 240v you would need a current of 100/240 which is much less, and the less current you pass, the less copper you use. If every house had a 12v supply the extra copper needed would be enormous. Yes it would be safer, but AC is much safer than DC. My own solution would be to use the DC 12v to charge a battery, you don't need a very large panel to charge a rechargeable battery, and then you would have a cheap 12v DC power supply for you to use for your experiments, but remember to use a fuse rated around 10 amps in series or you might blow up the components (accidentally of course).

To maximise power output from renewables you should indeed use all available sources. Solar is a good start since it is all solid state and hence extremely reliable and low maintenance. It's just a matter of time before the whole world goes over to solar, in my opinion. I can see enormous tracts of hitherto useless land generating enormous amounts of energy which will be distributed through DC high voltage lines, and of course every household will have its own panels and power control electronics.

Thermal noise is a problem in signal circuitry but in power circuitry it is smoothed by capacitance in the regulator circuitry, however thermal noise can be a problem when the silicon gets to a temperature where thermal runaway takes place, shorting the plates. Fortunately silicon has a very high critical temperature.

While I don't know what mppt stands for, possibly micro-processor... I think that a very good use for micro-solar harvesting technology would be to monitor solar intensity and hence solar variation and hence generate error signals to control servo motors etc etc

MPPT stand for 'Maximum Peak Power Tracking'. Because the peak power output voltage from a solar panel varies with the incident radiation and with temperature it does not always coincide with the battery voltage so a direct connection of the panel to a battery results is a reduction in available charge. The MPPT controller uses a variable DC-DC converter to allow the panel output voltage to be optimised under microprocessor control. This typically gives a 15-20% improvement in charge current. The Outback power 'Flexmax 60' is a good example of such a controller.

With many inverters having efficiences better than 95% I don't think you can say this is a big loss.  If you don't want to upgrade wiring sizes to use the lower voltage (12V or 24/48VDC) then an inverter is the only way to go, sure you get double conversions taking place but in most cases the loss is small enough to not be an issue.  Systems size obviously needs to take any losses into account but generous oversizing always seems to be the best policy anyway.  I run my house as such and don't find that there is anything I am concerned about and the system will have more than paid for itself after 5 years of use.  At 5 years plus I am expecting to see ageing effects with the batteries and they will eventually require replacement but that is a minimal expense given the overall benefits.