has anyone thought about using a mirror or reflector so when the suns on the east you reflect that onto your west panels or vice versa? that could actually make a east/west system better than north?
Just thinking from a logical point of view, it would seem that if you had the room to put up mirror reflectors you would also have room to place panels to capture the suns rays.
The other thing that comes to my mind would be in order to keep the beam of sunlight aimed at your panels the mirrors would have to track the suns movement.
My third thought is what a nuisance the reflection could turn out to be especially if not accurately aimed at the panels as the earth moves and the reflection angle changes throughout the day.
It doesn’t seem to be a practical remedy in my mind. I think if it were me I would seek a more optimum panel placement.
You are not the first with the idea of mirrors:
Mine panels are towards the east. When I tried to give then evening sun with one mirror (1 x 0.5 meter) the effect was that the system went to even lower powers. I want to explane this in that part of the system opens to let the current flow while another part has no sun and will not let the current pass.
So indeed, large enough and perfectly aimed It could work. But that is not realistic.
If you want panels aimed at the sun all times, let them float on water and let them circle around once througout each day.
In most cases more panels is a better solution than tracking and what you propose would not work without tracking, it probably would not make it past your building department or neighbors. You could probably replace the mirror with panels at less money and more performance. If you do not have neighbors, a ground mount with more panels is a much better solution. You can also damage panels by exposing them to concentrated light.
trying to think outside the box.
limited to the amount of kw i can connect to the grid so trying to suss out what other options there are
My system has two strings and one is split between NE and SW, 5 panels each. The NE panels are in shadow from about 2:30 PM to sunset. It also has individual mppt’s per panel which helps improve the response of the string to shading. In summer the two strings are much closer in production since the intense sunlight is about equal on both strings. However, in Winter the split string only produces about half as much power.