Hi Everyone. I got my solar panels installed a few months ago and now that spring time is approaching, I was wondering how much of an impact removing certain trees would have.
Would someone be able to explain what this sun path image of my system means in layman’s terms?
Thank you!
Azimuth - because I’m in the Southern Hemisphere an ideal Azimuth is 360 degrees. My panels face 10 degrees which means that my Azimuth is 350 degrees. I don’t know what the shaded bits are below 30 elevation, I’m assuming those are your shading from your trees. If you remove those tress that are within the winter and summer solstice you will increase your PV panel exposure - hence getting more solar power.
Look at this page to see the daylight mapped to time of the year… https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/@4844466
I’m actually trying to figure out if the shaded portions represent shading from the trees around my home.
If that’s true, my interpretation is that removing the trees that I can between the 60-120 azimuth below the 30 elevation would make an almost year round improvement.
I’ve found this image that contains time of day:
Looks like someone used the following tool to produce your picture: http://www.solmetric.com/buy210.html
Looks like those shaded areas are your shaded areas from your trees. But all I’m doing is speculating.
The primary difference would come in the winter months: when the sun is low in the sky the trees will interfere with the sun’s light directed at the panels. Given that there are no leaves on the trees at that time of year the impact may be less than you would think (though still significant). You could take out trees affecting between 10 AM and 2 PM. You need to weigh the cost of removal against the improved production. At $.17/kW, it would take many years to recover the expense of tree removal. Also, do you derive any benefit from the trees–aesthetic, cooling from shade, sound buffer, etc. I had a side trunk removed from a pine immediately behind my ground mount that cost $400. My action was aimed at protecting the array from possible storm damage rather than for increased production. I live in Essex, CT, so I imagine tree/branch removal costs are comparable to yours.
Thank you everyone for the replies!
Could someone please tell how to get these graph with consideration of trees and buildings using python?
