bob prohaska
2023-09-11 19:09:11 UTC
[Not to be confused with "shingled solar panels"]
It looks relatively straightforward to mount solar panels so they
can shed rain when pitched for lattitude. This doesn't seem to be
common practice and I'm wondering why. Some additional flashing
will be needed to finish the edges, but it does not look extensive.
Overlapping the panels by the width of the frame will let them shed
water with no loss in exposure, use of bifacial panels would add some
output if the area beneath is relatively open. The panels will be
canted slightly relative to the mounting plane, so spacers to fill the
gaps will be desirable if not required.
The missing piece of the puzzle is hardware to mount the panels
with a frame-width overlap. All that I've found is for side-by-side
mounting.
The prospective motivation is a shade structure over my back patio.
A big shade tree has been declining for years, when it finally has
to go something to replace it will be urgently wanted. A PV patio
cover might be an entertaining, if expensive, experiment. Water
shedding would make the space underneath much more useful.
Thanks for reading, and any thoughts.
bob prohaska
It looks relatively straightforward to mount solar panels so they
can shed rain when pitched for lattitude. This doesn't seem to be
common practice and I'm wondering why. Some additional flashing
will be needed to finish the edges, but it does not look extensive.
Overlapping the panels by the width of the frame will let them shed
water with no loss in exposure, use of bifacial panels would add some
output if the area beneath is relatively open. The panels will be
canted slightly relative to the mounting plane, so spacers to fill the
gaps will be desirable if not required.
The missing piece of the puzzle is hardware to mount the panels
with a frame-width overlap. All that I've found is for side-by-side
mounting.
The prospective motivation is a shade structure over my back patio.
A big shade tree has been declining for years, when it finally has
to go something to replace it will be urgently wanted. A PV patio
cover might be an entertaining, if expensive, experiment. Water
shedding would make the space underneath much more useful.
Thanks for reading, and any thoughts.
bob prohaska