Just wondering what would be the best parking orientation to maximise the solar absorption if your getting the max solar pack. Or if Aptera will suggest best parking position to optimise efficient solar charge.
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Yeah, when I was looking to get my home PV installed, the first contractor on site trotted out all that fancy equipment - then put it away and tried to baffle me with BS about how happy I would be with the (easy) PV install on my garage roof; oriented some degrees north of due west. Assuming I was that rube lost him my business. What I eventually got was the perfectly oriented and angled ground mount that I needed, absent a reasonably close to ideal oriented roof. The modest added expense of that ground mount will keep paying me back in optimized average output for decades to come.
But really, with nothing more than a compass in your sEV (or an equivalent smart phone ap), and using that to optimize your parked vehicle’s north-south orientation best you can manage in any given parking circumstance, you are going to do as well as you might. No additional fangle required.
When they set my Solar PV panels in NJ they used a sophisticated Solar compass that not only confirmed the best position and production but highlight the lot’s perimeter trees in the nearby woods that could become problematic in the next decade
Lived there for thirteen wonderful years with no production issues
Back in the days of SRECs Solar Renewable Energy Credits = $$$ for annual production for making the investment
No tall trees now ...
Taken on a cloudy day in
“ these parts“50% less panels than back east, yet Net Zero living
The usual rule of thumb is to angle your PV panels towards the equator. For the full solar package equipped Aptera, the bulk of the PV cells appear to be on the hatch sloping towards the back of the vehicle, with a lot of the rest on the relatively level top of the cabin. In the northern hemisphere, parking that vehicle all day with the nose to the north will maximize the solar gain. Opposite for folks down under or in Africa, of course.
If you get the basic PV or the plus hood option you may want to reverse that orientation since then the bulk of the PV would be level or sloping towards the front.
If you are in the tropics, the diminishing returns of any particular orientation make it not worth the effort.
That’s rather fangled for what you could do equally well with a vertical oriented stick. Either one has to be leveled, and in the case of an Aptera’s PV, yields more information than you really need to know.
Yeah, when I was looking to get my home PV installed, the first contractor on site trotted out all that fancy equipment - then put it away and tried to baffle me with BS about how happy I would be with the (easy) PV install on my garage roof; oriented some degrees north of due west. Assuming I was that rube lost him my business. What I eventually got was the perfectly oriented and angled ground mount that I needed, absent a reasonably close to ideal oriented roof. The modest added expense of that ground mount will keep paying me back in optimized average output for decades to come.
But really, with nothing more than a compass in your sEV (or an equivalent smart phone ap), and using that to optimize your parked vehicle’s north-south orientation best you can manage in any given parking circumstance, you are going to do as well as you might. No additional fangle required.
When they set my Solar PV panels in NJ they used a sophisticated Solar compass that not only confirmed the best position and production but highlight the lot’s perimeter trees in the nearby woods that could become problematic in the next decade
Lived there for thirteen wonderful years with no production issues
Back in the days of SRECs Solar Renewable Energy Credits = $$$ for annual production for making the investment
No tall trees now ...
Taken on a cloudy day in
“ these parts“ 50% less panels than back east, yet Net Zero living
The sun can be good for you!
The usual rule of thumb is to angle your PV panels towards the equator. For the full solar package equipped Aptera, the bulk of the PV cells appear to be on the hatch sloping towards the back of the vehicle, with a lot of the rest on the relatively level top of the cabin. In the northern hemisphere, parking that vehicle all day with the nose to the north will maximize the solar gain. Opposite for folks down under or in Africa, of course.
If you get the basic PV or the plus hood option you may want to reverse that orientation since then the bulk of the PV would be level or sloping towards the front.
If you are in the tropics, the diminishing returns of any particular orientation make it not worth the effort.
That’s rather fangled for what you could do equally well with a vertical oriented stick. Either one has to be leveled, and in the case of an Aptera’s PV, yields more information than you really need to know.
https://gosun.co/products/sportdial