{"id":2337,"date":"2013-03-27T09:44:51","date_gmt":"2013-03-27T00:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=2337"},"modified":"2024-06-04T15:35:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-04T06:05:06","slug":"grand-designs-solar-panels-epic-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/grand-designs-solar-panels-epic-fail\/","title":{"rendered":"Grand Designs + Solar Panels = Epic Fail"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Grand<\/a>

Note to Grand Designs: “Do your bloody homework!”<\/p><\/div>\n

Today’s top solar tip:<\/p>\n

Please don’t look to Kevin McCloud or Grand Designs for advice on solar power!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Kevin McCloud, he seems like a top bloke. And Grand Designs is one of the few things I actually watch occasionally on the gogglebox.<\/p>\n

But they really need to do their research when it comes to solar.<\/p>\n

The UK episode on ABC1 last week showed that they don’t have a freaking clue about solar power.<\/p>\n

On last week’s episode<\/a> a pair of Londoners with about as much taste as Kath and Kim<\/a>, decided to destroy the ambience of a beautiful London mews by building a faux-mews house on the end of the existing, beautiful, old terrace.<\/p>\n

So that the house “fitted in”, they clad the front of the house with acrylic<\/strong> tiles that mimicked 150 year old London bricks. Yeuch!<\/p>\n

Then they decided to dig a hole bigger than Olympic Dam<\/a> underneath so they could fit a dancefloor, spa and an enormous \u00a0gold sofa in to the resulting artifically lit, white-washed bunker.<\/p>\n

But the most ridiculous part of the whole design was their solar power system. Here it is:<\/p>\n

\"vertical<\/a>

Don’t try this at home: vertical solar panels. \u00a0Pic: Channel4<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Spot anything unusual about this solar panel array?<\/p>\n

Yes, you got it! \u00a0They have mounted them vertically and close to the ground in the midst of lots of trees and other buildings.
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

These solar panels are not going to get a whole lot of sun for 2 reasons:<\/p>\n

a)<\/strong> it is 40 degrees from the ‘ideal’ 50 degree tilt for London to maximise annual solar yield.<\/p>\n

and<\/p>\n

b)<\/strong> The killer: \u00a0the shading issues on vertical solar panels mounted so close to the ground are a nightmare, as can be seen from the picture above.<\/p>\n

Due to the crappy UK weather, solar panels over there need all the help they can get to make them viable. Their positioning needs to be as optimal as possible. Mounting them in such a compromised position will likely make these solar panels a very bad economic and environmental investment.<\/p>\n

But here’s the part of the program that was pure greenwashing:<\/p>\n

In one scene, the otherwise eminently sensible, Sir Kevin of McCloud says:<\/p>\n

“With these solar panels this home almost powers itself…”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sorry, Kev, but that’s Buuuuuulllllllshiiiiiit!<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"bullship<\/a>

Yep, that’s what it is<\/p><\/div>\n

But enough of my ranting. What does the science say? \u00a0Let’s crunch the numbers and see how much electricity this particular solar system is going to generate:<\/p>\n

First we need to establish which direction the panels are facing. Remember – these panels are in the Northern Hemisphere – so South is optimum.<\/p>\n

I did a little googling and found a Google Map image of the house. The house is the one on the end of the terrace. I’ve drawn a red arrow coming out of the wall with the panels on it. It faces South West:<\/p>\n

\"aerial<\/a>

The solar panels are facing South West. \u00a0Pic: Google<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Armed with this information, I head over to the fantastic tool PV Watts<\/a>\u00a0and enter some more information about the cheeky Cockneys’ solar system:<\/p>\n

1)<\/strong> The location of the house on the planet (I simply used London’s lat\/long).<\/p>\n

2)<\/strong> The size of the system. Looking at the photo there are 24 panels. They look to me like 165W panels, so 24 x 165 = 3.96kW.<\/p>\n

3)<\/strong> The angle\u00a0of the panels (90\u00b0 from horizontal).<\/p>\n

4)<\/strong>\u00a0The direction they are facing (SW or 225\u00b0 clockwise from North).<\/p>\n

\"pvwatts<\/a>

The input screen on PV Watts<\/p><\/div>\n

Then I pressed the “calculate” button and saw this:<\/p>\n

\"pvwatts<\/a>

The results: approx two fifths of rock all<\/p><\/div>\n

This is telling us that the 4kW solar system will generate 1926kWh per year. Or\u00a05.28 kWh per day.<\/p>\n

Kevin, mate, this 230m\u00b2 home, most of which is underground and requires shed loads of lighting, not to mention the illuminated dance floor, indoor pool, sauna and electric heating, is likely going to use 30-50kWh per day. 5kWh per day from the solar is hardly going to make a dent in that!<\/p>\n

And that’s assuming there’s no shading.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nothing kills solar power like shading<\/a>. Now it is impossible to quantify how much of a shading problem this particular solar system has without a site visit. But looking at the photograph, it definitely has a shading problem. Look at the top left hand panel. It is almost 50% covered in shade:<\/p>\n

\"close<\/a>

That bit of shade could kill 80% of the system’s power.<\/p><\/div>\n

If the solar panels are using a conventional, central inverter, then that single panel has probably lost 70-80% of its output. And because all the panels are in series, it is like someone stepping on a hosepipe. Every panel will lose its flow of electricity whilst that panel is in the shade. The result – bugger all electricity – just because one solar panel is shaded.<\/p>\n

And at other times of the day that shading will probably be much, much worse. Because the panels are vertical, they get the most sunlight as the sun is close to the horizon. But when the sun is low in the sky, it casts the most shadows. Kind of obvious and kind of a big problemo.<\/p>\n

Let’s be really generous and assume that shading only reduces the power output by 50%. That gives us a grand total of 2.64kWh per day.<\/p>\n

To put it in perspective, that is probably enough to power their fridge (yes- I’m assuming they have got a big blingy fridge to match the style of the house). \u00a0Oh, and the system probably cost them well over $15,000 (there are no solar rebates on the purchase price in the UK).<\/p>\n

In other words this particular solar system looks like a big fat FAIL on both economic and environmental grounds.<\/p>\n

Perhaps when the owners get their first power bill they will realise that simply sticking solar panels on your home without any thought for their orientation or shading is just plain daft. It this house ‘almost powers itself’ I’ll eat my hat on YouTube!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s top solar tip: Please don’t look to Kevin McCloud or Grand Designs for advice on solar power! Now don’t get me wrong, I love Kevin McCloud, he seems like a top bloke. And Grand Designs is one of the few things I actually watch occasionally on the gogglebox. But they really need to do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[64,412,408],"class_list":["post-2337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-solar-installation","tag-efficiency","tag-panel-orientation","tag-shade","entry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nGrand Designs + Solar Panels = Epic Fail - SolarQuotes Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Grand Designs is one of the few things I watch occasionally on the gogglebox; but they really need to do their research when it comes to solar power.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/grand-designs-solar-panels-epic-fail\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Grand Designs + Solar Panels = Epic Fail\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Grand Designs is one of the few things I watch occasionally on the gogglebox; 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