{"id":36204,"date":"2020-01-07T09:50:20","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T23:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=36204"},"modified":"2020-05-24T16:50:56","modified_gmt":"2020-05-24T06:20:56","slug":"diy-solar-shadow-analysis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/diy-solar-shadow-analysis\/","title":{"rendered":"DIY Shadow Analysis: Learn How To Quantify Any Shade Cast On Solar Panels"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"How When I came to Australia from the UK in 2002, I was struck by how rare double storey houses were over here. Fast forward 18 years and, as medium density living becomes the new norm in the suburbs, double storey houses are popping up everywhere.<\/p>\n

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This can cause problems for existing solar owners. Imagine you have a nice east\/west facing solar power system on your single storey roof. One day you discover dastardly property developers want to build a pair of double storey townhouses next door (as close to the boundary as possible of course). Will the new McMansions cast a permanent shadow on your panels? \u00a0Will you have to go back to actually paying electricity bills? Here at SolarQuotes we get thousands of cries for help every year, and we try to answer every single one1<\/a><\/sup>. My team does a great job. But when they get a question they can’t answer it finds its way to my inbox, where this email from Chris in Adelaide ended up last week:<\/p>\n

Hi, Last Friday, 20 Dec 2019, I received a letter from my Council (Burnside Council) re a Development Application for a rather large two storey home on the block next door to me. I have the opportunity to object to the development but it must be before 8 January 2020. I’m quite concerned the proposed house will shade my 24 western facing LG solar panels (installed in Jan 2019 by DQ Electrical). (I used SolarQuotes at the time to choose DQ Electrical). I recall DQ Electrical were closed in the first week of Jan 2019, so wondered if I could pay SolarQuotes for one of your team to assess if there are any shading issue. I have accurate 1:100 scale drawings to assist.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So we agreed on a fee of $7,000 + GST and expenses and got to work.<\/p>\n

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Image from BikeSnobNYC<\/p><\/div>\n

Just kidding! I couldn’t bear the thought of an expertly-installed LG solar system being compromised – so I promised to whack together a rudimentary analysis over the weekend. Chris would have some hard numbers before the council’s deadline. And don’t worry, we don’t charge for solar advice at SQ as that would be like getting paid to eat ice-cream. It would take all the fun out of it. People would expect me to deliver the results as serious reports, inches thick, instead of as a blog post filled with bad jokes. And that would feel like working for CSIRO again. But I’m getting distracted… What Chris needed was a ‘shade analysis’ or ‘shadow study’. \u00a0I needed to:<\/p>\n