Yeah, their solar panel was a thin film rolled into a tube. They slid that into a glass tube and injected some kind of oil in between. The modules were arrays of tubes with a gap between tubes.
They were better at constant out put, but they were really bad on watts per square foot and dollars per watt. My son bought truckloads of them when they went bankrupt. From: Cameron Crum Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2015 8:01 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] The dreaded annual "how to keep snow and ice off my solar panels" thread Wasn't this sort of Solindra's idea? Tube shaped solar "panels" with a white reflective surface underneath so that no matter the angle some part of the panel was always getting light. It took more "tubes" but removed the hassle of having to worry about angles and time of day. On Tue, Sep 22, 2015 at 8:23 AM, Chuck McCown <[email protected]> wrote: Have you tried inverted panels? (Most on this list have probably heard this story before.) I had a mountain top site that lost about half of its power production after a big storm. Flew over it and found that one set of panels had come loose at the top and flopped over so they were facing the ground at an angle. Probably 30 degrees from horizontal. The snow on the ground was reflecting the sunlight up into the panels and they were actually putting out a surprising amount of power. Could always count on them being alive the day after the storm. I figured if I ever had to do an extreme high reliability site, I would build a white reflector on the ground and use inverted panels over it. Have to work on the geometry of the reflector and panels but it could be a useful emergency source of power in areas where snow and ice cause problems. You normally have the clearest skies and brightest sun the day after the storm. From: Steve D Sent: Monday, September 21, 2015 10:37 PM To: af Subject: Re: [AFMUG] The dreaded annual "how to keep snow and ice off my solar panels" thread Vertical panels is something we're experimenting with as well. Started ignoring "optimum" angles years ago and pushed the panels as steep as they would go with existing hardware (about 80-85) but it's amazing what will still stick. Last winter we had a freezing rain that built up ice on the bottom metal lip around the glass and the wet sticky snow that followed built up 4-5 inches on top of that, even at those angles. (Last year was honestly the worst year for our solar sites in the last few years.) We're in the process of beefing up and extending the angle brackets for the racks at two sites so that we can go all the way vertical. I think snow will be fine at one of the low elevation sites, but the high elevation I still half expect to see them covered in hoar frost. On Mon, Sep 21, 2015 at 1:17 PM, Eric Kuhnke <[email protected]> wrote: If you're off grid and at latitude 35N or higher... The one thing you should care about is cumulative kWh production in December and January. Try putting the panels at an 85 or 90 degree tilt (yes, really) facing due south. You will produce a lot less in June/July but your winter production will be maximized. This also has the effect of ameliorating snow and ice buildup thanks to gravity. The US DoE NREL and other sources have a lot of research on latitude vs. angle tilt of solar panels. Ignore everything intended for gridtie applications and stuff like "tilt the solar panels at the same angle as your latitude". There are some online calculators like pvwatts that will show you your December and January production for a 45 degree tilt vs. an 85 degree tilt. On 9/19/15 11:05 PM, Steve D wrote: Maybe it's Saturday night exhaustion talking, but piping the exhaust from a standby generator toward the back of solar panels a bad idea? I'd expect it to not put heat on the panels in the summer except it's weekly exercise cycle but that shouldn't be too bad? LP too so shouldn't be any soot. Or would this just create one little hole of open panel and a pile of ice? Bad in general for the panels? If I did this again, I'd put the damn thing directly under the panels... these Onan's get stinking hot. My little "cool running", comparatively speaking, portable yamaha's will melt a two foot radius of snow around them if they run for a good length of time, all this heat going to waste! The Onan would probably clear the whole rack if it was sitting right below it. Grumble grumble... snow... something, something, curse words... Cheers, Steve D
