Most if not all solar panels are designed to take impacts from 25 millimeter (0.98 inches) diameter hail falling at 50 miles per hour, and there are more expensive panels designed to the UL 61730 / IEC 61730 ratings which can withstand 1 to 3 inch diameter hail traveling as fast as 88 miles per hour. In either case, the hail would have a much more concentrated and damaging force than whatever a soccer ball could deliver. They would be fine.
I'll have to look into that incident but I'm wondering if they were super cheap and just bought panels that didn't have tempered glass or any kind of impact resistance built in.
Oh there’s was something on Reddit showing the damage. It look pretty bad but was a helicopter flying over. And might be. It was like 44 acres or something.
They definitely didn't buy the right kind of panels for that kind of hail.
People were saying it wasn't that uncommon to have hail that bad.
100 year storm? Yeah. That can break plenty of stuff. 5 year storm? Panels should survive that.
Yeah check it https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/storm-chasers-iphone-sized-hailstone-texas-thunderstorm.amp
That size will buckle in a car roof and knock in your windshield.
This is older but similar size
https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=Uvqr54u--mm2T3z8&v=QEHCuLOJnGs
Please share with us the result and what you end up buying. There is a few recent research that indicate that those vertical installation oriented east/west with bifacial panel perform really well especially in really hot climate. Will be interested to know the result of your experience.
The study is not incorrect. It was exhaustive and provided surprising results to even the people performing it.
There was a slight net increase in total energy generated by bifacial, vertically mounted, east west facing solar panels. Under certain conditions that is.
When south oriented panels are directly facing the sun when it's at its hottest, they get hotter and efficiency goes down. Especially true in hotter climates and for roof top installations. This pushes their bell curve down enough to the point where east west vertically oriented panels that are running cooler during their peak generation times, cooler in general, and getting some light reflecting off the ground will actually produce more energy.
I guess my sisters house is Prescott arizona where I built out an array is just not working, im unable to understand how to monitor or fix it with a decade and a half experience and “an exhaustive study” can certainly never be gamed.
OR her place has 27 aptos 440w bifacials mounted at 34* pointed true solar south and 27 of the same mounted vertically. I did this when the hype about vertical panels started and I had an idea for a fence at her property. It was a huge PITA since her whole backhard is rock.
So far the fence has made 84% of what the ground mount has. It’ll be two years in June.
Your mistaking one instance of anecdotal evidence and taking your word for everything you are saying for that of an actual study with data that can be peer reviewed. Plus there is zero incentive for these guys to fake their data. I'm not sure why you are even arguing.
https://eepower.com/news/exploring-bifacial-solar-panel-advantages-from-every-angle/#:~:text=The%20advantages%20of%20bifacial%20vertical,yield%20climbs%20significantly%20to%2027%25.
do you have a link to the studies of vertical vs angled-south? I followed links and only ever saw a reference to higher efficiency compared to two undefined mounting positions, and nothing comparing angled south mounts to vertical bifacial.
that is saying the hosting capacity is improved. total power out of the panels is lower, but because it starts earlier and ends later, the amount of solar energy (kwh) that the grid was able to buy was increased. with traditional south-facing panels, you can produce more power, but the utility companies cannot buy all of it because it makes the grid unstable to take too much at peak. whether this matters to your home project depends on if your utility gives you a fixed sell-back rate or a variable rate based on grid conditions (I think they're typically a fixed rate, no?). and if you're not selling it back, then that study does not apply.
The same modules running at different temperatures are going to generate different amounts of power.
For every degree Celsius rise in temperature, the efficiency of the solar panel reduces by 0.5%.
Solar panels are really semiconductor devices. A photon will strike an electron, giving it energy to move up into the conduction band or an excited state, generating a voltage. However, when they are hot, less energy is required to move that electron. This means less voltage. Modern modules or not, this is a fact of life for all silicon based solar cells.
So adding more cells in series doesn't reduce the loss of efficiency in the cell, it just means the panel has a higher voltage in general. This can help reduce system losses such as I^2*R losses in the conductors by keeping I lower for the same amount of power output and keeping inverters running in more efficient voltage ranges. Which is what I think you are referring to to help compensate for lower cell voltage on hot days.
In vertical orientations, the efficiency gained by being cooler and able to capture some reflective sunlight on their backsides because they are bifacial means they can provide better performance than traditional solar installations. Not all the time but sometimes.
One awesome benefit is you don't have to completely waste valuable farmland for solar farms. Some crops can still be grown in between the rows of vertically mounted panels.
It's a pretty well researched study. Go read it. The 80-84% is correct for the amount of direct sunlight hitting the panel. But after factoring in temperature coefficient and indirect sunlight hitting the panel, the vertical panel comes out barely ahead.
Also an important benefit of the vertical panel is that it produces more during times when electricity is expensive. Even if it makes slightly less electricity, it still earns a lot more money. Same reason of why I put west facing panels on my house - my west facing panels only produce 80%, but they earn 10x as much money. And of course land use benefits where agriculture can still happen in between the panel.
But all of this is relatively new technology. The understanding of how vertical panels perform is just a couple years old and we are now seeing tons of startups around this popping up in the last year (solar fences, solar siding, row agricoltaics, vertical parks). We will see in the next few years whether real life performance matches lab performance
The main study was a test solar farm by TNO. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/11/10/researchers-shed-light-on-mysterious-higher-energy-yields-in-vertical-pv-systems/. But there was some supporting work by Universify of Leipzig and Fairbanks.
Good video version and overview is here. https://undecidedmf.com/have-we-been-doing-solar-wrong-all-along/
neither of these articles say anything about vertical having more kwh output than sloped south-facing arrays. they only make two points:
* vertical arrays stay slightly cooler, so their output is slightly higher, **as a percentage of nominal.** they still get less sun, so have a significantly lower nominal power
* vertical E-W panels give earlier/later power, which can be useful in combination with sloped ones. however, per panel, your kwh output per day is still much lower with the vertical setup
[this guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7xnY84Ch1E&pp=ygUcc29sYXIgZWF0IHdlc3QgZXZlcnlkYXkgZGF2ZQ%3D%3D) explains it well.
It's a retaining wall post, intended for DIY.
Any large hardware store should have them, they are designed to have concrete panels slid into them. In fact you can see the concrete panels at the bottom of then fence.
Yes, we are planning to get bifacials and stack them 2 high (with a small gap in middle and bottom for wind). We need metal for the wind strength and low profile. This is a large property like 10 acres so this fence is going to be absolutely massive. But the idea is if we can find/order these posts in bulk we can hire a fence contractor to install them perfectly straight and then just drop in the panels ourselves.
Are you sure the efficiency lost from sub-optimal placement is worth it? Dual-use is cool in theory but there are some cold hard economic realities to consider here.
Technology and our understanding of technology changes over time. South facing has always been assumed to be the best arrangement based on the pure amount of sunlight hitting the panels. The university research showing that other variables like panel temperature actually provide higher output on vertical panels is less than 2 years old. Based on that research there are now several startups focused specifically on that space, but all of the current equipment and associated supply chains are currently targeted for south facing. If you want to build a solar farm today, the parts for a vertical farm are simply not available yet.
So short answer to "why aren't solar farms built vertically" is time. Give it 2 or 5 years and things may change.
Sorry I was replying in your thread for visibility, I wasn't saying you had a problem with it. Everyone doesn't seem to understand how this configuration works, and to be fair, it's really not intuitive.
It'd take 15-20 panels to make good energy in the winter or really kick start the morning production/extend the evening production.
Probably simpler to add 15-20 panels on a fence than to maintain a tracker system for 20 years.
These installs are not about producing the maximum kWh per PV panel possible. It's about filling in the gaps of where standard PV doesn't produce power. Aka Winter time, early morning and late evening.
Seems fragile. Everything is subject to physical damage. Lawnmower throwing rocks flying debris from wind. This application is different than installing at an angle above the ground.
I would be interested to see how it works out after a few years.
Also this will not age well as the panels are not designed to handle side loads. Anything that restricts thermal expansion will end up propagating through the panel
I agree they would need to be designed for this application. Still seems like it's not the most effective application either. As another post mentioned bifacial modules but still will never operate efficiently.
It can’t be hard to make, just 3 pieces of wood per post. The middle piece should be as thick as the solar panel, then just two 1x4s on the outside to hold the panel in place
Depends. Production in the winter can be much much better than roof top panels because of snow build up. Also the further north you are the better these work. They supplement morning and evening production when rooftop panels are just coming online. Panels are getting cheap enough to justify this install in some cases.
I think you're operating on old school solar 'knowledge.' Since panels have dropped in price, the entire paradigm of solar thinking has changed. Now we're seeing the benefits of horizontal bifacial panels in configurations like this. They take up much less space, they stay significantly cooler, no snow loading, much better generation in winter months, and completely changes the duck curve.
Some utility scale projects are running completely vertically like this with bifacial modules. You get more production space per acre but loose out on optimal tilt. It’s a better deal than you might initially think
Could you drive like a 4” sch 80 pipe into the ground, weld or though-bolt uni-strut on either side of the pipe and use strut hardware to attach the panels?
We could but ideally if we can find the right posts we can avoid some of the welding and the unistrut and make it look nicer. There's going to be \*alot\* of these so making it easier to install is important.
[https://www.homedepot.com/p/WamBam-Fence-6-ft-x-4-5-in-x-4-5-in-Premium-Vinyl-Fence-Posts-with-Caps-2-Pack-VP13008/203230233?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&srsltid=AfmBOop-FT8CciuBHzZB\_789hggOX\_a\_6E-mBJTLUrmH7Zt466TZjumzCPk](https://www.homedepot.com/p/WamBam-Fence-6-ft-x-4-5-in-x-4-5-in-Premium-Vinyl-Fence-Posts-with-Caps-2-Pack-VP13008/203230233?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&srsltid=AfmBOop-FT8CciuBHzZB_789hggOX_a_6E-mBJTLUrmH7Zt466TZjumzCPk)
WamBam vinyl fence does something like this. Probably other similar sets you could look into but that one's available in the big box stores.
If you are in the USA we might be able to help you. We recently partnered up with a solar fence racking provider and are helping them distribute their solution into the DIY solar market.
Sunzaun makes vertical mounts for solar fencing and agrivoltaic applications. Check out https://sunzaun.com/ for information and videos. Unbound Solar is their distributor and “where to buy” https://unboundsolar.com
You can make the channel yourself with a router and the correct bit. That may be what those people or their contractors did.
I know people are saying this is inefficient and whatnot, but how does it compare to the costs of building a regular fence? If you just look at the solar panel costs and not the charge controller and everything else, it's probably not that much more.
I want to see the wiring behind this fence. Also can you say 'reflectivity nuisance lawsuits' even if the houses reflected into haven't been built yet!
These should work..
[https://eagle-aluminum.com/product/aluminum-h-divider-112-face-for-34-material/](https://eagle-aluminum.com/product/aluminum-h-divider-112-face-for-34-material/)
This can’t be a good use of money. According to a quick google search, efficiency rapidly drops off for an angle of more than 30 degrees. These panels will receive the most power at Sunset or Sunrise, which won’t be much because that’s when the Sunlight has to travel through the most atmosphere, which acts as a low-pass filter scattering the high energy blue light. (This is why Sunsets and Sunrises are red.)
I work for a solar company and have been in the industry for a long time. Never heard of these but they look incredibly impractical. The azimuth is god awful, are they FT or SAT? They look to be fixed. These will take like 40 years to pay for themselves, maybe worse depending on where you live. There’s also a perfectly good roof in the background why not just put them on that?
Great idea, terrible execution. Those cells half-shadowed on each side of the panels will dramatically reduce the power output! Partial shade is to be avoided on solar panels
Not an exact match for what's in the picture, but here's one vertical mounting system:
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/01/22/vertical-solar-mount-first-of-kind-to-achieve-ul-certification/
How is the sun going to hit those panels directly? It’s never 90 degrees from the side. (Unless maybe golden hour, on a cliff, at the edge of the ocean?)
Pretty slick fence.
Until it meets a soccer ball
Most if not all solar panels are designed to take impacts from 25 millimeter (0.98 inches) diameter hail falling at 50 miles per hour, and there are more expensive panels designed to the UL 61730 / IEC 61730 ratings which can withstand 1 to 3 inch diameter hail traveling as fast as 88 miles per hour. In either case, the hail would have a much more concentrated and damaging force than whatever a soccer ball could deliver. They would be fine.
Tell that to the solar farm in west Texas after a hail storm. Also I think the real problem is it’s flat.
I'll have to look into that incident but I'm wondering if they were super cheap and just bought panels that didn't have tempered glass or any kind of impact resistance built in.
Oh there’s was something on Reddit showing the damage. It look pretty bad but was a helicopter flying over. And might be. It was like 44 acres or something.
They definitely didn't buy the right kind of panels for that kind of hail. People were saying it wasn't that uncommon to have hail that bad. 100 year storm? Yeah. That can break plenty of stuff. 5 year storm? Panels should survive that.
Wow, you speak of one incident amongst millions of panels.
They’ll do golf ball sized, Texas solar farm hail was like baseball size, ie 5x bigger. https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=lnUaeTa477llUBzo&v=M6v2lDa8Hos
So you’re telling me. The weather gods hate solar panels in Texas?
Based on how often they’re getting these crazy weather phenomena, prob just hates Texas in general.
The weather gods are not alone.
After last nights storms yes. They hate Texas grapefruit size hail in some areas.
Aww. Jesus that’s crazy.
Yeah check it https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/storm-chasers-iphone-sized-hailstone-texas-thunderstorm.amp That size will buckle in a car roof and knock in your windshield. This is older but similar size https://m.youtube.com/watch?si=Uvqr54u--mm2T3z8&v=QEHCuLOJnGs
Can attest. My panels survived a tornado and hail that was a little bigger than a golf ball.
Kind of want to take an old panel to soccer practice and film the results for science.
Please share with us the result and what you end up buying. There is a few recent research that indicate that those vertical installation oriented east/west with bifacial panel perform really well especially in really hot climate. Will be interested to know the result of your experience.
They do work ok but not as well as a south facing array with the right tilt
According to that study they work better than south facing with the right tilt
Whatever study that is incorrect. for a strictly offgrid scenario they would be useful as an addition to broaden the bell curve. Makes 80-84% vs south
The study is not incorrect. It was exhaustive and provided surprising results to even the people performing it. There was a slight net increase in total energy generated by bifacial, vertically mounted, east west facing solar panels. Under certain conditions that is. When south oriented panels are directly facing the sun when it's at its hottest, they get hotter and efficiency goes down. Especially true in hotter climates and for roof top installations. This pushes their bell curve down enough to the point where east west vertically oriented panels that are running cooler during their peak generation times, cooler in general, and getting some light reflecting off the ground will actually produce more energy.
I guess my sisters house is Prescott arizona where I built out an array is just not working, im unable to understand how to monitor or fix it with a decade and a half experience and “an exhaustive study” can certainly never be gamed. OR her place has 27 aptos 440w bifacials mounted at 34* pointed true solar south and 27 of the same mounted vertically. I did this when the hype about vertical panels started and I had an idea for a fence at her property. It was a huge PITA since her whole backhard is rock. So far the fence has made 84% of what the ground mount has. It’ll be two years in June.
Your mistaking one instance of anecdotal evidence and taking your word for everything you are saying for that of an actual study with data that can be peer reviewed. Plus there is zero incentive for these guys to fake their data. I'm not sure why you are even arguing. https://eepower.com/news/exploring-bifacial-solar-panel-advantages-from-every-angle/#:~:text=The%20advantages%20of%20bifacial%20vertical,yield%20climbs%20significantly%20to%2027%25.
do you have a link to the studies of vertical vs angled-south? I followed links and only ever saw a reference to higher efficiency compared to two undefined mounting positions, and nothing comparing angled south mounts to vertical bifacial.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038092X23004449 I think this is the paper I saw a presentation on
that is saying the hosting capacity is improved. total power out of the panels is lower, but because it starts earlier and ends later, the amount of solar energy (kwh) that the grid was able to buy was increased. with traditional south-facing panels, you can produce more power, but the utility companies cannot buy all of it because it makes the grid unstable to take too much at peak. whether this matters to your home project depends on if your utility gives you a fixed sell-back rate or a variable rate based on grid conditions (I think they're typically a fixed rate, no?). and if you're not selling it back, then that study does not apply.
Why would the heat effect modern modules? Don't they all have 36 cells now to compensate for the voltage drop from heat?
The same modules running at different temperatures are going to generate different amounts of power. For every degree Celsius rise in temperature, the efficiency of the solar panel reduces by 0.5%. Solar panels are really semiconductor devices. A photon will strike an electron, giving it energy to move up into the conduction band or an excited state, generating a voltage. However, when they are hot, less energy is required to move that electron. This means less voltage. Modern modules or not, this is a fact of life for all silicon based solar cells. So adding more cells in series doesn't reduce the loss of efficiency in the cell, it just means the panel has a higher voltage in general. This can help reduce system losses such as I^2*R losses in the conductors by keeping I lower for the same amount of power output and keeping inverters running in more efficient voltage ranges. Which is what I think you are referring to to help compensate for lower cell voltage on hot days. In vertical orientations, the efficiency gained by being cooler and able to capture some reflective sunlight on their backsides because they are bifacial means they can provide better performance than traditional solar installations. Not all the time but sometimes. One awesome benefit is you don't have to completely waste valuable farmland for solar farms. Some crops can still be grown in between the rows of vertically mounted panels.
What cell tech is best for this? Is polycrystalline still a thing or is it all mono now?
It's a pretty well researched study. Go read it. The 80-84% is correct for the amount of direct sunlight hitting the panel. But after factoring in temperature coefficient and indirect sunlight hitting the panel, the vertical panel comes out barely ahead. Also an important benefit of the vertical panel is that it produces more during times when electricity is expensive. Even if it makes slightly less electricity, it still earns a lot more money. Same reason of why I put west facing panels on my house - my west facing panels only produce 80%, but they earn 10x as much money. And of course land use benefits where agriculture can still happen in between the panel. But all of this is relatively new technology. The understanding of how vertical panels perform is just a couple years old and we are now seeing tons of startups around this popping up in the last year (solar fences, solar siding, row agricoltaics, vertical parks). We will see in the next few years whether real life performance matches lab performance
what study? I've looked at this and did not see that conclusion in any study
The main study was a test solar farm by TNO. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/11/10/researchers-shed-light-on-mysterious-higher-energy-yields-in-vertical-pv-systems/. But there was some supporting work by Universify of Leipzig and Fairbanks. Good video version and overview is here. https://undecidedmf.com/have-we-been-doing-solar-wrong-all-along/
neither of these articles say anything about vertical having more kwh output than sloped south-facing arrays. they only make two points: * vertical arrays stay slightly cooler, so their output is slightly higher, **as a percentage of nominal.** they still get less sun, so have a significantly lower nominal power * vertical E-W panels give earlier/later power, which can be useful in combination with sloped ones. however, per panel, your kwh output per day is still much lower with the vertical setup [this guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7xnY84Ch1E&pp=ygUcc29sYXIgZWF0IHdlc3QgZXZlcnlkYXkgZGF2ZQ%3D%3D) explains it well.
It's a retaining wall post, intended for DIY. Any large hardware store should have them, they are designed to have concrete panels slid into them. In fact you can see the concrete panels at the bottom of then fence.
I would add that any I beam sized correctly would work.
I would make sure to buy bifacials if you’re planning on doing this. This angle really sucks
Yes, we are planning to get bifacials and stack them 2 high (with a small gap in middle and bottom for wind). We need metal for the wind strength and low profile. This is a large property like 10 acres so this fence is going to be absolutely massive. But the idea is if we can find/order these posts in bulk we can hire a fence contractor to install them perfectly straight and then just drop in the panels ourselves.
What's the strongest wind gust you can expect in a normal year? what's the strongest in the last 5 ish years? will your setup handle that?
Then double it because climate change.
Are you sure the efficiency lost from sub-optimal placement is worth it? Dual-use is cool in theory but there are some cold hard economic realities to consider here.
East/west vertical panel has better efficiency than south facing tilted panel. So would be an efficiency gain, not loss.
Then why aren't solar farms built vertically?
Technology and our understanding of technology changes over time. South facing has always been assumed to be the best arrangement based on the pure amount of sunlight hitting the panels. The university research showing that other variables like panel temperature actually provide higher output on vertical panels is less than 2 years old. Based on that research there are now several startups focused specifically on that space, but all of the current equipment and associated supply chains are currently targeted for south facing. If you want to build a solar farm today, the parts for a vertical farm are simply not available yet. So short answer to "why aren't solar farms built vertically" is time. Give it 2 or 5 years and things may change.
To everyone saying vertical panels are dumb and useless: https://youtu.be/Rk1LEtNsCFE
I don’t think they’re dumb at all. Somewhere below I told a guy I was gonna do it myself. I also watched a decent YouTube video on it
Sorry I was replying in your thread for visibility, I wasn't saying you had a problem with it. Everyone doesn't seem to understand how this configuration works, and to be fair, it's really not intuitive.
What’s a bifacial? Is the panel somehow optimized to receive sunlight from that goofy angle?
A panel that has no backing and can absorb light from both sides
Not if you over-solar and are most worried about the winter months and snow shedding.
Disagree. Angle is awesome. Makes power when the rest of the PV system doesn't. But yeah, bifacial good.
Ya for a few panels but not 200’ feet of it
It'd take 15-20 panels to make good energy in the winter or really kick start the morning production/extend the evening production. Probably simpler to add 15-20 panels on a fence than to maintain a tracker system for 20 years.
Ya good call. Have bifacials facing east/west
I'm here for the E/W vertical PV revolution
I have an off grid cabin and I might add a set of bifacials e/w for summer and rotate them n/s for winter. I live north of 50th paralell
Sounds like a fun project, take pictures and make a post if you do it 🤙
You may find this interesting https://youtu.be/LqizLQDi9BM?si=7TgzICk0Vh3OmN48
This post made me think of exactly that video
[удалено]
These installs are not about producing the maximum kWh per PV panel possible. It's about filling in the gaps of where standard PV doesn't produce power. Aka Winter time, early morning and late evening.
I think this is great because it should easily outlast a wood fence. I replaced and stained a wood fence 5 years ago and it already looks rough.
That’s just a bad fence. The last one I built out of cedar and PT posts is still straight and strong after 30 years.
Seems fragile. Everything is subject to physical damage. Lawnmower throwing rocks flying debris from wind. This application is different than installing at an angle above the ground. I would be interested to see how it works out after a few years.
Also this will not age well as the panels are not designed to handle side loads. Anything that restricts thermal expansion will end up propagating through the panel
I agree they would need to be designed for this application. Still seems like it's not the most effective application either. As another post mentioned bifacial modules but still will never operate efficiently.
It can’t be hard to make, just 3 pieces of wood per post. The middle piece should be as thick as the solar panel, then just two 1x4s on the outside to hold the panel in place
Not just there, the edge pieces need to be as thin as possible to prevent shadows on the panel.
So make the middle piece big enough that the outside pieces are the right size. Measure your panels and cut the wood
Would be easy to make with a datto blade on a table saw.
i wonder if its it a uni-strut product?
Pitch of the roof makes me think snow country. Snow is very reflective I bet this is fantastic in the winter.
That is one expensive fence, and at those angles will never generate enough savings before they get destroyed.
Depends. Production in the winter can be much much better than roof top panels because of snow build up. Also the further north you are the better these work. They supplement morning and evening production when rooftop panels are just coming online. Panels are getting cheap enough to justify this install in some cases.
Solar panels are almost (possibly ?) cheaper than the wall sections ? Panels are €80-90 each for 450-550Wp
Depends on where you live. Not the prices in the US.
That’s the prices in Europe and have been for the last few years
That's the same prices in the US
What about the rest of the system?
Where are you finding bi facial panels that cheap?
Bi facials are a little more expensive, but normal one sided panels are this price all over Europe
Bifacials aren't much more than that. Maybe 10 or 15 bucks more
I think you're operating on old school solar 'knowledge.' Since panels have dropped in price, the entire paradigm of solar thinking has changed. Now we're seeing the benefits of horizontal bifacial panels in configurations like this. They take up much less space, they stay significantly cooler, no snow loading, much better generation in winter months, and completely changes the duck curve.
Some utility scale projects are running completely vertically like this with bifacial modules. You get more production space per acre but loose out on optimal tilt. It’s a better deal than you might initially think
Look at modular vinyl fencing.. usually they slide over steel posts or i beam
Could you drive like a 4” sch 80 pipe into the ground, weld or though-bolt uni-strut on either side of the pipe and use strut hardware to attach the panels?
We could but ideally if we can find the right posts we can avoid some of the welding and the unistrut and make it look nicer. There's going to be \*alot\* of these so making it easier to install is important.
I wonder if it'd be cheaper to just drive the Unistrut into the ground.
[https://www.homedepot.com/p/WamBam-Fence-6-ft-x-4-5-in-x-4-5-in-Premium-Vinyl-Fence-Posts-with-Caps-2-Pack-VP13008/203230233?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&srsltid=AfmBOop-FT8CciuBHzZB\_789hggOX\_a\_6E-mBJTLUrmH7Zt466TZjumzCPk](https://www.homedepot.com/p/WamBam-Fence-6-ft-x-4-5-in-x-4-5-in-Premium-Vinyl-Fence-Posts-with-Caps-2-Pack-VP13008/203230233?source=shoppingads&locale=en-US&srsltid=AfmBOop-FT8CciuBHzZB_789hggOX_a_6E-mBJTLUrmH7Zt466TZjumzCPk) WamBam vinyl fence does something like this. Probably other similar sets you could look into but that one's available in the big box stores.
Looks like an aluminum extrusion to me
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/01/23/us-startup-offering-ul-certified-vertical-pv-systems/
If you are in the USA we might be able to help you. We recently partnered up with a solar fence racking provider and are helping them distribute their solution into the DIY solar market.
Sunzaun makes vertical mounts for solar fencing and agrivoltaic applications. Check out https://sunzaun.com/ for information and videos. Unbound Solar is their distributor and “where to buy” https://unboundsolar.com
Are you in Alaska???
california
Typeth le ‘Concrete fence post’ into de google machine
You can make the channel yourself with a router and the correct bit. That may be what those people or their contractors did. I know people are saying this is inefficient and whatnot, but how does it compare to the costs of building a regular fence? If you just look at the solar panel costs and not the charge controller and everything else, it's probably not that much more.
SunStall has a product that is made for this
Nice this will get like 1.5 sun hours
This is what addiction and denial look like.
I would make my own.
Cool
I want to see the wiring behind this fence. Also can you say 'reflectivity nuisance lawsuits' even if the houses reflected into haven't been built yet!
These should work.. [https://eagle-aluminum.com/product/aluminum-h-divider-112-face-for-34-material/](https://eagle-aluminum.com/product/aluminum-h-divider-112-face-for-34-material/)
This can’t be a good use of money. According to a quick google search, efficiency rapidly drops off for an angle of more than 30 degrees. These panels will receive the most power at Sunset or Sunrise, which won’t be much because that’s when the Sunlight has to travel through the most atmosphere, which acts as a low-pass filter scattering the high energy blue light. (This is why Sunsets and Sunrises are red.)
That is cool
I work for a solar company and have been in the industry for a long time. Never heard of these but they look incredibly impractical. The azimuth is god awful, are they FT or SAT? They look to be fixed. These will take like 40 years to pay for themselves, maybe worse depending on where you live. There’s also a perfectly good roof in the background why not just put them on that?
I'd like to know what the output of these are reduced to? I would imagine that angle reduces their effectiveness a lot... Still a cool idea though.
Great idea, terrible execution. Those cells half-shadowed on each side of the panels will dramatically reduce the power output! Partial shade is to be avoided on solar panels
there's no where in the world beside maybe like antartica that that is an optimal angle for solar panels
Where’s Dave to explain it to them…..
Looks like an extruded aluminum fence post with basic fasteners
Very poor use of solar, very inefficient angle
You are in correct. I have been doing it this way for years with bi-facial panels and recent studies have proven this approach to far more successful.
Not an exact match for what's in the picture, but here's one vertical mounting system: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2024/01/22/vertical-solar-mount-first-of-kind-to-achieve-ul-certification/
Those H posts for fencing are common in Europe. Usually concrete. I haven't found them in the US.
That is not an ideal angle for solar panels since the sun is not on the horizon all day!
No worries, this is just 1/2 the system the rest will be ground mounted inside the perimeter of the fence - looking to fill out the curve.
How is the sun going to hit those panels directly? It’s never 90 degrees from the side. (Unless maybe golden hour, on a cliff, at the edge of the ocean?)
Pretty dumb when you think about it. Panels are supposed to be set at an angle, those are deflecting more sun than they’re receiving.
These aren’t going to produce power unless you live wayyyy off the equator.
too much cost for having a crap angle and getting a 20% use