Possibly a moot point by now, but a friend had monochrystaline pv panels on her garage roof and local kids started trying to wreck them, she moved them inside the garage and fitted sky lights to let light through to the panels.
Might do what I might do.my back yard is south,I might try attaching 4 100watt panels as 1 with screws or rivets.raising my patio table with a new beefier pole,a foot or so higher than current.and replacing the canopy with the solar,running the , wires down inside the pole..you can even dress up the edges of the solar with tassels...good luck.🇨🇦
I can think of many: table tops, a box of 4 small panels, upstair windows where the window & glass are part of the panel, solar generator made of a picknick basket, my chicken-coop has a solar panel for a roof (this was to make power for the pond pump along with light & heat, put on a flat roof or storage,
use monochrystalline panels - not the amorphous panels. The amorphous ones are less efficient (so you need larger panels that are more visible), and have a 5-7 year shelf life. Monocrhystalline keep up to 80% performance after 25 years. I'd say place them on the roof - if you're worried about them getting stolen. People are also less likely to see them too. The other option is to have a bigger battery system - increase storage at the expense of needing more panels.
Solar panels are, by nature, hard to hide: they must be exposed to the sun for hours at a time to work at all. Nothing new here. The idea of having a larger battery will not do much for you because the battery will only store energy applied to it, so the panels must be big enough to charge it. (BTW, the only battery worth the effort and money is the nickel-iron [NiFe] system developed by Edison a century ago. Jay Leno has 100+ year-old electric cars that still run on the original batteries. They last a very long time.) Your roof, unless it's facing a hill away from neighbors and traffic is unlikely to hide them. Putting them behind a fence limits solar exposure. Hiding them in any way makes them much less effective as energy sources for the same reason. The only effective (and it's not perfect, by far) way I can see to hide this in plain sight is to use a relatively new product. I do not recall the official name, but it's an integrated solar panel-roofing tile combination. They're blue, like a lot of PV panels, but they don't look like panels: they look like designer roofing tiles. For a more conventional system, I plan on "destroying" our panels once a disaster hits by breaking the glass covers. Obviously, the panels themselves will have to be weather-tight, but the broken glass and ripped up (camouflage) wires dangling around might convince some people that the system is inoperable. Sortta like the emperor's fully functional death star with its "under construction" façade.
We are developing a system so as not to be obvious that they are solar. email us at webmaster@eclipsecomputersolutions.com and we can discuss some ideas
Solar fence! FYI: Facing west, 100% vertical, only gives you 10- 40% of its rated output.
Possibly a moot point by now, but a friend had monochrystaline pv panels on her garage roof and local kids started trying to wreck them, she moved them inside the garage and fitted sky lights to let light through to the panels.
google search "camouflage solar panel from Colored Solar" 3rd link down shows what i believe you are looking for.hope this helped:) mike
Might do what I might do.my back yard is south,I might try attaching 4 100watt panels as 1 with screws or rivets.raising my patio table with a new beefier pole,a foot or so higher than current.and replacing the canopy with the solar,running the , wires down inside the pole..you can even dress up the edges of the solar with tassels...good luck.🇨🇦
Build a pond and put them just under the water surface.
I can think of many: table tops, a box of 4 small panels, upstair windows where the window & glass are part of the panel, solar generator made of a picknick basket, my chicken-coop has a solar panel for a roof (this was to make power for the pond pump along with light & heat, put on a flat roof or storage,
How about a 12x12 flat wooden shade/porch cover coming off your house? (Then install panels on flat top and conceal wires)
use monochrystalline panels - not the amorphous panels. The amorphous ones are less efficient (so you need larger panels that are more visible), and have a 5-7 year shelf life. Monocrhystalline keep up to 80% performance after 25 years. I'd say place them on the roof - if you're worried about them getting stolen. People are also less likely to see them too. The other option is to have a bigger battery system - increase storage at the expense of needing more panels.
Solar panels are, by nature, hard to hide: they must be exposed to the sun for hours at a time to work at all. Nothing new here.
The idea of having a larger battery will not do much for you because the battery will only store energy applied to it, so the panels must be big enough to charge it. (BTW, the only battery worth the effort and money is the nickel-iron [NiFe] system developed by Edison a century ago. Jay Leno has 100+ year-old electric cars that still run on the original batteries. They last a very long time.)
Your roof, unless it's facing a hill away from neighbors and traffic is unlikely to hide them. Putting them behind a fence limits solar exposure. Hiding them in any way makes them much less effective as energy sources for the same reason.
The only effective (and it's not perfect, by far) way I can see to hide this in plain sight is to use a relatively new product. I do not recall the official name, but it's an integrated solar panel-roofing tile combination. They're blue, like a lot of PV panels, but they don't look like panels: they look like designer roofing tiles.
For a more conventional system, I plan on "destroying" our panels once a disaster hits by breaking the glass covers. Obviously, the panels themselves will have to be weather-tight, but the broken glass and ripped up (camouflage) wires dangling around might convince some people that the system is inoperable. Sortta like the emperor's fully functional death star with its "under construction" façade.
We are developing a system so as not to be obvious that they are solar. email us at webmaster@eclipsecomputersolutions.com and we can discuss some ideas