INCREASING Solar Panel Output for CHEAP!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 ธ.ค. 2023
- #solar #solarpanels #offgrid #offgridpower #solarpower #Ecoworthy #EcoFlow I increase the output of my solar panels for cheap in this episode.
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To test the power from rear illumination simply cover the panels themselves.. what you have left after they are covered on the front is what is being added from the rear.... this makes it easy to test.
not true. the panels will be considerably colder increasing efficiency. this would make it look like as if back illumination would add way more power than it actually does.
not at all, as the panels themselves leave light through and with the cover you avoid rear illumination but not the reflection of the light going through panels (and reflection from the cover).
Nice I did the exact same thing I painted my rocks white and that worked amazingly well then I added a reflective panel like you did and that completed it and everything charges really well and I added white glow rocks around the panels and now it charges even at night for about 3 hours although its not much of a charge being at night but I was very surprised to see that it actually works, thank you for the video
As in glow in the dark pebbles? Can you elaborate?
It’s pretty cool, that’s a pretty significant boost. I think another thing that would help would be to raise the panels up off the ground so you had less of a shadow space. If you lifted those 6 feet off the ground, you would eliminate more than half of that shadow space, and increase the amount of reflection that would affect the bottom of the panels I would think. 🤔
That's been a very popular suggestion.
There are some test that show in some situations vertical bifacial panes mounted vertically actually are the best idea. And some have even had the panels facing east west not south.
The reason this works so well is the cooling effect. Panels that heat up drop in efficiency enough to be a problem
Uni in Netherlands has tested and what you said is the best option.
Its not only the cooling effect, its also how the shadow is projected from those panels.
I’ve heard that as well, I wanted to try it but I’m scared that wind & the debris it kicks up might damage the panels!
As you get closer to high reflection on the back you might want to protect the connectors and wires from the light/heat.
If he is only reflecting and not concentrating sunlight, would this really be a problem? He could use thicker wires to compensate, or lower the current.
@@putinscat1208 Correct, you're only reflecting here, with far less than perfect albedo. The effect on the wiring is almost certainly less than the effect of them just being in direct sunlight.
This was GREAT! One of your best videos yet, IMO.
I have the 100 w Ecoflow foldable bi facial panels, so the reflective bubble wrap will help speed up charging.
Thank you for taking the time doing all the 'tests' to save us the guesswork.
Glad you enjoyed it
Good work, lots of knowledge and effort getting good results!
Great video. For anyone up north bifacial is the way to go if you can ground mount.
I found bifacial to be really beneficial for colder climates. Those cloudy/winter days is where it shines.
also if you're more interested in being usable in places with lots of rain and cloudy weather instead of the monocrystal panels get polycrystalline panels. Not as efficient but can pull at least some charge out of overcast days with poor weather when monocrystalline panels won't produce at all.
We have 9 x 195w Eco-Worthy regular panels and they have been working excellent!! Very happy with their performance with our Bluetti’s thus far!
BTW, been doing a test of my own. I don't have bifacial panels but while working on angling the panels on top of my TT I found that having the front set of panels laying flat and the back set angled I gained a lot of power. The reflection off the flat panels helped the back get more light. Usually from around 2:30 on I lose a lot of power whether it's sunny or not due to trees. However since laying the front panels down I am more than doubling my power from 2:30 on. Cloudy days I was lucky to get 3 to 4 kwh but now regularly get 5 to 6 plus kwh. Even now where it's been cloudy since 1:30 today I'm over 6.1kwh with an hour and a half of daylight or so to go and still getting 485 watts. Before I'd get around 145 watts with the panels all angled.
Bifacial Poly Crystallines for me! Most days there are cloudy, especially during Autumn and Winter Months, but even during all months. Polyscrystallines still produce.
That is simply GENIUS!
I love when you experiment and share your findings! Also when you stumble upon new knowledge to pass on. 👼🎅🎄Merry Christmas to you and Tiffany🎄🎅👼
(and the boys too!)
Thank you for watching, Merry Christmas!
I'm sure you could raise house temperature some by doing that. But I'd imagine paint fading and discoloration would happen.
Amazing diy channel. You are helping to educate, provide practical information,inspire others to save money and help the environment. Channels like yours is what makes youtube worthwhile instead of dramatic and political/controversial. Well done !
Agreed! No time for drama here.
Nice words, but unfortunately in this case it's the blind leading the blind. There's nothing practical or educational in this video. These panels preform best upright and in an east west orientation. This video is just a random guy shooting in the dark, hitting miles off target. I certainly hope you don't consider this educational.
Says the person saying pointing a panel exactly opposite of the sun is best. Videos all over TH-cam disproving this "theory". At this point I'll test this since there's been enough people curious about it.
@@TKCL It's not exactly pointing "opposite to the sun" though, is it? It's more like one side facing the rising sun until midday, then the other side facing the setting sun ... you guessed it, until sunset. And both sides collecting reflected light all day.
You clearly are not qualified to run this test (same as the others who "disproved" this), so don't bother. Or do it, give us more to laugh at.
Thank You for supporting Solar and for All that you are doing for our Planet Earth....
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Fascinating experiment Andrew. Always good to tinker for optimum performance. Merry Christmas to you and Tiffany!
Love tinkering! Merry Christmas!
If you add reflective stainless metal sheets both on the ground and on the hinged wall you were talking about, then that would help increase the gain even more, because the panels would use both the first reflection (sun-mirror-panels) and the second reflections (sun-mirror-mirror-panels).
Very cool video Andrew..
Can't wait to see the next one.
Thank you for watching
The thought came to me that one way around any inverter problems is to use as many dc appliances as possible .
I have a small dc refrigerator that my panels run just fine . Also a dc coffee pot and a small dc water heater .
I bought three of those 200w bifacial mounted on a ecoworthy rack mounted on a base that I put 6” swivel dolly wheels on for mobility. I used an RV windshield aluminum shade behind it works very well with the reflective panel behind and easily movable as needed. 👍
That is awesome!
The reflection helps but the carboard may have blocked cooling affecting output too. Thanks for sharing this, very interesting
Hi, Andrew! I’m not sure if I ever told you what I taught before I retired. It was science and math. Your experiments and building projects are very satisfying to my innate inquisitiveness. It’s like a science lab everyday on your channel. Thanks for all your hard work putting all these interesting posts on your TH-cam channel. It makes me happy.
Science was my favorite subject in school.
@@TKCL wow! Most of my students were in my class because North Carolina requires the science I taught as a graduation requirement. I had to spice it up and make it fun for them. To demonstrate the effect of changing the freezing point of water, we made homemade ice cream. My principal loved that lab because I always sent him a large serving.
Thanks for helping with your Knowhow ❤❤❤
Great video. Thanks for sharing. Love the channel. 🤠
I like that you tried the short wall❤
Andrew,you and I are two peas in the same pod. Love this video. I found three used solar tube skylights at the second hand construction materials shop, and with some duct tape and bubble gum they are now adding 16 - 22% to one of my array's. Love the bubble wrap idea though. Will have to try and see if I can add it to my set up... Merry Christmas!!!
Nice! Merry Christmas!
Andy, You are a premier explainer and researcher among the best, if not the best! Many thanks for your efforts! 👍👍👍
Thank you for the kind words
I totally agree.
You could even put some reflectors in the front as well single facial panels can be boosted as well by reflecting more on the front.
Thanks for all the work 👊
No problem 👍
Merry Christmas 🎄 from Mississippi to Andrew and Tiffany. Also Merry Christmas to your audience in case I don't get to see anymore videos beforehand ❤
Merry Christmas to you and your family.
Thanks for the video, I had recently bought four of these bifacial panels, and wondered what I could do to increase productivity!
There you go, anything reflective behind seems to help.
Great work, I have some big bifacials being implemented soon! Great info
Glad you enjoyed it
Elevate the panels and add the reflected surface under the panels. This should give you a 10% increase or more in your system. I live completely off grid here in the West Texas Desert close to El Paso Texas and we have to set it up so we can get the best power rating we can get so we have fully charged batteries and the system runs through the night. We are not running Bi facial panels but I might just have to get me some.
You'll probably get the best results with a bright white background. The problem with flat mirroring objects is that they reflect light in a specific direction, which means that at certain times of day, you lose all the extra light that is reflected in the wrong direction. You need diffuse reflection or parabolic mirroring.
Parabolic is the way to go. You need polished aluminum.
But overall this system that he is installed behind the panels is actually worthless.
When summer comes those panels depending on what latitude you're will be flat or pretty close to being perfectly flat on the ground.
The only way to overcome that problem would be to raise the panels in the air.
The higher you put the panels the greater the shadow that's cast behind it.
If you still want to go ahead with this you have to still use the parabolic setup but it would have to be further back behind where the shading is.
Furthermore you'd have to have additional reflection underneath the panels to get the solar arrays reflected for a second time. I do not use bifacial panels. I have some panels that face the sun in the east in the morning . The majority of my panels face due south. And then I've got six more of that face the West so I can catch the Sun almost until 9:00 at night in the summertime
A parabolic mirror will concentrate the sun energy in the form of extreme heat. You can hit several hundred degrees with a parabolic mirror focusing direct sunlight. You'll destroy your panels with that much focused heat. Heat kills panels.
@Wrenchmonkey1 True, that would create too much heat. Maybe combining the two solutions is the best way to go, using a parabolic mirror shaped white, or diffuse surface, so not all the heat is directly concentrated. Or maybe just moving the panels a bit out of focus.
This absolutely answers the questions i had about using bifacial panels. I'm in the southern philippines near the equator with a steep pitch roof that has a clear view of the sky. I was considering mounting on a frame that extends from the ridge either side but is has a low angle leaving significant space underneath at the eaves. It looks like painting the roof white or with reflective paint will make a significant difference. The only problem I'll have on really sunny days is heat, it's consistently high 80s year round and 95 plus in summer. Thanks for the very informative video.
Heat definitely reduces panel efficiency, but that's part of it.
Never even thought about this thank you.
Thank you for watching
Reflectix on sides and minimal angle front and you’re cooking! Wind and weather, easy two years payback!
Speaking get into solar cooking! (I have used Burns-Milwaukee oven since 1998) which survived a fall out garage attic!
Great video. I know it was a lot of work so I appreciate that you did it.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Additionally, to increase the sunlight hitting the top side of the panel, you can add a reflective surface (at 60 degrees to a panel surface that's perpendicular to the Sun) along the bottom edge of the array. This can effectively double the sunlight hitting the front surface and provide a substantial increase in output. It will also increase the temperature of the panel so some sort of auxiliary cooling may be needed. Keep in mind that Increasing the temperature of the panel and doubling the UV energy hitting it may decrease panel life. However, if used to supplement panel output only on hazy days it would not cause nearly as much heating and the UV energy would be reduced considerably.
Anything is possible, but the heat concern is something we must watch here in sunny Florida.
I was watching your reflection experiments today. If I was building the reflector, I would use a 2x2 along the top and bottom over the bubble wrap to prevent the wind from getting under the edges.
aluminum rolled flashing is highly reflective and durable for outdoors, maybe give it a clear coat. Can also make heat sinks out of aluminum sheeting to pull summer heat from panels.
I used some mirrors, that can be purchased from thrift shops or discount stores, which greatly increased the watts.
Got a place that gives me large mirrors and smaller picture frames.
Check your temperature. Mirrors can cook your panels and greatly shorten their life.
White stonechip under the panels will do a lot. I've seen studies from snowy areas showing that bi-facials perform really well with albedo, not just "mirrored" surfaces.
Hi, regarding your 45 degree angle for compromise sun position year round. I do not have any auto sun tracking on my panels but I do change the angle from summer to winter. I use my panels for my residence so getting peak watts is a must. Nice video😊
Excellent video. This is you at your best!
I like to tinker!
Bifacial panels are best with the from edge 42 inches off the ground. Gets them from out of their own shadow
Good review on the solar panels I seen where you had to shovel the rock so how's the back doing. Hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you and your family 🎄🎁
Back has been great, I'm trying to be smarter about my movements. Merry Christmas!
Thats my kind of experiment. Kudos.
Thank you for watching
Interesting results from your testing. You can get reflective mylar sheets. Amazon has 48" x 10' rolls for $26. You can get longer rolls for more money, obviously. It'll be a little more reflective than the bubble wrap. I believe that a curved surface will be able to passively track the sun better than a flat panel. Since you're not going to use the area behind the solar panels you could build a radiused reflective wall behind the panel and test how it tracks the sun without having to move the reflective wall. You could even try different height and radii to see which follows the sun better. The styling of the new EcoFlow looks cool. I'll be looking forward to your review. I expect it to be an amazing product.
Definitely an idea/project to consider.
You could also set up one of those in front and reflect too reflect to the front of the panel as well
I have a suggestion. Its basically a mirror effect. But using some plexi and using a mirror tint to the back of it and use it similar to the bubble wrap.
Its much more durable then the bubble wrap and hardier then mirror and should give you a similar effect!
Great stuff as always. 👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾
Thank you for watching
You can add more reflective light from the left and right side of it.
my personal experience is very simple put a bake watertight sale beneath your solar panel then fill it up with three or four inches of water works perfectly
You got alllll your steps in on this video LOL Great information Andrew!
Oh boy did I! I've actually been walking a lot this week for some extra exercise, the weather is perfect.
Hi Andrew, interesting review, you’re very good at explaining things. 🎄🎄👍👍❤️❤️🇨🇦
Thank you for watching
Greetings from Poland. Thanks for the valuable test.
Thanks for watching!
Subbed to your channel. I like your style. I used crushed white marble gravel in front of my four 100w panels and it helped. I regret not getting before numbers for comparison. I can anecdotally tell it’s better but I can’t prove it 😅
Merry Christmas to you both,
Merry Christmas
Mobile home roof coatings. I had on 3 pairs of sunglasses last time I coated my roof.
I have a large system, two 42 ft rows of panels (12 each). I just happen to have a bunch of 4x8 ft insulation panels I bought at an auction. A 10% increase would be over 1000 watts. I might try one to see if I get any extra.
4:25 That bubble wrap also works very well to reflect heat. Covered the inside of my garage doors with it last spring. It was cooler all summer and the garage has stayed warmer all winter.
Correct, alot of people cover their exposed water well tanks here with it
Came down to the comments to say this, and it might heat up the panels more also. Reflecting light but not as much infrared would be optimal
Great video... Thanks!
Thank you for watching
Good technique 👌
If you're worried about mirrors breaking and creating a mess you could always add a thin layer of something like Fiberglass or similar to car windows- a thin layer of some adhesive material so that if it does break it'll all stay together and not make a mess. Nice experiment! I love this sort of tinkering.
Great experiment, thanks
Thank you!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, ideas and videos. Great video showing the properties of the bifacial panels. Would be interesting if you could video a line chart of your power output and overlay it to your videos. You could then see in the video the affect in sync to the video. You never know what nuances you might find. Might be worth trying to mount the panels in a vertical orientation. I’ve heard that is the latest craze, you make more power in the morning and evening, typically when needed by the power grid. Understandably not really relevant for you but the part I like is they should be less susceptible to damage from things like hail and could possibly be used in an urban setting as a replacement to a fence.
Thank you. Very useful.
Glad you enjoyed it
Recently saw an interesting video about Bifacial panels that were setup vertically facing east/west, they actually produced 10-15% more electricity then conventionally laid panels.
I've watched similar tests that show it produces less, erratic results on TH-cam.
Excellent!!!😀 My English is very poor so I don't know if I'm going to suggest anything you said you are going to do. I'm talking about to use the same material to reflect the light and put it on the ground under the panels until the one you already have. So all the surface would reflect light to the bottom of the panels. I think that it would increase a little more the number of watts. Congratulations from Portugal.😀
Thank you for watching and the suggestion
I did something very similar..My ground mount is built with two, 4x4 posts on each end, using 2x6's to make my rectangle, with some metal strut to attach my panels..The 4x4 posts have a ten inch screw going through them and the 2x6's allowing the whole thing to be tilted up and down..I built a platform under on of the 4x4's and attached 4 wheels, the other 4x4 is in the ground about 3 feet, and is connected to a bearing assembly..That way I can tilt my panels to get the right angle, and I can move the side with the wheels to follow the sun, while the other 4x4 spins in place..And I have the same reflectix stuff underneath..Those 3 different hacks allow me to get every bit of sunshine..The total increase over just a regular mount is around 50%..I should make a video, because I've never seen that done before..
Good idea. I might try that myself. Although, it's not bubble wrap, it's reflectix. 😊
Something else that would help is to raise it up higher, it allows more 'area' to reflect onto.
Nice to see another DIYer solar person. Reviewing those panels, you MAY need to add one more to cover yourself in summer temperatures based on the head room needed for your charger.
That's very true, I planned to add several more. I'll monitor it, I'm already seeing a 20v jump based on the cold factor. Summertime is a killer here in Florida.
Excellent well done very helpful
Glad you enjoyed it
A little contact cement and a couple rolls of Aluminum foil stuck to those sheets would make a heck of a mirror. Get some cheap white paint or white-wash and coat the rocks with a sprayer every couple years, you'll need to shield the panels during spraying.
Very nice i also did the same but one more thing which in addition I did is I painted the floor with bright color, it has overall increased my production by approx 20% which has significant impact on overall production in the long run, initially I used mirror but it is an expensive material with less resealiance from wind now I'm using a metal sheet with reflector sticker on it which is normally used on sign boards on roads
Thanks for sharing
I would recommend DIY types do some basic research on panel output voltage/wattage for series and parallel connections, and match with your charge converters, battery voltage, etc. I have been looking at this for about a week and have learned quite a bit. Also, just moving from 12V to 24V batteries can save $$ on wiring in your equipment and to your batteries.
If you are keen, try the same methods with the panel mounted verticle. I think you will be surprised with the results
Raise the panels farther from the ground, a bowl shape reflective, focusing towards the panels would give you a greater solar yield.
The reflective material in reflectix is just a thin layer of aluminum. You could polish up that aluminum panel and get the same results in a much more durable package.
I might do that
Very nice video, great job.
Thank you very much!
Cooling them also help they are at peak efficiency around 21c
I have 5 x ZnShine 455w bifacial pannels,white surface under them, they gave me 510w each, in may
You can also get white ground cover plastic / weed barrier. It’s used in commercial greenhouses. Might be slightly cheaper than gravel + normal weed barrier and have higher reflectivity.
Edit: thinking about it the ideal customer would be somewhere arid where you need rainwater harvesting and have two shallow berms covered in white plastic to collect water and vertical bifacial panels running up the valley. The vertical position would help with air cooling and the diffuse light from the white plastic would keep it producing but not over heat it at midday giving an efficiency boost. Completely useless for me living in Ireland but fun to think about! Good idea for a lot of people in the Sahel in Africa though
Look into projection screen paint. Its what people use to paint dry wall, so you can project movies. (makes it really pretty) anyway. put that rock down, then paint it!
Mylar rolled out on panels. Reflex the sun under the panels much of the day increasing output
Wow just off cardboard did not think would add any. You can angle the panels more with more 6x6 in back or front of system depend on spring or winter. Close to 200 watt per panel x 5 panel 1000 watt capable you got 733 watts you got almost 75% electricity . If you have structure like stonehenge it would reflect as sun rises sets . Bubblewrap very useful ! Thanks for video !
Thank you for watching
Have you considered mounting the panels vertically and putting a strip of concave reflective material on either side? Maybe mount the panels perpendicular to the path of the Sun?
You have to reidirect the sunlight wih two panels to properly mirror the sun. 1-A at a ht behind and above the panel ht @ An axis ht about 4 ft. to get the sun to point half way to the panels and direct that A panel to another B shiny Panel placed on the ground halfway between. It will make much more light than your single reflector . Also if you lift the panels off the ground 2 more feet you can redirect more light at a harder more direct angle. 90+ 90 .
Thanks
On the mirror subject as an option, you can actually get plastic mirrors, so no risk of shattering with those.
Nice!
Here's a test suggestion; what if you had more solar panels similarly arranged in back? Although they are black, they are nonetheless REFLECTIVE due to the glass. To aid the effect you could have the panels in back at a steeper angle, just as you did with the bubble wrap.
Good video... Thank you.
Glad you liked it!
super - great experiment, and results on how to get more power from your current array. My four panels are on the flat roof part of my home. The roofing material is rolled, brown asphalt. I plan to coat it with white, elastomeric roof coating and hope for the same results as your's increased. Greg (garden grove, CA)
Thanks for watching
How about making the actual solar panel slope adjustable with a pivot along the bottom edge. The objective being to get the low sun angle more square on to the panel face in Winter time etc. If the whole panel is more steeply inclined you can reflect light more square on from the rear side also. The gain in voltage would be really high.
Yes and my main shop solar array already does this. This small array is already producing what I need and then some. We are simply testing bifacial benefits due to reflectivity.
Weeds are going to be a problem through the rocks. Need weed barrier cloth underneath.
I like a dry pour slab underneath painted with elastomeric white cool coating, I'd even paint the hardware/legs underneath. You'd get the benefit of reflectivity while not absorbing heat and increasing ambient temperature in proximity of the panels, which reduces efficiency.
Put your panels on a swivel with arms that can change length for different seasons. great videos.
That's how I have my big system. This is already producing more than I need, so I'm just playing around right now.
Kelly, you could try using mirror paint on treated wood. Might be simpler to maintain over time. Curious to see how that would perform in terms of reflection boost.
I've never tried it, sounds interesting.
Don't know if this provides some perspective for some folks, but that 70 W gain you saw with the reflective panel is roughly the equivalent of the full rated power of my solar on the Landcruiser I lived in for 18 months back in 2006/2007. I had a single 80 W panel and a deep cycle lead acid for storage (can't remember the Ah). It was just enough to run an Engel fridge/freezer for maybe a couple of days without driving. That's a meaningful gain for sure! I suppose in today's terms, you're getting enough extra juice to charge a power hungry laptop. Can't hurt, right!
Thanks Andrew I was curious the amount of gains bifacial have in real world test vs the lab. Makes since why they cost more. Merry Christmas to yall
Merry Christmas, thanks for watching.