Post #8900

I am at 33 degrees north. Since my house is well insulated, my HVAC system doesn't use any more power in winter than summer and since we drive the electric cars the same amount each month, I need to generate the same amount of power each month of the year. By running various tilt angles through the PVWATTS calculator (on line), I found that a 29degree tilt gives me the most annual production 15503kwh vs 15291kwh at a 40 degree tilt. I'm able to trade some higher producing months in the summer for a little extra production in the winter by tilting my panels steeper than textbook. Here we see that February is bad no matter what you do. The solution is to add more panels until February usage is covered. PS: tilt is measured down from horizontal. 0 is horizontal and 90 is vertical.