Can you put panels facing NORTH?

Merlin139

My sister in Law has seen how well are panels are doing and is looking at getting panels fitted. Her house faces South and is a semi detached.

The front part of the roof has room for max 5 panels so 1.25Kws The East facing roof has room for max 8 panels so 2.0Kws.

Is there any point in putting 3 panels on the rear so north facing to make it up to 4.0Kws?

Any advice gratefully received.

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

You would certainly get some generation from north-facing panels early morning and late evening in the summer. You could put the figures in HERE if you wanted an estimate.

Martyn1981

Hiya Merlin, I don't think there is any easy answer or short-cut. You'd need to get quotes for the various set-ups and work out the total generation as per F&N's post.

Then divide the cost by generation, and see which one gives the lowest number.

I don't think there are any triple MPPT inverters (though Stecca have some solutions), so a 3 roof system would probably need micro-inverters or power optimisers, and there may be additional scaffolding costs.

Performance will also be impacted heavily by a steep roof pitch (try it) but a shallow north facing roof may perform 60 to 70% of a south facing, so worth thinking about at the very least.

Mart.

Merlin139

Thanks Mart and F&N. Was going to put the figures in to get a PVGIS estimate when she came round this evening. Have now done that.

South around 1200
East around 1500
North around 370

The rear of the property has a sun longe extension so it would prove tricky for the scaffolding costs.

Once again thanks for the advice.

gazapc

Merlin139 wrote: »

The front part of the roof has room for max 5 panels so 1.25Kws The East facing roof has room for max 8 panels so 2.0Kws.

It might be worth noting that you can get panels with higher ratings than 250 watts each, my boss has had an install with SunPower 327 watt panels on a space limited roof, Ok they are more expensive but 13 panels as you suggest would get you over 4kw using them and would perform much better than a north facing system.

Most manufacturers also do panels in the 250-290 watt range so might be worth getting a few quotes for different size schemes and go from there.

rogerblack

Would planning permission typically be required if (assuming possible and unshaded and ...) the panels were placed on a southfacing wall?

SailorSam

A couple of years ago i phoned one of those places which advertise 'free' panels 'cos they take a cut of the power. They never came out just checked my house on the Internet while i was on the phone, then came back and said i couldn't get my house done 'cos there wasn't enough south facing roof.

ed110220

gazapc wrote: »

It might be worth noting that you can get panels with higher ratings than 250 watts each, my boss has had an install with SunPower 327 watt panels on a space limited roof, Ok they are more expensive but 13 panels as you suggest would get you over 4kw using them and would perform much better than a north facing system.

Most manufacturers also do panels in the 250-290 watt range so might be worth getting a few quotes for different size schemes and go from there.

You can also get 327 W BenQ panels that appear to share the same design as the SunPower panels but are a little less pricey.

Therefore you could have five panels on the south facing side providing 1.635 kW and seven on the east providing 2.289 kW, total 4 kW give or take the odd watt. You'll get more wattage on the south, less on the east and none on the north for the full 4 kW.

Obviously more expensive than using the cheaper 250 W panels, but will probably make this up in extra generation.

Ed