Can you turn your garden fence into a mini solar farm?
www.euronews.com
Solar fences are gaining ground in Europe, as households continue to invest in renewables amid the war on Iran.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/48481513

Solar fences are gaining ground in Europe, as households continue to invest in renewables amid the war on Iran.

      • solo@slrpnk.net
        4·
        19 days ago

        Just to note something that was not mentionned in the video: if we talk about an area that gets snow, vertical ones can be the best choice because they do not hold any snow during winter.

      • eleitl@lemmy.zip
        2·
        19 days ago

        Vertically mounted bifacials have better cooling so higher efficiency, harvest light from both sides and provide more during low winter sun and no snow cover on the panels/reflected light from the snow.

    • evasive_chimpanzee@lemmy.world
      3·
      19 days ago

      It depends on a lot of factors. It’s less, but definitely not negligible. Especially if you have a fence running north/south with bifacial panels, you will generate most of your power in the morning and the evening when demand is highest. If you have some kind of net metering, the extra power in the evening could outpace panels in a normal configuration from a monetary perspective.

      Many typical configurations also suffer from decreased efficiency due to heat, which is the worst around noon on a clear day. Vertical panels get the least direct light around then.

      It’s also better for dirt and snow like others have mentioned.

      I’ll hunt for an article with some actual numbers.

      Edit: this paper does side by side comparisons with vertical monofacial, and traditional angled, but the objective was different (i.e., they were looking for peak energy production, not peak value of the energy), so they installed facing south. The difference between monofacial and bifacial is more important here because 1 row of panels will reflect some light at the back of the panels in front of it. As a fence, thats not a factor.

      The TL;DR, is that the vertical panels actually produced more energy, which surprised me.

      https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-68018-1