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I built an open-source, AI-powered solar panel that's 95% optimal

jackogrady.me

71–80 of 143 posts

Re: I built an open-source, AI-powered solar panel that's 95% optimal

#71

Given any GPS coordinates, couldn't one simply calculate the location of the sun in the sky to point directly toward it?

You're forgetting about orientation (and altitude)? The observed position also varies a bit with air pressure and temperature, but iirc that's less than a few degrees. Anyway, you grab yourself a nice ephemeris library like skyfield, do a little bit of your_location.at(now).observe(sun).apparent().altaz('standard'), and there's your angles.

The trickiest part might be getting an accurate time on whatever cheap controller your using.

Re: I built an open-source, AI-powered solar panel that's 95% optimal

#72

Given any GPS coordinates, couldn't one simply calculate the location of the sun in the sky to point directly toward it?

Apparently no one read the article.

Does the article do an actual evaluation of the performance of its approach compared to whatever arcastroe suggested?

Re: I built an open-source, AI-powered solar panel that's 95% optimal

#73
post #13

I'll just leave this here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL9PcGu_xrA&t=174s

Reminds me of "the Russians used a pencil"

Right sentiment (look for a simple solution), but sadly that story isn't true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Pen#Uses_in_the_U.S._and...

Re: I built an open-source, AI-powered solar panel that's 95% optimal

#74
post #26
post #13

I'll just leave this here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL9PcGu_xrA&t=174s

Nowadays panels are cheap enough that if you want more power than you get with them fixed in place, you just add more panels.

Something to consider is when adding more panels brings your total installation power over the limit of your net metering agreement.

Re: I built an open-source, AI-powered solar panel that's 95% optimal

#75
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays panels are cheap enough that if you want more power than you get with them fixed in place, you just add more panels.

Exactly. Any mechanism that moves the panel to follow the sun, must be sturdy enough to also withstand high winds, which is inevitably costlier than proof of concept ideas. Better to add more panels. A better way to ensure more power output is to have a set of panels with a small battery back to automate cooling of the panels and cleaning of the panels.

Another concept involving the cooling of solar panels and how to use the heat:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dJixtZdkU0

Re: I built an open-source, AI-powered solar panel that's 95% optimal

#76
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$3 per watt, installed on your roof is typical these days: https://www.remodelingcosts.org/solar-panel-costs-increase-s... That includes labor, mounting hardware, inverters and grid tie in. It also assumes high efficiency panels. Watch out before buying older technology (lower efficiency) panels. Some have significant efficiency losses per degree Celsius increase in temperature.

> $3 per watt, installed on your roof is typical these days Which is why I was so fascinated by someone saying that you could get panels at 250USD/400W=0.625USD/W; I suppose it's possible that all the other stuff (electrician, mounting, inverters) is the difference, but a factor of 5? That feels like an chance to do something hacky and come out way ahead (like, say, DIYing a panel to run your computers, thus cutting…

In the US a large part of what you’re paying for is the sales and marketing cost.

Prices in the UK & Europe are lot lower per watt.

Re: I built an open-source, AI-powered solar panel that's 95% optimal

#77
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays panels are cheap enough that if you want more power than you get with them fixed in place, you just add more panels.

Something to consider is when adding more panels brings your total installation power over the limit of your net metering agreement.

The intverter should be able to be configured with export limits. In a lot of jurisdictions that's mandatory anyway. Still better to over-specify so that in Winter you get the full amount while in Summer you just throw some away. Or take up a power-intensive hobby like Bitcoin mining in Summer.

Re: I built an open-source, AI-powered solar panel that's 95% optimal

#79

I'd like to see a comparison with a dumb as a box of hammers controller like PI or extremum seeking on the local gradient. I can't imagine that it is learning much more than a simple strategy like this, but maybe that's my lack of imagination...

Correct. Basically all the gimbal is doing is minimizing the cosine loss. This is, literally, the simplest loss function possible. Even if you don't know where the sun is, damped gradient descent will solve this problem every time, with no learning required (albeit with some jitter because you're having to estimate the gradient by moving the panel around). If you treat it as an iterative learning control (ILC) proble…

You can do this without jitter by having the panel with a bend in it and comparing power from the 2 sides. The difference drives a motor controller directly.

Re: I built an open-source, AI-powered solar panel that's 95% optimal

#80
As a small p.v. user (domestic, wired by myself): tracking Sun gives around 10-20% annual electricity production (witch is meaningless for self-consumption scenario) and a bit earlier and late electricity during the day (you produce earlier in the morning and later in the evening, witch is interesting for self-consumption) but beside the mere cost you need more space: fixed installs need just to count fixed shadows, not static of course, but easy to handle. Rotating means you need more space for one-axis rotation and far more space for two, clustering panels in small groups.

In my personal case I have 12+9 classic chains modules, I need more than 2x physical space to transform them with a dual-axis tracking setup. That means it's cheaper just add some fixed panels eastward and westward to catch extra power earlier and later.

Also in those terms: lithium storage is very expensive BUT for self-consumption is still the cheaper option to have electricity for more time, just arriving to a meaningful production 1/1.5h earlier and later in the day does not help much given it's added cost.

In costs terms: these days it's even cheaper (in TCO terms) having hot water heated by p.v. than the more efficient thermal because that cost more, have more moving parts and regular maintenance that just making an a bit bigger p.v.

The real issue in all cases is that to have enough power to really pay back the investment "quickly" we need much non-shadowed southward space witch can be found somewhere but far from everywhere. A similar issue is for EVs: I like the idea of charging them "for free" from solar, BUT since I normally use a vehicle during the day or I use it only sometimes or I have two or more in a round-robin scheme. Also lithium storage lifetime is an issue, on scale the production capacity and recycling are issues. Until we solve them just produce some more Wh it's meaningless...

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