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

jackogrady.me

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

#4

Post by countvonbalzac »

I remember there was this science barge that had a solar panel that passively tracked the sun by being mounted on a metal tube that had some gas in it that expanded and somehow tilted the panel more towards the sun.

I wonder how much more accurate your system is and whether the tradeoff is worth the added expense of a motor + the additional maintenance cost of moving parts.

I wonder why solar farms don't use active tracking, is that added maintenance + equipment cost just not worth it?

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

#5

Post by mirker »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #3
anglinb wrote: post #2

This looks incredible, could see this approach revolutionizing so many industries.

this is not my field, but you couldn't just have it orient to point of brightest intensity?

Yeah but that requires knowing control theory rather than “learning” it.

Control theory is better if you know what you’re doing. ML is technical debt for sure.

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

#6

Post by rl_for_energy »

countvonbalzac wrote: post #4

I remember there was this science barge that had a solar panel that passively tracked the sun by being mounted on a metal tube that had some gas in it that expanded and somehow tilted the panel more towards the sun. I wonder how much more accurate your system is and whether the tradeoff is worth the added expense of a motor + the additional maintenance cost of moving parts. I wonder why solar farms don't use active t…

So large solar farms are usually single-axis tracking, which provides a huge energy production benefit over static panels. Consider this panel's application more for a standalone installment, where it could make sense to use a dual-axis tracking panel over a single-axis or static panel. Re: solar farms and cost, I actually learned that around ~70% of the cost of solar installation is soft costs, not the actual panels/solar cells etc. Applying RL to much larger installations would be about finding non-obvious ways to leverage the single-axis tracking when the sun is not directly overheard. A fun problem for the future :)

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

#8

Post by rl_for_energy »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #3
anglinb wrote: post #2

This looks incredible, could see this approach revolutionizing so many industries.

this is not my field, but you couldn't just have it orient to point of brightest intensity?

You certainly could, but that doesn't entirely account for shading / system degradation / site-specific diffuse light opportunities (consider a huge amount of light reflecting off the side of a mountain at some time of day). Those are both really difficult and time-intensive to model for, so there's a desire to have an AI that can simply learn those things specific to the system it's optimizing without humans having to do it. I see the larger impact of RL as scaling humanity's problem solving capability. If we have to use N human hours per installation to get to 97% optimality per installation but RL can use N/10000000 per installation to get to 95%, we could free up all those N human hours for things that RL still struggles with. Just my 2 cents though, it's a very fair question

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

#9

Post by nicois »

Doesn't this model fail to account for seasonal variations in the locus of the sun? The optimal angle will vary across the year, whatever the latitude.

Maybe I'm missing something, but i would use a simpler algorithm which doesn't need ML. On day 0, plug in the latitude and allow the system to traverse the range of angles, finding the optimal one at the time - ie: yielding maximum power. Let it run 3-5 times during the day, then fit those points to the theoretical path of the sun across the sky. Now your system is calibrated, without needing any other input. As the seasons change, the system will always know which angle to face for optimal power.

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

#10

Post by algo_trader »

rl_for_energy wrote: post #6
countvonbalzac wrote: post #4

I remember there was this science barge that had a solar panel that passively tracked the sun by being mounted on a metal tube that had some gas in it that expanded and somehow tilted the panel more towards the sun. I wonder how much more accurate your system is and whether the tradeoff is worth the added expense of a motor + the additional maintenance cost of moving parts. I wonder why solar farms don't use active t…

So large solar farms are usually single-axis tracking, which provides a huge energy production benefit over static panels. Consider this panel's application more for a standalone installment, where it could make sense to use a dual-axis tracking panel over a single-axis or static panel. Re: solar farms and cost, I actually learned that around ~70% of the cost of solar installation is soft costs, not the actual panels…

> around ~70% of the cost of solar installation is soft costs

This is incorrect, especially for solar farms

Panels are indeed only about 1/3 of the cost. Additional components, labour, inverter, mounting - another 1/3.

The last third is indeed soft(ish) cost, but this includes profit (duh..), certification, survey, tax, fees, etc. This can be reduced, but it is not going to magically disappear ...

Another fun fact : newer mega farms in low-altitude deserts are considering no-axis no-mounting zero-tilt - just laying the panels on the ground ... It all comes down to cost vs yield

A nice project by the way. Did you ever compare the results to pre-calculated angles based on time/location/season?

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