[HN Gopher] Vertical Solar Panels Are Out Standing
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Vertical Solar Panels Are Out Standing
Author : lxm
Score : 98 points
Date : 2025-09-29 14:22 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hackaday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hackaday.com)
| dylan604 wrote:
| Am I reading this correctly? Vertically they produce 77% compared
| to 90% of the tilted panels? In what graph is the lower number
| better?
|
| Also: "Specifically, [Dave] is using bifacial solar panels-
| panels that have cells on both sides. In his preferred
| orientation, one side faces South, while the other faces North.
| [Dave] is in the Northern Hemisphere, so those of you Down Under
| would have to do the opposite, pointing one face North and the
| other South."
|
| Isn't that the same thing? Is one of the sides specifically meant
| to face the sun? Maybe I'm just not as knowledgeable about solar
| panels, but what sunlight is being harnessed by the backside of
| the sun facing panel? Are they catching reflected light,
| otherwise, they are directly in shadow.
| jszymborski wrote:
| > Isn't that the same thing?
|
| I had the same reaction. I noticed the top comment reading
| "some of us live in the southern hemisphere" so maybe this was
| a quick edit and not thought through?
|
| Unless one of the sides of the panel is meant to face north,
| but that doesn't sound likely
| detaro wrote:
| Bifacial panels usually have one side that's a bit more more
| efficient than the other. The backside can catch reflections,
| sky light on overcast days, ...
|
| But it's usually more common to orient them east-west, so they
| have peaks in the mornings and in the afternoon/evening, which
| combines well with other solar panels that are mounted south-
| facing, or might even just match your electricity consumption
| pattern better.
| msandford wrote:
| If you look at the far right hand bar the B-N/S says 131% which
| is the highest bar on the chart. So it's producing more than
| the standard tilted slightly south orientation from what I
| gather. The legend is a bit hard to read for sure.
| petters wrote:
| > Isn't that the same thing?
|
| Yes, it's a joke.
| dylan604 wrote:
| If bifacial panels are made so each side is the same making
| orientation not an issue, then sure, hahahaha (not really.
| it's a lame joke). If there is a back side, then you
| absolutely need to reverse the orientation depending on
| hemisphere. It would be better stated that they need to be
| pointed towards the equator. If these are literally
| reversible, it seems like wasted money to me as one side will
| never produce as much as the reverse does.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The hemisphere talk is a joke, the situation being shown off
| here is one where there is snow in the ground, which greatly
| increases the amount of sunlight hitting the backside panel.
|
| This is also in January, when the sun in Ohio is very low in
| the southern sky. So north/south oriented panels are much more
| ideal.
| Linosaurus wrote:
| > Vertically they produce 77% compared to 90% of the tilted
| panels? In what graph is the lower number better?
|
| 77% of the 'normal orientation' per year, but the graph and
| 131% value is for a day in winter (January 15 this year). At
| least that's my read.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I also believe vertical panels produce more than flat panels
| in the mornings and evenings, thereby giving them anti-duck
| curve properties.
| dylan604 wrote:
| So one day of the year is producing 131% yet still only
| averages 77% for the year? Yeah, that sounds like a good
| trade off. /s
|
| I'm still trying to decide if the entire post is trolling or
| not. Nothing about it sounds sane to me.
| Xylakant wrote:
| So your problem is that during summer, average solar
| production is much higher than in winter in the first
| place. So to ensure that you have sufficient energy in
| winter, you can either overprovision heavily for summer use
| (lots of flat panels facing south) or you can sacrifice
| summer efficiency to gain winter efficiency - vertical
| panels do that.
| fckgw wrote:
| It's not just about production, it's also about reducing
| maintenance costs (don't collect snow, less dust build up
| on panels) and land usage. If you can take that 77%
| average, but maybe stick a couple more panels on land to
| reach your energy goals in an overall smaller footprint
| with less maintenance work, then maybe it's a good solution
| to specific problems.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| If you had a solar panel that produced half as much power
| as regular, but produced power at night that would be a
| massive win. This is a less extreme equivalent. It produces
| less power than a normal solar pannel, but it produces
| power at an important time (when regular solar panels don't
| produce much power).
| dessimus wrote:
| The graph confused me for a moment, but then realized the graph
| is showing the winter with SNOW on the ground, not the general
| case. So in the winter the vertical panels produce more power
| than tilted panels in very specific conditions and depending on
| how often that occurs, it may make up for the loss in
| efficiency during other times of the year. I'm guessing the
| vertical panels gain some advantage of the sun reflecting off
| the snow and into the vertical panel that the tilted panels do
| not, especially when the sun is at low angles to the horizon.
| xnx wrote:
| It's such an interesting optimization problem. Maximizing annual
| production isn't the only goal. It's also about: never running
| out of power, having surplus power when useful, minimizing
| installation cost, minimizing maintenance cost, guarding against
| dust and hail, minimizing use of land, etc.
|
| Approaches range from straight vertical to flat on the ground:
| https://erthos.com/earth-mount-solar/
| goda90 wrote:
| Earth mounting reminds me of when I used to daydream about
| autonomous, mobile, solar panel factories to cover huge swathes
| of sandy desert with solar panels. I doubt the mobile factory
| thing would ever make sense, but autonomous installation would
| be really cool.
| toss1 wrote:
| Combine it with the desert reclamation efforts finding
| success pushing back the Sahel, and it could be amazing
| colechristensen wrote:
| The cost is now at the point where we don't care so much about
| actually using every watt and when we do need more watts at a
| particular time we add more in "inefficient" configurations to
| supply it.
|
| Whole industries are going to pop up to take advantage of the
| intermittent very cheap electricity. Also there will be a
| competitive balance between the cost of storage and the "cost"
| of non-optimally aligned solar panels.
| simpsond wrote:
| Utility scale fields tend to have single axis trackers which can
| optimize output. They are expensive though. I wonder if a manual
| rack that could lock at 30 or 90 could work and be cost
| effective.
| marcodiego wrote:
| Come on: "Specifically, [Dave] is using bifacial solar panels-
| panels that have cells on both sides. In his preferred
| orientation, one side faces South, while the other faces North.
| [Dave] is in the Northern Hemisphere, so those of you Down Under
| would have to do the opposite, pointing one face North and the
| other South."
|
| That is not the kind of thing I come here for.
| YcYc10 wrote:
| I'm assuming that's a joke, but who knows.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| As Dave has shown in previous videos, bifacials are not
| symmetrical, and the backside produces less power under same
| conditions. So N-S would be different from S-N orientation.
| wzdd wrote:
| In their field?
| gorfian_robot wrote:
| I read somewhere (maybe in Dave's youtube comments) that the
| price of fencing is high enough that some folks have used
| bifacial vertical solar panels as a fence.
| floatrock wrote:
| Article doesn't give a whole lot of context, but there's two key
| innovations here:
|
| 1. Bi-facial solar panels: can take in sunlight from either end
|
| 2. Mounting bi-facials vertically so they can take in sunlight
| from both directions.
|
| I've been hearing experiments about these for a few years now.
| There's three main benefits to the vertical arrangement that
| could, given certain situations, make it more economically
| valuable:
|
| 1. In places with high-albedo snowy winters, this arrangement can
| boost winter production, which if you have snow, tends to be the
| energy-heavy time of year.
|
| 2. Keeps panels cooler. Panels lose efficiency when they get hot,
| and by having them vertical, they can run cooler. Losses in less
| direct sunlight are somewhat offset by efficiency gains from
| cooler operations.
|
| 3. More power during shoulder periods (anti-duck-curve).
| Especially in places like California that have high solar
| penetration, prices for excess energy are minimal during peak
| solar activity. Vertical arrangements give more power in the
| morning and evening, which is when traditional fields are just
| ramping up or ramping down. Thus, even if you're making less
| power overall, you can be making _more valuable_ power by having
| more production during these ramp-up /ramp-down periods.
|
| Unclear how much of an effect these counter-acting forces
| actually add, but I understand solar developers are looking into
| these arrangements.
| Havoc wrote:
| The one gotcha is that roof mounting for vertical is a bit of a
| headache & the structural support is often precisely the wrong
| way round.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| This is an interesting application; it sounds like they've
| worked through a bunch of those issues:
| https://cleantechnica.com/2025/09/27/bifacial-rooftop-
| vertic...
| water-data-dude wrote:
| Interesting that they list wind as one of the places where
| vertical panels have the advantage - my intuition would
| have been the other way around, with angled panels doing
| better in windy conditions. Wind uplift isn't something I'd
| have even thought about.
| Havoc wrote:
| I meant more on a classic home with an A-frame like roof.
|
| Don't think it's a coincidence that the demo vid they're
| showing off is a flat factory roof
| estimator7292 wrote:
| Yeah, I mean the peak of such a roof is the only
| practical place for it. I'd say this style of mounting is
| simply not appropriate for all types of roofs, and that's
| not exactly a _bad_ thing, just geometry
| jasonwatkinspdx wrote:
| Yeah, and the mounting would need to be robust enough to
| withstand the panels acting like a sail in storm winds.
|
| I think it'd be interesting to look at how these might be
| colocated with crops.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Instead of mounting on a roof, maybe this should be used in
| place of fences.
| thijson wrote:
| Vertical also doesn't take up very much real estate.
| scotty79 wrote:
| if you put up just one row and don't mind the shadow
| blackoil wrote:
| Can they be used in apartment. We don't have roof space but can
| hang them vertically from balcony. Bi-facial won't work but
| what about mono-facial?
| aitchnyu wrote:
| Germany allows apartment tenants to hang panels on their
| balcony and feed 800W for their needs.
|
| https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/solar/how-germany-
| outfi...
| te0006 wrote:
| If you have a south (or SE or SW) facing wall without much
| shadowing from nearby buildings or trees, vertikal mounting
| does work OK. Do not expect to reach the panel's nominal Wp
| rating though, output will peak at 50-70% of that. But panels
| are cheap - if there's enough room, just overprovision
| twofold. Just take care to buy an inverter that is OK with
| such a bigger configuration. And vertically mounted panels
| will generate more power off-season than tilted ones.
| dinfinity wrote:
| The anti-duck-curve is actually really, really pronounced for
| east-west mounted bifacial panels.
|
| The panels still don't generate any electricity at night of
| course, but other than that the output is an almost perfect
| inverse of the conventional equator-facing angled mounted panel
| output.
|
| Just search for "bifacial solar panels graph".
| lawlessone wrote:
| Living north western Europe, a good chunk of the year the sun
| is basically only coming from the side most of the day
| (nightmare for driving btw).
|
| This might work a lot better.
| jws wrote:
| At 45degN latitude, I keep mine nearly vertical year round. I
| used to adjust them 4 times a year for more optimal production.
| There are issues beyond angle of incidence. Being nearly vertical
| keeps the snow off in the winter. In the summer it reduces the
| cleaning required (it's a sea bird rookery, so that's kind of a
| lot). Beyond that, the telemetry needs are constant year round so
| if the panels can cover the needs in the winter, then summer is
| no problem.
|
| My current strategy for small installations when you have an
| equator facing wall or fence is slap the panels on it and be done
| with it.
| hunterpayne wrote:
| This setup almost certainly took more carbon to make than it will
| ever replace. This is usually true anywhere it snows regularly.
| There are a couple of exceptions, but unless you are above 7000ft
| of elevation you are just making the problem worse. This guy
| should donate this setup to someone in Mexico where it would make
| sense.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| You need to back that up with genuine analysis and proven
| studies.
|
| The reason i say this is that in some parts of the world
| capitalist things like building renewables to make or save
| money is politicised as a left or right wing issue with people
| arbitrarily for or against purely on that bucketing.
|
| The politicisation is stupid and doesn't even align well to any
| traditional left/right political divide other than 'at one
| point in history they fell on one side or the other of the
| issue' so now they are stuck there. It's interesting with the
| perspective of someone who's experienced a different countries
| right/left wing politics which have completely different views
| on various issues. As in there's often no reason for such
| things to be in either side honestly. In fact for certain
| things that never got politicised in the USA such as battery
| storage the red states are leading the world in grid connected
| battery installation rates since it's so profitable and the
| topic has avoided being bucketed into a left/right category all
| the while blocking offshore wind farm installation which has
| been bucketed as such.
|
| Anyway due to this politicisation you cannot just post 'this
| renewable initiative doesn't work' without honest analysis to
| back it up. This would need to include the massive drop in
| solar power and battery prices that have occurred recently.
| wolfram74 wrote:
| I'm juggling a baby approaching lunch time at the moment, so I
| can't go into too much depth on this paper[0] I found 40
| seconds ago, but the conclusion seems to think that solar panel
| EROIE in siwtzerland is somewhere between 7 and 10, which as a
| proxy for carbon intensity, /probably/ means it will actually
| result in net carbon reduction.
|
| [0]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151
| ...
| Implicated wrote:
| Congrats!
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Very short term thinking. How will it improve if no one tries?
|
| Reminds me of the critics of digital photography circa the year
| 2000.
| malchow wrote:
| In addition to bi-facials starting to work quite well, HNers may
| be interested in a rising class of ultra-low-mass material that
| has come out of work at Stanford and Intel in transition-metal
| dichalcogenides (TMDs) (e.g. for MoS2, WS2, WSe2, etc.).
|
| It turns out these enable a very high specific-power PV cell that
| adds another even more attractive production curve behind what is
| happening in vertical bi-facials. See e.g.:
|
| https://ee.stanford.edu/frederick-nitta-koosha-nassiri-nazif...
|
| https://www.arinna.xyz/
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| A comment that I heard recently is that in some places using
| solar panels is literally cheaper than using wood panels for
| fences.
|
| I'm not sure how true that is of course but it does make you
| think a bit. The optimal place where to put solar panels
| increasingly is becoming "wherever you can afford to". If
| vertical space is what you have, why not use it?
|
| People in apartments don't have access to roofs. But they might
| have balconies. Balcony railings can fit a few solar panels
| usually.
|
| You can buy solar panels for use on balconies in the supermarket
| in Germany. They only generate a few hundred watt. But that can
| add up to close to something like a kwh per day if you get a lot
| of sun on your balcony. At 40 cents per kwh. That's 12 or so
| euros per month. I pay about 70 per month currently. And I can
| get a couple of balcony panels for something like 200-300 euros.
| And I might get some money back on those even. The idea with
| balcony solar is that it might offset part of what your fridge
| uses. You simply plug it into a wall socket and your fridge takes
| that power instead of from the grid. All safe and approved
| equipment, the inverter cuts the power if there is no grid power.
|
| I haven't done this (my balcony faces east and only gets a few
| hours of sun in the early morning). But it's easy to see how this
| could work.
| wiredfool wrote:
| Quick look near here -- wood panels are ~50-99eur for .9->1.8m
| x 1.8m fence panels. I've priced out 550W solar panels (which
| should be about 1x2M) for about 100PS. (Both retail, but
| different countries (ire/uk))
|
| So, not price parity but also only about a factor of 2 or so.
| On the other hand, Ali Express panels are about half that UK
| price at a 10 panel quantity, with unknown shipping.
|
| I'm kind of eyeing the concrete block wall in the back garden
| currently covered by a hedge.
| childintime wrote:
| Sadly in Germany you mostly miss out on one big advantage one
| often gets in sunny countries: power during outages.
|
| That said, WW3 terrorism acts may change that. It could be wise
| to have at least some backup.
| somat wrote:
| Almost no private solar installations give power during
| outage, for the most part they use something called a grid
| tied inverter. This uses the power grid to shape the waveform
| and costs about a tenth of what a self shaping inverter
| costs. the unexpected downside, no grid, no power.
|
| I have yet to find conclusive evidence if it is possible to
| use a small full inverter to drive grid tied inverters, that
| is, have the grid off capability of a full inverter with the
| cheap cost of a grid tied inverter. It sounds reasonable, but
| I don't see anyone doing it.
| giantg2 wrote:
| You mean something like feeding a grid fed inverter an
| artificially generated wave form from a Raspberry Pi and
| some relays or something?
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I don't see why you can't flip a giant switch to go from
| grid to home power. It's not automatic, but this tech is
| well established for gas generator cutover in factories
| and remote homes.
| balderdash wrote:
| How do vertical panels handle wind loads?
| otherme123 wrote:
| Two axis panels put themselves vertical on high winds, but
| facing perpendicular to the wind direction. So it depends on
| the wind direction.
| scotty79 wrote:
| I wonder why 30 deg was chosen. If you want to maximize energy
| production in the winter they should be installed more vertically
| so that for most of the winter the angle between the sun rays and
| the panel is around 90 deg.
| lacoolj wrote:
| Is the title (here and on the article) supposed to say
| "outstanding" as in "amazing! wonderful!" or is it deliberately
| "out standing" as in ... standing...out...actually, I don't even
| know if this is a valid phrase.
| k2enemy wrote:
| I am excited to be here while you experience your first pun!
| lacoolj wrote:
| Still need the explanation of what pun I'm missing, but
| looking forward to seeing what you come up with :)
| NortySpock wrote:
| That's the joke, both are valid uses of the phrase and sound
| alike.
|
| "My scarecrow is the best in the business! He's out standing
| (outstanding) in his field!" (i.e. a field in a farm, or in his
| area of expertise)
| vzaliva wrote:
| bifacial panels indeed produce more electricity. but does it
| justify the cost increase? simply speaking if bifacial panels
| cost 2x, do they produce anything close to 2x electricity?
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Looked like a lowest 6% boost in the winter, but more in the
| summer. Likely makes sense as panel prices decrease.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| The rule of thumb is that bifacial increases production by 35%
| for a 10% cost increase. YMMV.
| fortranfiend wrote:
| They're out standing in the field. ...I'll let myself out.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Why not mount the double sided vertical panels edge towards the
| sun with a mirror panel on each side? Add some passive cooling
| channels between the panels, or even boost it with a small fan. I
| would think that might result in even better gains instead of
| having one side wirh full sun and the other eith indirect sun.
| corysama wrote:
| The same source (Dave) has a video from a year ago on vertical
| panels with horizontal panels.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD1MT-ek05w
| turtlebits wrote:
| Solar panels are cheap. A single mirror that size likely will
| cost more than the panel itself.
| jiehong wrote:
| They also better resist bad weather, like hail
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