Solar 📍

While I certainly welcome lower-cost solar panels, and would most certainly include solar power when I own my off-grid homestead, I am deeply concerned about the tens of thousands, and soon to be hundreds of thousands of acres of land being developed for industrial solar farms across the state. Information both on solar farms and smaller, more appropriate uses of solar technology.

🖼️ Photos 📽️ Videos

Tesla sunsets its Solar Roof tiles | The Verge

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Tesla sunsets its Solar Roof tiles | The Verge

Tesla has discontinued Solar Roof, its solar panels designed to look like regular roofing tiles, Electrek reports. Sources “close to the program” told the publication that Tesla has informed its third-party installer network that Solar Roof is no longer available to order, and that only conventional solar panels will be supplied going forward.

While Tesla hasn’t officially announced that it’s sunsetting the product, it’s made several website changes that corroborate the reported discontinuation. The dedicated Solar Roof page (tesla.com/solarroof) that launched almost a decade ago now automatically redirects to Tesla’s solar panel page instead, and the “Solar Roof” option is no longer available under the navigation menu for Tesla Energy products. The only products currently listed are Solar Panels, Powerwall, and Megapack.
Thematic Map: Percentage of Municipality Forested
Thematic Map: Cedar River Flow Campsites

Eco-Worthy Solar Tracker Install – Better Than Ever with Bifacial Panels | Remote Off-Grid Cabin

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We're powering up like never before! In this video, we install the new and improved Eco-Worthy Solar Tracker—now featuring bifacial solar panels for maximum efficiency. This upgraded system is a game changer for our life at the remote off-grid cabin deep in the wilderness of Northern Michigan.

After taking down our old setup, we’re finally putting the tracker back up—and this version is better than ever. Watch as we walk through the full install, share why this system matters so much to our daily life off-grid, and show you how well it performs in action.

Map: Canaseraga State Forest

Why solar panels hate shadows ☀

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Solar panels are made up of solar cells which are diodes or silicon junctions or check valves that put out 0.5 to 0.6 volts each without load (open circuit). To charge a 12 volt battery, you put 10 solar cells in series to get roughly 20 volts which under load will drop down to closer to 15 volts.

Every solar cell is a diode and not only prevents the backwards flow of current it also prohibits forward flow of current without sunlight to excite the electrons and bridge the junctions.

As solar panels are strings diodes wired in series, if you partially block one diode by providing less light due to a shadow the performance of the entire panel suffers disproportionately. It’s actually bad for the panel to be exposed to shadows continously as when you are blocking flow of current due to shadows you are starting to wear down the silicon junctions in other cells eventually causing permanent damage to the panel.